Arthur Machen Books

Is it "imposter" or "impostor"--that's the question that nagged me while I read The Three Imposters. Which spelling is correct, and which is the imposter/or? The lexicographers need to come down hard on this issue!

That aside, The Three Imposters is a black diamond of a little dark fantasy, told in hypnotic descriptive prose. The book is structured as a series of stories within a frame story, much like the Decameron or Canterbury Tales, only the frame story has its own plot and is the most interesting of all in The Three Imposters. The sub-stories range from the strange to the macabre, to the frankly paranormal, each entertaining in its own right, besides what it contributes to the whole. Moreover, Machen's style glitters with curious flights of thought and characterizations, wellnigh as entertaining as the story itself.

What struck me most of all about The Three Imposters is how panoramically influencial this short book is, as if it were the whole nine muses of twentieth century literature! The Maltese Falcon owes an obvious debt to the Gold Tiberius. I think that the Novel of the Dark Valley is a clear precursor to the Trial, and obviously, Lovecraft derived his entire schtick from the Adventure of the Lost Brother. Machen himself must have been influenced by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published about 10 years earlier, but Machen amplifies the original, rather than narrowing it.

Altogether, The Three Imposters is well worth the 150 pages or so of reading time. Dyson and Phillipps are my new literary heroes! I would recommend this Chaosium edition, which includes these several other quality Machen works and sells for nearly the same price as other editions.

First of all, a warning; do NOT read the introduction to Machen by S. T. Joshi strangely placed in the front of the book before you read the stories. The otherwise excellent introduction contains spoilers to all the stories, something I thankfully noticed at an early time. Being part of my effort to "branch out" beyond H. P. Lovecraft, I purchased all the three books by Arthur Machen that has been published by Chaosium. The tales within turned out to be excellent, and I quickly saw why HPL praised Machen so highly. Even though parts of the tales no longer appear as "shocking" as they once did, with their horror being centred on "sex and pagans", they still have a mild discomfort to offer, and the final tale of the book is, as we shall see, quite the masterpiece.

The first tale is "The Great God Pan", a very good tale, but as I've said; time has not been kind to this. A naked God in the forest don't exactly scare or shock people these days, at least not in the way that Machen intended. Although, it should be noted that I'm not the type of "conventional Christian" that Machen had in mind as his audience when he wrote it. The tale details an experiment gone "wrong", where a young girl sees and interacts with the ancient heathen god Pan. The result pops out nine months later, and several horrific incidents spawn from this. A fine tale, but a bit dated.

The second tale is much more to my taste, "The Inmost Light" (and for fans of the marvellous English musical group Current 93, I assume this is where Tibet got his title), also a taste centred around an experiment, where an occultist attempt to capture the essence of the body, "The Inmost Light", in a gem. A wonderful tale with an eerie feeling throughout.

The third tale is "The Shining Pyramid", a tale about the well-known "Little people", and one of the two best tales in the book. It unfolds somewhat like a detective novel, where two men find strange clues to uncanny activities in connection to the disappearance of a young woman in the Welsh countryside. The protagonists suspect the hands of the pre-Aryan inhabitants of Europe, and the tale is an effective weird tale, with Machen's wonderful prose really showing its best side.

The final tale, or I should say "tales", is the title story, "The Three Impostors", which is a strange creation of interlocking tales many in number. The tale is about a young man in London, a wannabe writer, who through random encounters with a few people hears several tales that all contain a few common elements; "a young man with large spectacles" and some weird and horrific incidents involving this young man. But alas all is not as it appears to be, and we are brought to several places in the search for this man, and what it all means is not revealed before the final phrases, where the real evil is revealed. This tale is among the best work I've read in the genre, and it really gives you the creeps at various parts, some of it being simply excellent.

Highly recommended!

This review is only about the title story, or rather, short novel. It is a circular story, as it ends where it begins. Characters have multiple identities and strange coincidences abound. It is a macabre joke, a foundational book of the cosmic horror a la Lovecraft and his Ctulhu mysteries. It is also a peak of the late Victorian era and much more. What makes it more than a genre story is the poetic quality of its literature. There are paragraphs that would make little perfect prose poems.

