Arthur Machen selected writings, 1910-1943 | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Title: Arthur Machen selected writings, 1910-1943

ID: 01/02/MSS00118

Primary Creator: Machen, Arthur (1863-1947)

Extent: 0.56 Cubic Feet

Arrangement: This collection is organized chronologically.

Subjects: British literature

Forms of Material: Fantasy fiction

Languages: English, French

This collection contains selected writings by Welsh novelist and essayist Arthur Machen (1863-1947). Included are articles and book reviews authored by Machen that appeared in various 20th-century English, French, and American periodicals, none of which are complete issues.

See Administrative/Biographical History for more information.

Arthur Llewelyn Jones Machen was born on March 3, 1863 to Janet Robina Machen (1826-1885) and Reverend John Edward Jones (1831-1887) in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Wales. In 1881, Machen moved to London to pursue journalism and worked variously as a tutor, publishers’ clerk, and a cataloger of occult books. The same year, he celebrated his first published book, Eleusinia, which consisted of a mystical poem in seven parts.

In 1887, Machen married Amelia Hogg (d. 1899) of Worthing, Sussex. In 1894, he published his most well-known work, The Great God Pan, a horror and fantasy novella. Following the death of his first wife, Machen briefly became involved with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occult society founded in London. He began to tour as an actor with the Benson Company in 1901, using his time between performances to write.

In 1903, Machen married Dorothie Purefoy Hudleston (1878-1947), a fellow actor. The couple shared two children, Hilary (1912-1987) and Janet (1917-2008). From 1910-1921, Machen worked as a reporter for the London Evening News, in which he published many additional stories, including The Bowmen (1914). In the 1920s, he gained a modest literary following in the United States, garnering praise from authors such as Vincent Starrett (1886-1974) and Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964).

At the end of the 1920s, Machen and his family moved to Amersham, Buckinghamshire, where he continued to write essays, reviews, stories, and letters. He died in St Joseph’s Nursing Home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, on December 15, 1947, and is buried in the municipal cemetery at Amersham.

In the years since his death, Machen has been praised by many acclaimed writers, including H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), John Betjeman (1906-1984), and Stephen King (1947-). He is considered by many to be an forerunner in the genre of supernatural horror. To honor his life and work, the Arthur Machen Society was established in the United States in 1948, which was taken over by his British admirers in 1986 (now known as The Friends of Arthur Machen).

Source

Dobson, Roger. "Machen, Arthur Llewelyn Jones (1863–1947), writer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 10 Dec. 2024. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-37711.

British literature

Repository: Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Access Restrictions: Open to researchers.

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Other Note: Also assigned the following call number: Q. 823 M183SW.

URL: https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/17ks9l7/alma99380146912205899

Box and Folder Listing

Box 1

Folder 1: 1910-1918

Item 1: Issue of T.P.’s Weekly (vol. XVI, no. 417), 1910 November 4

Two leaves. Features “The Master of Contradictions.”

Item 2: Issue of T.P.’s Weekly (vol. XVII, no. 433), 1911 February 24

Two leaves. Features “Mist and Mystery.”

Item 3: Issue of The New Witness (vol. VI, no. 149), 1915 September 9

Three leaves. Features “Hallucinations and ‘The Angels’.”

Item 4: Issue of The New Witness (vol. VII, no. 165), 1915 December 30

Three leaves. Features “Thou Shalt Not Eat.”

Item 5: Issue of The Quest: A Quarterly Review (vol. VII, no. 4), 1916 July

12 leaves. Features “A Secret Language.”

Item 6: Book review newspaper clipping, 1916

One leaf pasted onto a black piece of card. Concerning The Brook Kerith by George Moore. Titled “Famous Novelist’s Blunder. Trying to Re-Write a World’s Masterpiece.”

Item 7: Unidentified periodical clipping, 1918?

One leaf. Features “The Bishop Meets “Charley” Again. Genial Pipe Smokers at the Keble Jubilee.”

Folder 2: 1919-1924

Item 1: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. I, no. 1), 1919 April 12

Two leaves. Features “Has Spiritualism Come to Stay?”

Item 2: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. I, no. 20), 1919 August 23

Two leaves. Features “The Soul of Literature.”

Item 3: Book review newspaper clipping, 1919 February

One leaf. Concerning the English edition of Future Life in the Light of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science by Louis Elbé. Titled “A Future Life. We Don’t Know.”

