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Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (World Cultural Heritage Library)
Tales of Horror and the Supernatural - World Cultural Heritage Library Author:Arthur Machen Includes: The Terror. The Great God Pan.-White People. Fourteen Stories! Over 500 pagesFrom the beginning of his literary career, Machen espoused a mystical belief that the humdrum ordinary world hid a more mysterious and strange world beyond. His gothic and decadent works of the 1890s concluded that the lifting of this... more » veil could lead to madness, sex, or death, and usually a combination of all three. Machen-s later works became somewhat less obviously full of gothic trappings, but for him investigations into mysteries invariably resulted in life-changing transformation and sacrifice. Machen loved the medieval world view because he felt it combined deep spirituality alongside a rambunctious earthiness.Machen-s strong opposition to a materialistic viewpoint is obvious in many of his works, marking him as part of neo-romanticism. He was deeply suspicious of science, materialism, commerce, and Puritanism, all of which were anathema to Machen's conservative, bohemian, mystical, and ritualistic temperament.« less