Along several months, or years, Dyson and Phillips meet different persons, who have in common the search for a shy and nervous young man with a little black moustache and big spectacles. Each one of these persons tells his or her story in inserted chilling tales, full of the imagery that would later become cliche. This is no cheap horror: it has a great sense of humor, it is not about axe-grinding nor about phantoms and exorcisms. It is pure cosmic horror, the horror of hidden forces and obscure memories of a remote past. It is a horror of strange gatherings and incognoscible conspiracies. The inserted stories are often compiled independently of their contextual frame: "The novel of the Dark Valley" is an adventure in the loneliness of the Rocky Mountains, with a pre-Kafkian touch that makes you go pale. "The novel of the Black Seal" happens in the Welsh wilderness, with a mad scientist and beings from the past. "The novel of the Iron Maiden" includes a collectionist of instruments of torture. "The novel of the White Powder" is about a substance that transforms humans into something indefinible and horrific. Finally, ""The story of the Spectacled Young Man" closes the circle and "explains" everything.

Like a good Englishman, Machen is a master of the understatement. More than showing, he insinuates to let the readers feel for themselves all the weight of the horror of the world, the mysteries that haunt us, and the strangeness of this life. Little surprise, then, that this was one of Jorge Luis Borges's favorite books, since much of his beloved subjects are here: ancient and undecipherable languages; stories lost in time; mirror games; equivocal identities; implacable gods; and somber mansions. Much recommended.

Other reviews are longer and more in-depth. This is meant as a quickie.

The title story is the heavy-hitter of this collection; it ties several shorter stories together under one title. The other stories are much shorter but have their twists and turns as well.

The language is not as dry as one might expect from stories written a century ago.

Worth four stars out of five.

As the title says, I found this collection so intriguing that I will be buying the next volume (The White People and other Tales). The only work that I had previously known by Arthur Machen was "The Great God Pan", which has shown up in so many anthologies that I am thoroughly sick of it, although it is a good read the first few times through. "The Inmost Light" was quite disturbing to me in terms of plumbing the depravity of the human soul. "The Shining Pyramid" was a good supernatural detective story, in my opinion, although the intuitive leaps made by the protagonist would have made Fox Mulder proud. This clearly inspired quite a few of Robert Howard's stories.

Clearly, the crown jewel of this collection is "The Three Imposters." The deeper I got into this novel, the more engrossed I became. It is made up of 14 short stories, each of which is part of an overarching storyline that involves the protagonist, a golden coin, a man with spectacles, and 3 people who are not who they say they are. Each successive short story drew me in further. Some of the best reading I have done in years!

Arthur Machen, master of the macabre, created something a little bit different in this book. Coming from a childhood background that left him lonely and prone to living in imaginative worlds himself, the main character here is exactly the same. Lucien Taylor, unable to attend Oxford because of a lack of money, "lives" in his father's library. He is particularly attracted to ancient history and magic and hopes to become a writer. This hope is crushed, however, and, with the help of Annie Morgan, a woman who loves him, he escapes into an imaginary world of ancient times. There he remains, totally self-absorbed (to the chagrin of Annie), until he is jolted back to reality after receiving a small legacy. He then becomes an opium addict, which causes his death. Machen captures the moods of his characters perfectly, and this is the best of his books.

Arthur Machen, one of the 20th Century's most talented writers of supernatural horror fiction, wrote Hill of Dreams, his autobiographic novel, in 1922. The novel concerns a gifted young writer, Lucien Taylor, whose calling to write great (not just good) works of literature dooms him to self-destruction.

The novel follows Lucien's life from boyhood until his mid-twenties. Lucien grows up in a rural village in Wales near the ruins of an ancient Roman fortress (Machen himself grew up in Caerleon, Wales near the ruins of the Roman citadel, Isca Silurum). While exploring these ruins, Lucien undergoes a mystical awakening and becomes fascinated with ancient Roman culture, paganism and the supernatural. His imagination is so captured, it is only a matter of time until he starts to write fiction with supernatural and pagan themes.