Item 4: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. III, no. 78), 1920 October 2

Two leaves. Features “A Friend in Need” (Letters to Gog and Magog) by John O’ London.

Item 5: Unidentified newspaper clipping, 1920?

One leaf. Titled “Where the Unknown Soldier Will Lie.”

Item 6: The Evening News (no. 12,162) newspaper clipping, 1920 November 11

One leaf. Features “The King’s Homage to Our Nameless Warrior.” The remainder of the article, printed on page 5 of this issue, is missing.

Item 7: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. VI, no. 154), 1922 March 18

Two leaves. Features “A Mystic on the Public School” by John O’ London.

Item 8: Issue of The Bookman’s Journal and Print Collector (vol. VII, no. 13), 1922 October

Three leaves. Features “Arthur Machen and His Collected Books” by Herbert Garland.

Item 9: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. VIII, no. 193), 1922 December 16

Two leaves. Features “Conjuring Time. And Something About a Parlour-Trick.”

Item 10: Issue of The Lyons Mail (vol. VII, no. 4), 1923 January

Three leaves. Features “Adelphi: Farewell!”

Item 11: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. IX, no. 215), 1923 May 19

Two leaves. Features “Imagination.” Also includes “The Pursuit of Wisdom” by H.G. Wells.

Item 12: Issue of Book Notes Illustrated (vol. I, no. 6), 1923 August-September

Three leaves. Features “Arthur Machen: A Personal Sketch of the Famous Writer” by Henry Savage.

Item 13: Issue of T.P.’s Weekly (vol. I, no. 7), 1923 December 8

Two leaves. Features “Scrooge and the Spirit—Of Psycho-Analysis.”

Item 14: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. X, no. 259), 1924 March 22

Two leaves. Features “After Snow and Ice.”

Item 15: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. X, no. 260), 1924 March 29

Two leaves. Features “At the Sign of the Dog and Duck” (Letters to Gog and Magog) by John O’ London.

Item 16: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. II, no. 35), 1924 June 21

Two leaves. Machen featured among others in “What Is the Artistic Temperament? Definitions of a Famous Phrase by Famous People.”

Item 17: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. XI, no. 273), 1924 June 28

Two leaves. Machen featured among others in “The Sea and the Soul” (A Symposium).

Item 18: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. XII, no. 287), 1924 October 4

Two leaves. Features “The Art of Wondering” (Letters to Gog and Magog) by John O’ London.

Item 19: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. III, no. 53), 1924 October 25

Two leaves. Machen featured among others in “My Ambition in Life. Famous People’s Dreams that May Come True.”

Item 20: Issue of The Flying Horse (no. 3), 1924 March

Three leaves. Features “The Only Way.”

Folder 3: 1925-1929

Item 1: John O’ London’s Weekly (vol. XII, no. 311) newspaper clipping, 1925 March 21

One leaf. Machen featured among others in “The Novels We Read. Famous People and Their Tastes in Fiction” (A Symposium).

Item 2: Issue of The Minnesota Quarterly: A Literary Magazine (vol. III, no. 3), 1926 Spring

Four leaves. Features “Arthur Machen and the Hill of Dreams” by Donald A. Wandrei.

Item 3: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. V, no. 123), 1926 February 27

Two leaves. Features “St. David’s of the Roaring Seas. Thoughts on Pilgrimage: Welsh Apostle’s Romance of the Holy Grail.”

Item 4: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. VI, no. 139), 1926 June 26

Two leaves. Features “Mystery of a Century. The Strange Case of Elizabeth Canning.”

Item 5: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. VI, no. 140), 1926 July 3

Two leaves. Features “Elizabeth Canning. The Mystery of a Century.”

Item 6: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (Christmas Number), 1926 December 4

Two leaves. Machen featured among others in “‘If I Had One Wish—.’ The Confessions of Distinguished Men and Women.”

Item 7: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. VIII, no. 192), 1927 July 2

Three leaves. Machen featured among others in “‘My Reading One Summer’s Day. Favourite Books of Some Men and Women of Letters.”

Item 8: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. VIII, no. 199), 1927 August 20

Three leaves. Features “The Road to Self-Culture. ‘Read What You Like, but Mind You Like It’.”

Item 9: Issue of T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly (vol. IX, no. 214), 1927 December 3

Two leaves. Features “The Gift of Tongues. A Complete Story.”

