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Obituary: Janet Machen, 1916-2008

2008 FoAM Publications

Read Facsimile text of The Anatomy of Tobacco

World Fantasy Awards 2006

John Gawsworth's The Life of Arthur Machen

Sara Inkster's Index to Gawsworth's The Life of Arthur Machen

"The Lost Club" - a journal devoted to the byways of literature

Links and Contact List

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Janet Machen, 1916-2008

We are saddened to learn that Janet Machen passed away on the 10th October, 2008. She was not only the daughter of Arthur Machen, and Patron of our Society, but also a very dear friend to many of its members, and one who will be greatly missed. Earlier this year she attended our Annual Dinner in Stratford on Avon, a venue that had associations not only for Arthur Machen and his wife Purefoy, Janet's mother, but for Janet herself, who had been on the stage there in the 1930s.

Janet spent most of her life working for the benefit of others. Her humanitarian work for refugees from the Spanish Civil War, and later with the Red Cross in Italy during the Second World War, was followed by a long career in the Social Services. Even when she had ostensibly retired she still continued to undertake voluntary work for Cancer Care.

Many who knew Janet only in her later years will have memories of a kind, generous and very bright lady; but Janet also had a steely determination and worked quietly behind the scenes to make sure that the Friends of Arthur Machen was a success. Likewise, she went out of her way to promote the work of her father, and many publications—new, reprint and translations—have been the direct result of her efforts and encouragement. The friendships that we have formed, first through the old Machen Society, and now the Friends of Arthur Machen, are a direct result of Janet’s support for those Societies. Our loss is considerable, but will be nothing to that of her family, to whom we extend our deepest sympathies.

Janet, we will all miss you!

 

World Fantasy Awards, 2006

In 2006 the Friends were very proud to be on a select short list nominated for a prestigious World Fantasy Award. The Friends of Arthur Machen were nominated for the excellence of their publications Faunus, Machenalia, and The Life of Arthur Machen in the category of a SPECIAL AWARD: NON-PROFESSIONAL. A glance at a list of previous winners on their website reveals that former winners of World Fantasy Awards include the greatest names in fantasy literature over the last twenty years. About Gawsworth's The Life of Arthur Machen

The Life of Arthur Machen, Gawsworth’s only substantial work apart from his poetry, was written in the early 1930s, but rejected by his publishers Rich & Cowan as Machen’s star was in decline at that period. The book contains a wealth of previously unpublished material on Machen’s literary career, exploring areas uncharted in Far Off Things and Things Near & Far, Machen’s memoirs from the 1920s.

Gawsworth, born Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong in London in 1912, was one of Machen’s most devoted disciples, doing much to keep his idol’s name in the public eye during Machen’s last years. Gawsworth, a champion of other Nineties figures such as M. P. Shiel and Ernest Dowson, inherited the title of King of Redonda on Shiel’s death in 1947. He ennobled many famous writers, including Rebecca West, Lawrence Durrell, Dylan Thomas and Henry Miller, as peers of the Caribbean realm. Gawsworth was a prolific and precocious versifier in the 1930s and was regarded as one of the coming poets of the age, but after the Second World War he descended into alcoholism, his stream of books and pamphlets dried up and he died, aged only 58, in 1970. Present-day interest in him is causing his books to rise in price. A signed edition of his Poems (1938), though worn and bumped and only 43 pp. long, was recently offered for sale in a dealer’s catalogue for £150.

Gawsworth’s biography chronicles Machen’s life up to 1933. Among its revelations is the fact that Machen based the character of Richmond, alias Wilkins, in The Three Impostors on Samuel Dougal, the Moat Farm murderer, who was hanged in 1903. Dougal rented Northend House in Buckinghamshire from Machen in the 1890s. Gawsworth also reveals that Machen received only six copies of his adolescent poem Eleusinia in 1881. The printer, Joseph Jones of Hereford, kept the remainder over a dispute in payment. We learn that Machen was related by marriage to J. B. Priestley: a Machen cousin from Cardiff married the novelist in 1926. We discover that Machen wrote his first journalism, in the form of book reviews, for the Hereford Times between 1881-83. G. K. Chesterton’s favourable review of Hieroglyphics is included in the biography, as is Machen’s brief history of his wife’s family, the Hudlestons. We discover that Machen’s dismissal from the London Evening News in 1921was not solely due to the libelling of Lord Alfred Douglas in the premature obituary: the malaise, said Machen, had set in some time before. Machen told Gawsworth why he believed he was not invited to contribute to The Yellow Book, the famous Nineties periodical: he had expressed enthusiasm for the Sherlock Holmes stories to the editor Henry Harland and felt this counted against him. The text of Machen’s Spoof Tennis, which anticipates Waiting for Godot is included. It is a pity that Gawsworth did not take the opportunity to update and revise the biography after Machen’s death, since although it is designed to be read by the Machen enthusiast rather than the general reader, it would certainly have found a publisher in the 1950s or ’60s.