While still in his teens, Lucien sends a manuscript to a publishing firm. The publisher rejects the manuscript. A few months later, Lucien purchases a newly-published novel which contains entire chapters lifted from his "rejected" manuscript. Saddened and angered, Lucien again wanders to the Roman ruins. There, he happens to meet a neighbor girl and has a sexual encounter which he associates with the fauns and nymphs of Roman mythology.

Lucien's imagination is so active that the border between reality and fantasy is sometimes blurred. In an effort to reach new heights of imagination and expression, Lucien begins to induce mystic experiences and trances. He dabbles in the occult, engages in masochistic rituals and starves himself to induce visions. His neighbors and relatives notice the changes in Lucien and encourage him to eat, to get plenty of rest, to give up writing and to pursue a real occupation.

Unexpectedly, Lucien receives an inheritance which enables him to move to London and devote himself to writing full time. By this time, Lucien is caught in a downward spiral of increasingly disturbing visions, induced by a number of unhealthy methods. He manages to completely erase the border between fantasy and reality, but ironically, he has so disabled himself that he can no longer write coherently.

Machen's story reads almost like poetry and is told in an artful, subtle fashion. The imagery of the first chapter is indescribably beautiful. The final four chapters, detailing his character's descent into insanity, are vivid and horrific. Machen describes the final sensations of a dying brain so vividly and in such detail that I cannot help but wonder how close Machen came to the same fate. Hill of Dreams is among the finest portrayals of the self-destructive artist, ranking with Coleridge's Kubla Khan, Mann's Doctor Faustus and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantasique. Through repeated allusions to Poe, Coleridge and DeQuincey, Machen pays tribute to other great writers who have tried the same path to greatness. Although Machen has achieved cult icon status (due, in part, to his role in the creation of the Angel of Mons legend), he is underrated as an author. I am greatly impressed with all of his works that I've read thus far. Hill of Dreams is the most impressive of his works.

Arthur Machen is better known for his "horror" tales such as "The Great God Pan". However, there is more to Machen that that. Machen believed in a quality of literature (and life) that cannot be pinned down - a sort of magic.

When he first came to London from rural Wales in the late 1800s, he was involved in fin-de-siecle "magic" circles - such as The Order of the Golden Dawn. He translated "fantastic" tales and in works like "The Great God Pan" created his own vision of them. However, like Harold Bloom today, he was perhaps at his best when he wrote about literature, and he did this is three forms: directly, in "Hieroglyphics", autobiographically in "Far Off Things" and "Things Near and Far", and in a fictionalized manner in "The Hill of Dreams".

The Hill of Dreams is about a young writer from the country who goes to London and wanders its streets looking for inspiration, but finds himself caught up in the city's past and becomes alienated from those around him. It is like a Peter Ackroyd novel set from 100 years ago. There is also a magic there that is all Machen's own.

Machen is a writer worth getting to know, particularly in the books mentioned above. In the end, though, "The Hill of Dreams" is his masterpiece.

"The Hill of Dreams" is arguably Machen's finest work, and that is saying something. While there is definitely a story and most especially interesting characterization, the star feature of this jewel of a novel is Machen's rich descriptive prose, virtually prose poetry. It possesses exactly the dreamlike quality the story demands, and becomes a dream itself, a vision of rural beauty, into which the reader may enter. The lush prose, which seems to be supporting the story as a river supports and carries a boat, is eventually seen to have been a necessary tool, and all the elements of story-telling come together at the finale to round off a work of terrible beauty.

Is it "impostor" or "imposter"?--that is the question that nagged me while I read The Three Impostors. Which spelling is correct, and which is the imposter/or? The lexicographers need to come down hard on this issue!!

That aside, The Three Impostors is a black diamond of a little dark fantasy, told in hypnotic descriptive prose. The book is structured as a series of stories within a frame story, much like the Decameron or Canterbury Tales, only the frame story has its own plot and is the most interesting of all in The Three Impostors. The sub-stories range from the strange to the macabre, to the frankly paranormal, each entertaining in its own right besides what it contributes to the whole. Moreover, Machen's style glitters with curious flights of thought and characterizations, well nigh as enertaining as the story itself.

