THE LIFE OF ARTHUR MACHEN
THE LIFE OF ARTHUR MACHEN
by John Gawsworth
Edited by Roger Dobson
The Friends of Arthur Machen
Reino de Redonda
Tartarus Press
2005
Front cover: Arthur Machen 'As Dr Johnson; playing for "the Movies"!'
CONTENTS
Introduction by Barry Humphries
Notes on the Text
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. The Family and the Child
2. The Youth
3. The Failure
4. The Student
5. The Author
6. The Publisher's Clerk
7. The Bookseller and Translator
8. The Short Story Writer
9. The Man of Property
10. The Novelist
11. The Critic
12. The Citizen of Baghdad
13. The West End Actor
14. The Strolling Player
15. The New Bohemian
16. The Indigent
17. The Reporter
18. The Bowmen and the Angels of Mons
19. The Journalist
20. The Boom
21. The Aftermath
22. The Hermit
23. The Reader
24. The Pensioner
Literary Appendix
Beneath the Barley: A Note on the Origins of Eleusinia
The Grande Trouvaille: A Legend of Pentonville
Parsifal: The Story of the Holy Graal
Notes and Queries: Prospectus
Parish of Amersham
Realm of Redonda Appendices
PREFACE
'It isn't Machen writing, it´s God writing through him,´said Caradoc Evans, vehemently bringing down his fist to prove his point so heavily upon a table in the private bar of the Black Horse, Mortlake, that every bottle and glass in the room chimed -though, in discord- before relapsing shivering back into silence. So complete was Ewans´assurance, so convincing his belief, that although his pronouncement was not taken altogether literally by his listener on that grey Autumn day in October 1930, it emboldened him to continue with his collecting where Machen material was concerned. He was already a confirmed Machenian, was the listener who was myself. But of that moment, it is to be confessed, this book was born.
Fitly, the presence of a Preface in a book is held to imply that there is something of high consequence to be introduced. And here we descend from whatever heights we may have surveyed to infinitely lower planes for the subject of this book alone is of the highest consequence, whatever value this book contains being merely in relation to its subject. As a book, this MS is only justified because it is a pioneer work in its field. For Somehow, Mr Machen apart, no one has dealt with his interesting life at any lenght, although at Carl Van Vechten´s assurance, he ´is the most wonderful man writing today'.
John Gawsworth
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