Arthur Machen
Mar. 3rd, 2010 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essayelThe 'Friends of" the above are having their annual exhibition here this year and I've been helping put it up. This is the classic case of an author not being honoured in their own land. Most of the reprints of his works are published in American and it is there that the biggest collections of his memorabilia reside.
Machen wrote horror and fantasy novels around the turn of the 19th-20th century. I like them, even those his prose can get a little purple, and he was lauded by HP Lovecraft and James Branch Cabell. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also enjoyed his work, those this quote, taken from a letter to a mutual friend who had given him a copy of The Three Imposters to read, made me blink a bit: Your pal Machen is a genius right enough, but I'll not be taking him to bed again.
Anyhow, the exhibition is up until May so I'll be looking out my copies of The Bowmen and The Great God Pan and seeing if I can get a copy of The Terror, which covers the same subject but outdoes Du Maurier's [and Hitchcock's] The Birds.
In other news, I have no floor in the bathroom because the sink leaked, probably has been for years on the quiet, and so there's wet rot and woodworm in the joists. The cats think it's brilliant because they can get under the floors and explore. The dog is upset because a] he won't fit so they can get away from him and claw his nose if he pokes it under there and b] because if he goes off the remaining boards onto the ceiling he's heavy enough to fall through so he gets shouted at. SO unfair. Also no showers and the sink has had to be removed and using the loo requires care and good balance. Thank goodness for spare sink in spare room!
Machen wrote horror and fantasy novels around the turn of the 19th-20th century. I like them, even those his prose can get a little purple, and he was lauded by HP Lovecraft and James Branch Cabell. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also enjoyed his work, those this quote, taken from a letter to a mutual friend who had given him a copy of The Three Imposters to read, made me blink a bit: Your pal Machen is a genius right enough, but I'll not be taking him to bed again.
Anyhow, the exhibition is up until May so I'll be looking out my copies of The Bowmen and The Great God Pan and seeing if I can get a copy of The Terror, which covers the same subject but outdoes Du Maurier's [and Hitchcock's] The Birds.
In other news, I have no floor in the bathroom because the sink leaked, probably has been for years on the quiet, and so there's wet rot and woodworm in the joists. The cats think it's brilliant because they can get under the floors and explore. The dog is upset because a] he won't fit so they can get away from him and claw his nose if he pokes it under there and b] because if he goes off the remaining boards onto the ceiling he's heavy enough to fall through so he gets shouted at. SO unfair. Also no showers and the sink has had to be removed and using the loo requires care and good balance. Thank goodness for spare sink in spare room!
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thanks for the tip, also YIKES! be careful
Date: 2010-03-03 11:51 pm (UTC)I am, as you probably remember, rebuilding my raggedy, eclectic book collection, and Amazon is my friend (also, here in StL, the Book House-- did I take you there?)Anyway, thanks for pointing this out to me!
re:bathroom-- I feel for ya. However long it takes to get it all fixed, it will seem 10 times longer.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-04 07:23 am (UTC)