What struck me most of all about The Three Impostors is how panoramically influential this short book is, as if it were the whole nine muses of twentieth century literature! The Maltese Falcon owes an obvious debt to the Gold Tiberius. I think the Novel of the Dark Valley is a clear precursor to The Trial, and obviously, Lovecraft derived his whole schtick from the Adventure of the Missing Brother. Machen himself must have been influenced by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published about 10 years earlier, but Machen amplifies and enhances the original, rather than narrowing it.

Altogether, The Three Impostors, however you spell it, was well worth the 150 pages of reading time. Dyson and Phillipps are my new literary heroes! I would recommend the edition from Chaosium, since this includes several other good Machen works for about the same price as the other editions.

This little book is an unexpected but welcome surprise in the world of literature. Jorge Luis Borges wrote the introduction in the Spanish edition that I own. And he was right, few people know the existence of this great mistery novel, otherwise it would be already a classic.

In has the flavour of Dickens and the imagination and dexterity of Agatha Christie.

His name is Arthur Machen.

Arthur Machen can easily be described as one of the writers who provided the foundation to the 20th century fantasy and horror literature. This one is a great collection of horror stories, most of which has a quite Lovecraftian style. If you are new to Machen, and/or like stories with a tinge of "Mythos Horror" in them, you'll definetely like this one.

Horror master Arthur Machen's crowning achievement, a still shocking compendium of interwoven short horror tales. In late 19th century London, a scientist and an unpublished writer join forces as amateur detectives in an attempt to solve a minor but puzzling mystery which ultimately leads to the discovery of a truly diabolical conspiracy. In the course of their investigations, the two men find themselves repeatedly surrendering their attention to a series of seemingly outlandish tales spun by an assortment of eccentric story tellers. The stories, which all deal with imposture of some kind, are only tangentially related to each other, yet offer the somewhat bumbling sleuths important clues to the mystery at hand. Machen builds suspense slowly and methodically, masterfully leading the reader on to a completely unexpected, gruesome climax. Comical, tragic, sophisticated, violent, horrific, and even downright disgusting, THE THREE IMPOSTORS is a classic horror novel of sly deception and wit.

The 1995 Everyman paperback is the only critical edition of this remarkably rich book released to date, offering a scholarly introduction (by editor David Trotter) that carefully details Machen's main influences (chiefly Robert Louis Stevenson) and themes (imposture of various kinds, also derived from Stevenson). A short text summary nicely encapsulates the narrative's various twists and turns. Finally, a section entitled "Machen and His Critics" provides a welcome offering of mostly contemporaneous critical responses to this remarkable book; while many of these reviews were laudatory, quite a few passionately outraged quotes reveal just how shocking THE THREE IMPOSTORS must truly have been in its time.

In The Weird Tale, Joshi analyses the work of half a dozen writers whose influence on the modern supernatural horror story is either incalculable (Lovecraft, James and possibly Bierce) or else not nearly large enough (Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany). Joshi's central theoretical tenet is that weird fiction is an inherently philosophical mode, since it offers writers the chance to remake the world according to their own rules. H P Lovecraft is the prime example, possessing a coherent and thoroughly worked out philosophy which colours and powers all his best work. Much the same applies to Blackwood, though his mystical and sometimes sentimental author's personality was the polar opposite of Lovecraft's. Similarly, Machen's mysticism (whenever he could keep off his Anglo-Catholic hobbyhorse for long enough), Bierce's misanthropy and Dunsany's unique and complex blend of anti-modernism and ultra-Olympian cynicism all provide Joshi with a lens through which to see their work in its most rewarding light. The only writer for whom Joshi displays little enthusiasm is M R James, primarily because his work never goes beyond the ghastly-revenant plot - however inventively James may manage it at times. Joshi is miraculously well-read, has a sharp eye for the best among frequently voluminous works, and is even honest enough to say when he's talking from prejudice rather than analysis. The Weird Tale brings genuine literary criticism to bear on a genre where literary and critical standards have been debased to a condition rather worse than that of science fiction, and is of vast help in pointing out the works to whose quality writers (and readers) of supernatural fiction could aspire.