    Find out more about Gawsworth here:

    Link to TLS review of The Life of Arthur Machen

    Javier Marias, to whose generosity all FoAM is in debt for the biography

    More about the Biography from Tartarus Press

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The Anatomy of Tobacco

Not just a few more billion characters in 'ascii code', but a true facsimile of the first edition, photographed page by page, so you may savour the experience of the original reader - so vivid you can smell the ink - well, almost. You will need a version of Adobe Reader or Acrobat Reader to access the work. Thanks to Bruce Kawyn, Richard Rogers and Roger Dobson for enabling this for visitors to this site.

 

Summer 2008, New Publications

The hardback journal Faunus XVIII includes letters and articles by Arthur Machen, memories of him and perspectives upon his work: includes articles on the relation of his work to emerging late Victorian suburbia, and an appreciation of his very first publication the poem Eleusinia.

The latest Machenalia documents recent FoAM activities including the recent AGM at Stratford-upon- Avon.Also news of a theatre adaptation of Machen's Great God Pan in Chicago, transcript of an interview with Clive Barker, and a compendious range of book reviews right across the culture.

 

2006 - FoAM pipped in World Fantasy Awards (text: Gwilym Games)

In stiff competition at the award ceremony in November in Texas FoAM were beaten by Telos Books. Congratulations to the winners! Despite our disappointment the Friends are still thrilled by even getting to the nominee stage for such an important award with all the recognition from the World Fantasy community it implies for the quality of the society, its publications and of course for Machen's importance to fantasy literature. This category is usually won by a semi-professional small press rather than a society. Indeed we are the only society ever to be nominated for the award besides the far larger British Fantasy Society which won in 2000 - and they reflect British Fantasy in general rather than the writings of one Welsh author.

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Links and Contact List

If you would like your name and/or email address and/or postal address and/or site details to appear below, send your entry to Adrian Eckersley. He will update the list about once a fortnight, so be patient.

    Belosic, Ray
    email: RBelosic@aol.com
    snail: 10580 Dunleer Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90064
    interests: Golden Dawn, Machen's relations with Yeats & Crowley, Arnold Bennett, G.B.Shaw

    Brangham, Godfrey
    Clemendy Cottage,
    14 New Market Street,
    Usk, Gwent, NP5 1AT

    Branson, James W
    email: ifran_klarhet@yahoo.com
    snail: 11218 Glenora, Houston, Texas 77065, USA
    interests: Arthur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith, Sarban & other literary fiction, G.I. Gurdjieff, A.O.Spare, classical symphonic music

    Cantwell, Jeremy (FoAM Treasurer and Membership Secretary)
    snail: Apt 5, 26 Hervey Road, Blackheath, LONDON, SE3 8BS
    email: jcantwell@ndo.co.uk

    Cuyler "Ned" Brooks
    email: nedbrooks@sprynet.com
    Link to website
    snail:4817 Dean Lane, Lilburn, GA 30047, USA
    interests: Collects Machen and other fantasy authors. Has published work by Machen as well as a variety of fanzines. Publication of Machen collection: Guinevere and Lancelot available through above.

    Dobson, Roger
    email: rogeralandobson@hotmail.com
    snail: 182 Barns Road, Oxford, OX4 3RG Currently Publicity manager for FOAM
    founder/editor of The Lost Club, an organization dedicated to those fin de siecle writers of whom not enough is heard today. Currently editing John Gawsworth's biography of Machen for FOAM publication

    Eckersley, Adrian
    website: this now, here now, always
    see also here for my darker side
    email: adrian@machensoc.demon.co.uk
    snail: 28 Queens Road, Loughton, Essex, IG10 1RS
    interests: Machen and psychedelics, the fantastic as true vision, paganism. More generally interested in literary fiction and painting.