Item 10: Issue of T.P.’s Weekly (vol. X, no. 240), 1928 June 2

Two leaves. Features “The Joys of ‘Little Dorrit.’ Dickens’s Unforgettable Picture of the Marshalsea” (T.P.’s Training in Literature).

Item 11: Everyman newspaper clipping, 1929 February 28

One leaf. Features “Cardinal Newman and the Arabian Nights.”

Item 12: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1929 June 29

One leaf. Features “My Year on the Stage.”

Item 13: Sunday Express (London) newspaper clipping, 1929 September 15

One leaf. Features “The Tinned Food of Old England.”

Item 14: Everyman newspaper clipping, 1929 October 3

One leaf. Features “Arthur Machen: Visionary and Master of Prose” by Geoffrey West (Modern Writers Series).

Item 15: The Bookman (vol. LXXVII, no. 459) newspaper clipping, 1929 December

One leaf. Features “The Holy Kabbalah.”

Item 16: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly and The Outline (vol. XXII, no. 556), 1929 December 14

Two leaves. Features “The Cosy Room” (John O’ London’s Short Story).

Item 17: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly and The Outline (vol. XXII, no. 558), 1929 December 28

Two leaves. Features “Lancelot and Guinevere. The Old Story of the Enchantment of a Knight by King Arthur’s Queen. Part I” (Stories of Fate and Fame).

Folder 4: 1930-1932

Item 1: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly and The Outline (vol. XXII, no. 559), 1930 January 4

Two leaves. Features “Lancelot and Guinevere. The Old Story of the Enchantment of a Knight by King Arthur’s Queen. Part II” (Stories of Fate and Fame).

Item 2: The Morning Post newspaper clipping, 1930 May 12

One leaf pasted onto a white piece of card. Features “The English Language. Literary Merit of the Bible. Views of Eminent Men.”

Item 3: Issue of The New Statesman Autumn Books Supplement (vol. XXXVI, no. 911), 1930 October 11

Three leaves. Book review concerning On the Edge by Walter de la Mare. Titled “The Line of Terror.”

Item 4: Issue of Queue (no. 2), 1930 November

Two leaves. Features “A Word for the Stock Company.”

Item 5: Issue of The Argosy. The Magazine of Masterpiece Fiction, 1930 December

Nine leaves. Features “The Red Hand. Of a Strange Evil that Survived the Ages.”

Item 6: Issue of Everyman (vol. 4, no. 97), 1930 December 4

Two leaves. Features “The Best Christmas Book.”

Item 7: Space. Ben Brothers’ Magazine clipping, 1931 March

One leaf. Features “Machen and Gwent” by Fulton Armstrong.

Item 8: Issue of Theatre Arts Monthly (vol. XV, no. 9), 1931 September

Four leaves. Features “The Benson Company. A Memory.”

Item 9: Issue of Oxford Books (vol. II, no. 33), 1931 October 10

Three leaves. Book review concerning A History of Smoke by Count Corti. Titled “Nicotine.”

Item 10: The Dalton Citizen (vol. LXXXV, no. 55) newspaper clipping, 1931 October 29

One leaf. Features “Concerning Arthur Machen” by T.Y.H. and “The Glitter of the Brook.”

Item 11: Issue of The New Statesman and Nation (vol. II, no. 38), 1931 November 14

Three leaves. Book review concerning The Supernatural Omnibus by M. Summers (ed.) and The Place of the Lion by Charles Willliams. Titled “The Other Side.”

Item 12: Issue of Reynolds’s Illustrated News, 1931 November 15

Two leaves. Features “The Cosy Room.”

Item 13: Issue of Reynolds’s Illustrated News, 1931 December 13

Two leaves. Features “The Islington Mystery.” Title crossed out and rewritten as “The Taxidermist.”

Item 14: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly and The Outline (vol. XXII, no. 559), 1931 December 19

Two leaves. Features “Man, the Mad Mammal.”

Item 15: Issue of The Dalton Citizen (vol. LXXXVI, no. 14), 1932 January 14

Two leaves. Features “Trailing Old Beroaldus” and an article by newspaper staff titled “Second Machen Article Appears in this Issue.”

Item 16: Issue of The Dalton Citizen (vol. LXXXVI, no. 17), 1932 February 11

Two leaves. Features “The Strange Tale of Mount Nephin” and an article by newspaper staff titled “Our English Correspondent.”