_The Weird Tale: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, Ambrose Bierce, and H. P. Lovecraft_ is an account of various writers of the weird tale by S. T. Joshi. These authors wrote stories which may be regarded as "weird tales", a phrase used by Lovecraft especially in his famous essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". The weird tale may be distinguished from the ghost story, science fiction, and psychological horror. This book consists of an introduction followed by accounts of each of the various writers and ending with important bibliographical information. Joshi's viewpoint is clearly sympathetic to scientific rationalism and atheism, which is problematic, though he does provide a good if somewhat biased overview of each of these major writers.

The first chapter of this book is "Arthur Machen: The Mystery of the Universe". Machen, born in Wales, was an antiquarian who developed a unique worldview opposed to Protestantism, rationalism, materialism, progress, and puritanism which emphasized his Anglo-Catholicism. Though Joshi chooses to regard this as a fault, I believe Machen's worldview remains particularly interesting. Machen wrote several weird stories which were based in his worldview including such tales as "The White People" and "The Great God Pan".

The second chapter of this book is "Lord Dunsany: The Career of a Fantaisiste". Dunsany was an Irish writer and fantaisiste who wrote plays and later stories. Dunsany's writings emphasized outer gods, though he himself may have been an atheist. Indeed, Joshi describes Dunsany's writings as "Nietzsche in a fairy tale". Dunsany's famous works include _The Gods of Pegana_ and _The King of Elfland's Daughter_.

The third chapter of this book is "Algernon Blackwood: The Expansion of Consciousness". Algernon Blackwood was a mystical writer who rebelled against an Evangelical upbringing to embrace the wisdom of the East including the _Bhagavad Gita_ and the doctrines of Buddhism. Blackwood's writings reveal a love for nature and an enthrallment with mysticism and the expansion of consciousness. Blackwood was also involved to some extent in the secret mystical society, the Golden Dawn. Joshi traces out the development of Blackwood's philosophy and his stories in terms of "awe", "horror", and "childhood". Blackwood's famous tales include "The Wendigo", "The Willows", and _The Centaur_.

The fourth chapter of this book is "M. R. James: The Limitations of the Ghost Story". M. R. James was the son of an Anglican priest who wrote ghost stories in the genre of the weird tale. While James never developed fully a worldview, something which Joshi believes to be problematic, his stories nevertheless provide an encounter with the supernatural.

The fifth chapter of this book is "Ambrose Bierce: Horror and Satire". Ambrose Bierce was a caustic wit, a cynic, and an atheist who served in the Union army during the Civil War and later was to disappear heading south towards Mexico (presumably having been caught up in the Mexican Civil War). Bierce's stories feature elements of his extreme cynicism and misanthropy. Bierce also wrote ghost stories featuring encounters involving the Civil War. In addition, Bierce compiled the infamous _Devil's Dictionary_ revealing his cynicism about politics and religion.

The sixth chapter of this book is "H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West". Lovecraft was a unique writer of the weird tale, who wrote for pulp magazines and engaged in amateur journalism. Lovecraft's writings reveal his worldview which is materialistic and rationalist (though he would later come to reject his earlier dogmatic materialism under the influence of developments in theoretical physics including relativity theory and quantum mechanics). In addition, Lovecraft's political beliefs prove enigmatic, though he began as an aristocratic ultra-conservative and a racialist who expressed abhorrence at immigrants and other races in his stories, he came to embrace a form of "fascistic socialism" and to marry a Jew. Lovecraft was particularly influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Spengler and his stories reveal his belief in the decline of the West thesis. Lovecraft's stories emphasize cosmicism in which man is shown to be utterly without hope in a cosmos empty of meaning and in which both science and religion fail him. Lovecraft was influenced by Dunsany's outer gods and wrote much on elder beings from other dimensions, though he was later to "demythologize" his gods making them into extraterrestrials. Lovecraft also was influenced by the folklore of New England. Lovecraft's famous works include "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and _At the Mountains of Madness_.

