The white people and other weird stories /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Machen, Arthur, 1863-1947.
Imprint:New York : Penguin Books, 2011.
Description:xxviii, 377 p. ; 20 cm.
Language:English
Series:Penguin classics
Penguin classics.
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/8833760
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Joshi, S. T., 1958-
ISBN:9780143105596 (pbk.)
0143105590 (pbk.)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references.
Summary:"Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. With an introduction from S.T. Joshi, editor of AMERICAN SUPERNATURAL TALES, THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES is the perfect introduction to the father of weird fiction. The title story "The White People" is an exercise in the bizarre leaving the reader disoriented and on edge. From the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside-down, as his character Ambrose explains, "there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill deed'" setting the stage for a tale entirely without logic"--Provided by publisher.
Review by Booklist Review

With two eccentric editorial decisions, horror-fiction historian Joshi makes this sampling of the Welshman who inspired H. P. Lovecraft to create the Cthulhu Mythos invaluable. He excludes Machen's most famous piece, The Great God Pan, and includes the seldom-reprinted A Fragment of Life, which, though certainly weird or uncanny, resolves not in dread but in a mystical, parochial (not nationalistic) patriotism. It's not the only nonhorrific selection; three WWI inspirational tales in Machen's later, quasi-journalistic manner also appear (one, The Bowmen, birthed the legend that angels assisted the British at the Battle of Mons). Fragment shares in the luscious descriptive style of Machen's early stories exploiting the proto-Lovecraftian notion that a malevolent, prehuman people (the little people, or fairies of Celtic legend, Machen ventures) survive in rural isolation. That style wraps the reader in a shimmering, velvety blanket of sense-impressions. Nowadays, Lucius Shepard and Laird Barron approach it, but it's really nonpareil, and you don't have to be a horror fan to fall under its spell.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review