Item 17: The Dalton Citizen (vol. LXXXVI, no. 21) newspaper clipping, 1932 March 10

One leaf. Features “The Pictures on the Cards.”

Item 18: The Dalton Citizen (vol. LXXXVI, no. 26) newspaper clipping, 1932 April 14

One leaf. Features “That Other World.”

Item 19: Issue of The Bookman (vol. LXXXI, no. 486), 1932 March

Three leaves. Features “Arthur Machen” by Oliver Warner.

Item 20: Issue of The Bookman (vol. LXXV, no. 5), 1932 March

Four leaves. Features “Mutterings in an Ancient Grove.”

Folder 5: 1933-1935

Item 1: Sunday Referee Literary & Entertainment Supplement newspaper clipping, 1933 August 13

One leaf. Features “Chaos and Cosmos: The Quick-Lunch Counter Comes to China.”

Item 2: Issue of The New Statesman and Nation (vol. VI, no. 131), 1933 August 26

Two leaves. Book review concerning The Pantomime Man by Richard Middleton. Titled “The Wrong Turning.”

Item 3: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1933 September 3

One leaf. Book review concerning The Pantomime Man by Richard Middleton. Titled “Tragic Richard Middleton. Memories of a Poet Who Killed Himself.”

Item 4: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1933 September 17

One leaf. Book review concerning The Days and Nights of Birds by Jacques Delamain. Titled “Instinct in Nature. Are Birds Artists?”

Item 5: The New Statesman newspaper clipping, 1933 October 14

One leaf. Book review concerning Memories of a Victorian by Edgar Jepson. Titled “Cheerfulness Broke In.”

Item 6: Time and Tide newspaper clipping, 1933?

One leaf. Book review concerning Memories of a Victorian by Edgar Jepson. Titled “Vanished and Unforgotten.”

Item 7: Daily Telegraph newspaper clipping, 1933 October 20

One leaf. Book review concerning Memories of a Victorian by Edgar Jepson. Titled “Edgar Jepson’s Memories. Blotting the Celts Off the Map” (Books of the Day).

Item 8: Issue of The Monmouthshire Review (vol. II, no. 1), 1934 January

Four leaves. Features “Romance in Gwent.”

Item 9: The News-Letter clipping, 1934 February 3

Two leaves. Features “A Matter of Taste?”

Item 10: Issue of The Independent (vol. II, no. 18), 1934 February 3

Two leaves. Features “Radio Reflections.”

Item 11: The Observer newspaper clipping, 1934 February 4

One leaf. Book review concerning The Noble and Joyous Boke Entytled Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory. Titled “A Noble Malory.”

Item 12: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1934 September 9

One leaf. Book review concerning London in My Time by Thomas Burke. Titled “Forty Years of London Life. Mr. Thomas Burke’s Panorama.”

Item 13: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1934 September 23

One leaf. Book review concerning The Casanova Fable: A Satirical Revaluation by William Gerhardi and Hugh Kingsmill. Titled “The Casanova Legend. A Revaluation of the Memoirs.”

Item 14: Issue of The Westminster Magazine (vol. XXIII, no. 3), 1934 October-December

Five leaves. Features “Bridles and Spurs.”

Item 15: Issue of The News-Letter (vol. VI, no. 7), 1934 December 22

Three leaves. Features “On the Employment of Leisure.”

Item 16: The News-Letter clipping, 1935 March 30

Two leaves. Features “The Humble Individual.”

Item 17: Issue of Revue Anglo-Américaine (no. 4), 1935 April

Nine leaves. Features “Arthur Machen. Théoricien de lesthétisme” by M.L. Cazamian.

Item 18: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1935 May 5

One leaf. Book review concerning Twenty-Five Years a King by Sir Austen Chamberlain, The Reign of King George by Sir J.A.R. Marriott, Royal London by Douglas Goldring, The Book of the King’s Jubilee by Sir Philip Gibbs (ed.), The King’s Reign by John Drinkwater, Good King George’s Glorious Reign by Jocelyn Oliver (comp.), and The King’s Book by Raphael Tuck (pub.). by Thomas Burke. Titled “The King’s Reign in Pictures, Prose & Verse.”

Item 19: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1935 August 10

One leaf. Features “Cellini, The Goldsmith Bravo. By What Standard Should We Judge Him?”