This book offers an excellent introduction to various writers who composed weird fiction. Joshi's biases are apparent, but his extensive research into the writings of these individuals is tremendous. In particular, it is interesting to note how each of these writers formed a unique philosophical worldview which came to influence their stories to such a great extent.

This is a collection of short pieces Machen wrote for the "The Graphic". They are mostly factual though some are fictionalized accounts of true stories. They include strange stories, bits of curiosity, oddities and even a ghost story. Typical titles: "The Strange Case of Emily Weston", "Morduck the Witch", "Casanova in London". a must-read for any Machen fan.

As all Machen's works: Excellent!
Brilliant and delightful use of language.
For all those who enjoyed tv series like The Twilight Zone, Dr. Who or even Star Trek, writers like Machen, Blackwood, Bloch and J.L Borges, are key to understand the concept of parallel worlds or dimensions to ours and the existance of portals leading us to those places.
A dimensional concept that ancient civilizations like Romans, Greek, Maya and many other used to explain the contact and communication with ancestor.
It is not pure fear or massacres what makes me read writers like Machen, is the pure fact of enjoying the perfect use of literature to make us believe that imagination can become real.
It really is the Power of Imagination.

I've read quite a few of Machen's books and short stories and this one is my favorite. The writing style is beautiful and poetic and there's a sense of sinister mystery pervading the whole thing. It gave me a lovely, spine-tingling feeling. A truly great read!

This book is no longer in print--at least not in an inexpensive paperback edition--but it's worth searching for a used copy. All of Machen's best supernatural short stories and novellas are brought together in this volume.

For those who have never read Machen, you are in for a treat. Machen was an accomplished writer of supernatural tales with an unusually powerful and original imagination. The premise on which he based many of his most chilling tales--that of the survival of an aboriginal European population worshipping chthonic fertility deities--was later made famous as a historical thesis by Margaret Murray in "The God of the Witches". I don't know how much value this idea has as a scholarly premise, but Machen thought of it decades before Murray, and used it as the understated background in some his best stories, such as "The White People". However, Machen was much more than a purveyor of scary stories; he was a well rounded, sociable man with a strong mystical streak. These personal qualities manifest themselves in his writing through a quiet humor and muted, but powerful, sense of the numinous. Unlike many of the writers of supernatural and fantasy fiction who followed and were indebted to him, (Dunsany, Cabell, Lovecraft are but a few) Machen seems to have thought that the horrors he wrote about were only the shadow side of some more powerful and greater goodness. This strong but undogmatic faith gives Machen's work a unique feeling of wonder and mystery. Even George MacDonald's Christian fantasies lack the freshness and sense of possibility found in Machen's best work. This book, along with most of Machen's other writings, is a satisfying and complex read.

Gastronomy, in strict definition, studies the culture of food. Therefore, the Physiology of Taste, unlike a myriad of other volumes, stands out in it's attention to all aspects of gastronomical study and understanding. Not only it is incredibly detailed in an eloquent exploration of Sicilian history but compliments this journey with relevant recipes and gastronomical description. At the heart of the matter lies the subtlety with which the author connects the text and taste to indulge any person interested in the true depth of Sicily.

After reading some of the reviews concerning this book, I can certainly agree with much of the praise as well as the criticism. Filled with pithy euphimisms, chunks of this wonderful adventure in gastronomy are a revealing look at the life of the well-to-do author; other morsels seem be out of place, dry of wit, and ill-seasoned. Nonetheless, this is still a good read--there are some fascinating ancedotes as to life in the "new" United States which Savarin reports on after an adventure in the newly independent colonies. Worthy of any well-stocked bookshelf.

You cannot say you love gastronomy without having ever read this book!

Full disclosure: I admit I read this book based on juicy rumors from gastronomy sources that it was considered an "underground classic" and summarily treasured by modern (and well-placed) gourmet cooks. And to complete that thought, I'll spare you, dear review-reader, some suspense: this book disappointed me. I even found the notes (glibly called "translator's glosses") by the esteemed M.F.K. Fisher a bit dry. Maybe the late Ms. Fisher got caught in the same trap; her notes refer almost constantly to the author's fame and wit in *other* contexts but they're uneven in the current text.

