The White People and Other Weird Stories

Table of Contents

 

 

PENGUIN
CLASSICS

THE WHITE PEOPLE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES

ARTHUR MACHEN (Arthur Llewelyn Jones), a Welsh author of supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction, was born on March 3, 1863. He grew up in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, and attended boarding school at Hereford Cathedral School. Due to financial constraints, he could not continue his education at university. He moved to London in 1881 and worked as a journalist, children's tutor, and publisher's clerk, finding time to write at night. In 1887, he married Amelia Hogg and met writer and occultist A. E. Waite, who had a profound influence on his writing and philosophy. In that same year, an inheritance he received following the death of his father gave him the freedom to spend more time on his writing. By 1894, Machen had his first major success. “The Great God Pan” was published by John Lane and despite widespread criticism for its sexual and horrific content it sold well and went into a second edition. Following this success, he published
The Three Impostors
(1895),
Hieroglyphics: A Note upon Ecstasy in Literature
(1902), “The White People” (1904), and
The Hill of Dreams
(1907). After his first wife's tragic death, Machen took up acting, becoming a member of Frank Benson's company. He also pursued his interest in Celtic Christianity and the Holy Grail at this time. He married Dorothie Purefoy Hudleston in 1903. From 1910 to 1921, he accepted a position at the London
Evening News,
though he disliked his job and only kept at it for a steady paycheck. In the 1920s Machen's work became immensely popular in the United States, but Machen experienced increasing poverty; he was saved in 1931 by receiving a Civil List pension from the British government. Among his later works are
The Green Round
(1933),
The Cosy Room
(1936), and
The Children of the Pool
(1936). Arthur Machen died on March 30, 1947.

 

S . T. JOSHI (born 1958) is the author of such critical studies as
The Weird Tale
(1990),
H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West
(1990), and
The Modern Weird Tale
(2001). He has prepared corrected editions of H. P. Lovecraft's work for Arkham House and annotated editions of the weird tales of Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, and M. R. James for Penguin Classics, as well as the anthology
American Supernatural Tales
(2007). His exhaustive biography,
H. P. Lovecraft: A Life
(1996), won the British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association; an unabridged and updated edition has appeared as
I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft
(2010). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, and other writers, and has written on religion, politics, and race relations. He is at work on a comprehensive history of supernatural fiction.

 

GUILLERMO DEL TORO (born 1964) is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer. He cofounded the Guadalajara International Film Festival, and formed his own production company—the Tequila Gang. However, he is most recognized for his Academy Award–winning film,
Pan's Labyrinth
, and the
Hellboy
film franchise. He has received the Nebula, Hugo, and Bram Stoker awards and is an avid collecter and student of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.

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First published in Penguin Books 2011

 

Introduction and notes copyright © S. T. Joshi, 2011 Foreword copyright © Guillermo del Toro, 2011 All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Machen, Arthur, 1863–1947.
The white people and other weird stories / Arthur Machen; edited with an introduction
and notes by S.T. Joshi; foreword by Guillermo del Toro.
p. cm.—(Penguin classics)
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.
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN : 978-1-101-55268-1

1. Fantasy fiction, English. 2. Horror tales, English. I. Joshi, S. T., 1958–II. Title.
PR6025.A245A6 2011
823'.912—dc22
2011027590

 

 

 

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It is a rare breed of fabulist who transcribes and records—rather than invents—a reality invisible to most of us. These scribes, like St. John the Divine, are possessed of a near-religious certainty that such worlds exist. Arthur Machen was one of these.

Much like Algernon Blackwood, Machen had no doubts about ancient worlds beneath us and the power their inhabitants exert over our souls and, ultimately, our flesh. There are, he knew, barbarians at the gate, hiding somewhere in the darkness below.

The United Kingdom, for all its pomp and phlegm, is permeated with a sense of spiritual doom. No matter how many churches were built in its fields and villages, no matter how many saints walked its newly paved streets, pagan powers had long before claimed the blood-soaked land. Thus, every year, the River Thames's muddy banks at low tide yield ancient figurines, human bones, and Roman coins. Here is a raw reminder that we share this world with impish beings with unbridled hunger and desire, who watch us and our silly concerns with bemusement.

Machen's magisterial style and labyrinthian storytelling (“The Great God Pan” and
The Three Imposters
come to mind) have influenced many authors, from H. P. Lovecraft to Jorge Luis Borges, and portions of the Machen literary universe, with its dense, Chinese-box formalism and the meta-dialogue between reader and author will become a hallmark of generations to come.

Much like Borges, Machen was an acolyte of Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the most painstaking writers in the English language. And also like Borges, Machen seemed to believe that reading and writing are a form of prayer, each an extension of the other. But where the world was a library to Borges, to Machen it was an all-encompassing concrete geography, even as he was fascinated by traces of pre-Roman cults. Today, as then, his words are neither scholastic nor philosophical, but rather an alarm, a frantic denunciation.

The coherence of his tales and beliefs was not fueled by the fanciful invention of Marcel Schwob (another Stevenson devotee) or Lord Dunsany or, even later, Clark Ashton Smith. Machen didn't need to visit Zothique or Bethmoora or any other distant land. He simply turned to the hills and promontories around him—those timeless green sentinels that confided to him all the Eleusinian mysteries buried in the earth.

Overheated paganism surrounded Machen: the Symbolists, the Decadent movement, the Golden Dawn, Tarot, Spiritualism, and Egyptian magic were everywhere in a pre-war Europe sated with Victorian morality, deflowered by industry, and seeking spiritual fulfillment in truths older than the Anglican Church.

The lustful pursuits of the modern pagans took place in exquisitely decorated salons; even absinthe had its own patron saint. Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke delineated foreign geographies as Felicien Rops (the perfect counterpart to Machen) and Oscar Wilde demolished moral ones. Machen translated François Béroalde de Verville and Giacomo Casanova and was thus familiar with their notions of philosophy, alchemy, and lust, but unlike many of his counterparts, he articulated his world through naked fear rather than fascination or desire. Far from being a libertine, he was afraid not only of the corruption of the spirit but also the more palpable corruption of the flesh. The price of lifting the veil and glimpsing the face of Pan is high and real.

The dichotomy between sexuality and spirituality can only take root in countries founded on puritanical principles—countries that cannot laugh at the Devil because they would be mocking God, too.

Machen recorded these articles of faith with great zeal as an explorer in a lonely spiritual universe. He abandoned the safety of his humble quarters, the sanctity of his God-given name, and the veneer of metropolitan sophistication to achieve an ecstatic vision. Much like Lovecraft, he believed in the transitory nature of our agency in this world and the unyielding ferocity of the cosmos.

This fear tenuously also links Machen with that other great antiquarian, M. R. James, but in his case it is not scholarly arrogance that dooms his characters, but curiosity and fate. Unlike Machen, James deals with hauntings of such specificity that they never allude to a grander scheme. Yet both men seem to share the conviction that our condemnation lies in our past, in the sins of our forefathers. In “The Great God Pan,” the impregnation and curse of a character blooms in the next generation. Evil is never dormant—it gestates.