"In the run up to the year the Friends of Arthur Machen went to Stratford upon Avon our latest hard backed publication Faunus 17 features extracts on Machen from Lady Constance Benson's memoirs relating to his time with the famous Bensonian company of Shakespearean actors. Another article relates Machen's own reminiscences of his time upon the stage in Stratford upon Avon. Faunus also contains writer Frank Baker's fascinating extended recollections of Machen from his autobiography. Baker, a sometime actor himself, reflects on the influence of the stage on himself and on Machen, and it provides an enchanting depiction of the power of Machen's works and personality on the shamefully neglected author of Miss Hargreaves and The Birds (1936).
The companion pamphlet Machenalia includes a full set of the recently discovered Little Fables by M published in the late twenties in the literary magazine John O’ London’s Weekly, a periodical which frequently published Machen. Are the Fables a lost work by Machen? Much furious debate on the matter is under way by Machen scholars. There is more news on the Angels of Mons saga, a new stage adaptation of Machen’s The Great God Pan in Chicago, news on a strange rite to summon Pan involving Frank Baker and Crowley which led to a terrible death, details on the terrifying Caerleon catacombs, and another article on music inspired by Machen, alongside the usual reviews of Machen related works.
Plus it contains a cryptic numerological inscription written by Machen, found in a collector’s library. Now known as The Machen Code it is already arousing much interest from cryptoanalysts - proffered solutions to the code have connected it to Aztec sacrifice, Scottish use of occult rituals to destroy the English, a clue that finally reveals the location of the San Graal, or possibly just Machen's record of the results of a drinking game."
To get these fine things subscribe to the The Friends of Arthur Machen at this link.
No comments:
Post a Comment