Still, I stand behind the three stars. Brillat-Savarin is not a brilliant author, but his insights into at least a few well-chosen subjects shine across the nearly two centuries since these "meditations" were penned. Long before the Atkins craze gripped American nutrition, for example, one can find here (in Meditation #21: "On Obesity"): "... the principal cause of any fatty corpulence is always a diet overloaded with starchy and farinaceous elements ..." One wonders how our 20th century nutritional experts missed this--especially since the good author's book has been out nearly two hundred years and very popular across Europe for much of this time.

Other nuggets of wisdom are equally remarkable. His analysis of taste manages to turn the standard teeth-chew-the-food, stomach-takes-the-food scientific tract into a celebration of good flavors. A long meditation "on food in general" gives any reader new perspectives on coffee, chocolate, and especially truffles. But physiology is never far behind; the aforementioned tasting discussion includes a prophetic note about the contributions of smell. Fisher's contributions to--and obvious loving translation of--these bits bring the gastronomical poetry up to date.

Unfortunately, I've given you all the highlights. The remainder of this book is stuffed with essays either having little to do with gastronomy ("On Exhaustion?" Death? Hunting Luncheons?) or rambling on with little factual basis. Brillat-Savarin wrote this as a journal and it shows far too often; it's disorganized, didactic to the point of annoyance, and only occasionally stays true to the scientific promise of its title. And poor Ms. Fisher usually ends up as a bystander.

With these critiques in mind, I'd recommend 'The Physiology of Taste" as selective reading. A few of the essays are timeless and beautifully written. Most are turgid and make little sense to a 21st century food lover. Given Ms. Fisher's pedigree I'd hesitate to blame the translation; the author gets full credit and blame.

The standard edition of this work in the US, and a lively one. Jean-Anthelme de Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) is known for this book and for pithy maxims like "Adam and Eve sold themselves for an apple. What would they have done for a truffled fowl?" (That of course in the days when the truffles that most people heard of were real ones, not chocolate candies that look like them; and also when the real ones were much more plentiful and less expensive.) Memorable are the wonderful anecdotes of the kindly old priest and his "austere" meatless menu ("The Curé's Omelet," with "theoretical notes" afterwards) and of Brillat's scheme at a country inn to enhance a humble dish. This wide-ranging book established its author as an original and knowledgeable voice in French food writing, to be compared with Carême and Grimod de la Reynière.

Brillat-Savarin, among other roles, was the basis of Marcell Rouff's _The Passionate Epicure,_ a fictional book gently combining food and sex (naturally, as a friend of mine remarked, since it's French), which was widely read in English when the translation appeared in 1962. Marcella Hazan and (I believe) Julia Child cited it in their cookbooks. In his preface to the 1962 Rouff, Lawrence Durrell (himself a fashionable author at that time) explained that many in the Brillat-Savarin family "died at the dinner table, fork in hand" and that Brillat's sister Pierrette, two months before her hundredth birthday, spoke at table what are to food fanatics easily the most famous last words ever: "Vite! Apportez-moi le dessert -- je sens que je vais passer!"

Fisher's translation and notes are a lively part of this edition of Brillat-Savarin (happily reprinted recently). Some booksellers offer newer editions by different English translators; I don't know why. This semi-scholarly translation and editing, executed in France during the post-war period described in her autobiographical _Two Towns in Provence,_ was the work that established Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher among US gastronomic writers. Her later status as Official Food Celebrity encouraged journalists to cite her automatically (whether they had read her work or not), but at least this time, publicity and merit coincide.

"An incoherent nightmare of sex . . . " - The Westminster Gazette.