Item 20: The Outline. Supplement to John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1935 August 31

One leaf. Features “Why Do Men Write Books?”

Item 21: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1935 December 7

One leaf. Features “World of Dreams.”

Item 22: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1935 December 21

One leaf. Features “Cheese.”

Folder 6: 1936-1943

Item 1: Issue of The American Mercury (vol. XXVII, no. 146), 1936 February

Four leaves. Book review concerning The Great Tudors by Katherine Garvin (ed.). Titled “Concealed Savages of Tudor England.”

Item 2: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1936 June 27

One leaf. Features “Magic Still Flourishes. A Treatise on the Black Art: Strange Potions of the Middle Ages: Making Artificial Men.”

Item 3: Issue of The American Mercury (vol. XXXVIII, no. 151), 1936 July

Four leaves. Features “Portrait of an Archbishop.”

Item 4: Unidentified newspaper clipping, 1936 August 15

One leaf. Book review concerning Marie-Claire by Marguerite Audoux. Titled “The ‘Testament’ of a Paris Dressmaker. Marie-Claire; A News-Paragraph Novel.”

Item 5: Sunday Graphic & Sunday News newspaper clipping, 1936 October 11

Two leaves. Features “Adventure at Morton Grange” (Missing from Their Homes).

Item 6: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1936 October 3

One leaf. Features “History and Tradition.”

Item 7: Issue of John O’ London’s Weekly and The Outline (vol. XXXV, no. 909), 1936 September 12

Two leaves. Features “Can We Trust Tradition? Lord Raglan’s Bold Challenge to History: Did King Arthur Ever Live?: Some Striking Instances of Folk-Memory” (Book of the Week).

Item 8: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1936 November 6

One leaf. Features “An Anthology of the Unexpected.”

Item 9: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1937 October 8

One leaf. Features “An Anthology of the Unexpected.”

Item 10: The New Statesman newspaper clipping, 1937 October 9

One leaf. Book review concerning Memories of an Edwardian and Neo-Georgian by Edgar Jepson. Titled “Memories of an Edwardian.”

Item 11: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1937 October 22

One leaf. Features “Children Found in a Dream. Primitive Stories of Man’s Creation.”

Item 12: John O’ London’s Weekly newspaper clipping, 1937 December 10

Three leaves. Features “Are All Portents of Death Accidental? More Problems for the Psycho-Analyst.”

Item 13: Issue of Wine and Food. A Gastronomical Quarterly (no. 17), 1938 Spring

Five leaves. Features “The Gray’s Inn Coffee House.”

Item 14: Issue of The Dublin Magazine. A Quarterly Review of Literature, Science and Art, 1938 April-June

Five leaves. Features “An Old Argument.”

Item 15: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1938 April 10

One leaf. “Letter to the Editor” concerning an article by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Item 16: The New Statesman newspaper clipping, 1938 May 7

One leaf. Book review concerning Shadows of Life and Thought. A Retrospective Review in the Form of Memoirs by Arthur Edward Waite. Titled “Mysteries of Religion.”

Item 17: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1938 May 15

One leaf. Features “The Exeter Market.”

Item 18: Willesden Chronicle newspaper clipping, 1938 November 6

One leaf. Features “Mr. Mahen Writes.”

Item 19: Issue of Spain (no. 42), 1938 July 18

Two leaves. Features “Mr. Arthur Machen.”

Item 20: Issue of The Great War… I Was There! Undying Memories of 1914-1918 (Part II), 1939?

Three leaves. Features “The True Story of ‘The Angels of Mons’.”

Item 21: The Sunday Times (London) newspaper clipping, 1939 July 23

One leaf. Book review concerning Kilvert’s Diary, Vol II. by William Plomer (ed.). Titled “Victorians at Home.”

Item 22: Cleveland News newspaper clipping, 1939 December 13

One leaf pasted onto a piece of paper. Features “The Band-Stand.”

Item 23: Issue of The English Digest, 1940 October

Three leaves. Features “Drake’s Drum. A Strange Tale of Germany’s Great Surrender.”

Item 24: Issue of The English Digest, 1940 November

Three leaves. Features “A Vision in the Abbey.”

Item 25: Cleveland News newspaper clipping, 1940/1941?

One leaf. Features “The Band-Stand. No Hill of Dreams.”

Item 26: Issue of The Wind and the Rain, 1943 Spring

Four leaves. Features “A Note on Poetry.”