Ebook: Arthur Machen -- Weaver of Fantasy

Excerpt: "It was, I suppose, during the closing months of the First World War that an urbane and witty gentleman, writing in the Confederate city of Richmond, set down these words in the course of one of his interminable, and witty and urbane, monologues: "I wonder if you are familiar with that uncanny genius whom the London directory prosaically lists as Arthur Machen?" Since there was no reply, as indeed none was expected, the amiable Charteris chatted on about Arthur Machen and, oddly enough, Robert W. Chambers, for some moments, and then he concluded with this statement.... "But here in a secluded library is no place to speak of the thirty years' neglect that has been accorded Mr. Arthur Machen; it is the sort of crime that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner, from the house-top...." That thirty years' neglect has almost doubled-and indeed one might say with perfect truth that Arthur Machen has suffered a lifetime of neglect, and, in perfect truth, it must be added that the loss has been the world's which so blindly accorded neglect to the uncanny genius of Arthur Machen. This is the sort of crime, as Mr. James Branch Cabell suggested back in 1918, that ought to be discussed in the Biblical manner-and it is my intention to do so."