_The Great God Pan_ is the first book of the Welsh writer of weird tales and mystic Arthur Machen, published first in 1894. This book was regarded as a form of decadent literature and was panned by critics of the Victorian era. Arthur Machen was a fascinating character and antiquarian whose weird writings reveal his learning in the occult and his mystical inclinations. Machen was an Anglo-Catholic opposed to modernism in all its forms who was to join the secret society of the Golden Dawn, though he would reject the nefarious doings of such individuals as Aleister Crowley. Machen had an enormous influence on later writers of weird tales including especially H. P. Lovecraft who mentions him in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" as an important influence. This book, republished by Creation Classics, is complimented by automatic drawings of Austin Osman Spare, a friend of Machen and a fellow occultist and mystic. In addition, this book contains Machen's introduction to the story proper.

_The Great God Pan_ begins with a scientist/doctor and his friend attempting to perform a surgical operation on the brain of a seventeen year old girl, Mary, so that she may "see the Great God Pan". The doctor discusses his theories of "transcendental medicine", in which he believes he can control her through this operation. The operation fails and Mary is rendered an "idiot". The story then skips to the memoirs of Mr. Clarke, the friend of Dr. Raymond from the experiment on Mary. Mr. Clarke recounts a tale involving a young girl named Helen Vaughan, who encounters a pagan idol from Roman times in a field. The story involves murder and intrigue as well as a demonic sex change, which occur later in the tale. Machen's mystical inclinations can be seen as he presents the reader with an alchemical transformation.

Though this book was initially criticized harshly by the establishment in Victorian times, it has endured and set the place of Arthur Machen as an important writer of weird tales. Machen's stories are quite unique and his influence on subsequent writers of supernatural fiction continues to endure.

The REAL grandeur of this little gothic gem lies in the power of suggestion. Machen, much like a Nicholas Roeg film or the Lovecraft mythology, only hints at the unspeakable horrors in "Great God Pan" and therein lies the novel's strength, short and negligable as it may seem. It's up to the reader to "fill in the blanks", and make the right connections as to which abominations lurks beneath the sinister series of seemingly unconnected events, that are displayed in "Great God Pan."

Scattered around in the book are twisted images of the many abominable faces that the Great God Pan may take, drawn by the esoteric occultist Austin Osman Spare.

Wow, I read this on a plane ride and didn't want to put it down. Machen did an amazing job of creating this atmosphere of terror and horror and dread and evil...without ever actually spilling blood and showing us what happened. The way he described what transpired with Helen was awesome. The way he led us along these different paths and then brought them all home so that everything made perfect sense was brilliant. I would have loved more of a backstory and more details into Pan...but that's minor. Can't say enough great things about this little book of "terror." Has something this short and this powerful been written in the last 20 or 30 or 40 years? Great stuff!

I came to know about Arthur Machen and his work through the brilliant mastermind of H.P.Lovecraft; his references, both in fiction ("The Dunwich Horror" makes a very clear statement about Machen's influence in his body of work) and non-fiction ("Supernatural Horror in Literature"), ultimately inspired me to go search something about this author. Needless to say, I found virtually nothing in any bookstore. It was during a trip to Madrid, Spain, where I finally found a book by Machen containing "The Great God Pan" and many others. I was shocked.

"The Great God Pan" was the first story I read by Arthur Machen, and I only had to read the first few pages to know I was going to like it. Indeed, I did, although it was a little short for my taste.

The ideas Machen makes you travel through are some of the finest in horror literature, and the Cosmic view of Pan, is very near the likes of Lovecraft. One can easily see where the influence Machen exerted over Lovecraft is. The only difference is that Machen did believe in some supernatural force existing within the Universe, whereas Lovecraft was the complete opposite.

Dark Pagan Horror is what Machen delivers, and he does so with such a style, elegance (at least the Castilian translation, I still have to read the originals in English, but I am assuming the originals are much better) and wit, you just can't help but to stay with it until you are done.

I got this because the author was at one time affiliated with the Golden Dawn. It is horror that was an influence of H.P. Lovecraft. I liked it because the author maintains an aura of darkness that could be disturbing. This is neo pagan horror that you usually don't see any more. Stehpen King commercialized horror but this is more obscure. A few pages in I already thought highly of it. I thought it was cool that he was such an icon back at the turn of the last century.