    Ellis, Phillip A.
    email: ghyle@hotmail.com
    snail: 38 Enid Street, Tweed Heads, NSW Australia 2485
    interests: H.P.Lovecraft, Clark Ashton-Smith, weird verse, Jung, history, classics, forensic psychology. Currently compiling a bibliography of Machen's work.

    Faunus correspondence see Ray Russell/ Mark Valentine, below

    Games, Gwilym, M.CILIP. (Machenalia editor)
    If you have any news on Machen, related books music or to review, or anything to promote in print to members of the Friends, Gwilym would like to hear about it.
    Email: Gwilix@nospam.yahoo.co.uk
    surface mail: 9 Henage Drive, Llynderw, Westcross, Swansea, SA3 5BR
    As well as editing Machenalia, Gwilym is Moderator of the Caermaen mailing list.
    IInterests: include Libraries, Decadence, Vampirology, Lovecraftania, Arthurian Legend, the Occult and the Gothic subculture.

    Gault, R.T.
    "Ditch" is sadly no longer with us, but his "Order of the Twilight Star" website is still up and running (see below), and one of the most consistently interesting sites for Machenians.
    Link to website
    interests: occult/ literary matters esp. Golden Dawn, most esp. Machen's "Three Impostors"

    Gekle, William
    wrote a biography of Machen published in 1949 titled Arthur Machen Weaver of Fantasy. View contents of his collection of letters and other documents now in Princeton University Library.

    For Ghost Story Society see Roden below.

    Nicolas Granger-Taylor,
    Flat 2, 35 Grafton Way,
    London W1T 5DB
    Home: 020 7387 7942. Mobile: 07791029770.
    Email: ngrangertaylor@aol.com
    Nick organizes "The London Adventure" - walks, mostly in central London, devoted to following the paths of obscure and neglected authors who have left traces in the city. He is also something of a painter. For further info re "The LondonAdventure" follow the link here..

    Hyde, David
    Website: Joan's Scrapbook has several articles of interest to Machenians, inc. the Hudleston family and Sylvia Townsend-Warner
    email: r2hyde@yahoo.com.au
    Interests: Photography, multimedia.

    Johnsson, Henrik
    link to website
    email: castaigne@swipnet.se
    interests: website lists all Tartarus publications. Henrik is interested in starting a Machen newsgroup in the near future.

    Kosok, Christian
    email: Linas@hol.gr
    Lives in Greece: interested in psychedelia, Lovecraft, the fantastic.

    "Litrix"
    This website, run by Robert Raven, is for serious readers. As well as Machen's "Hill of Dreams" you will find classic fiction by such as Poe, M.R. and Henry James, and William Hope Hodgson.
    Click here to visit Litrix

    For Lost Club see link at top of page - also Dobson above or Valentine below.

    Lovecraft Scholars
    A new group devoted to the scholarly discussion of the philosophical/cultural/literary significance of the life and works of H. P. Lovecraft. If you would like to join the group, or know of others who might be interested in doing so, sign up at: http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/LovecraftScholars

    McClintock, David A., email mcbooks@cisnet.com snail: 1454 Sheridan Ave, N.E.Warren O.H. 44483-3968 interests: collecting and dealing in books, including Machen and the literary scene of his time in England, France and USA.

    Machenalia correspondence see Gwilym Games, entry above.

    Mann, Bob
    bobmann@supanet.com
    The Flat, 56 Fore Street, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5RU.
    01803 866250.
    Interests include: Arthur Machen; John Cowper Powys; Clark Ashton Smith; regional/supernatural/fantasy literature; obscure Devon writers no one else has ever heard of; history of ideas.

    Michaluk, Steve
    email: smichaluk@hotmail.com
    interests: Jules Verne, Talbot Mundy, Mitchell S.Buck

    Niemi, Todd E.
    email: atniemi@gmail.com
    307 Fullam Hill Road, Fitzwilliam, NH 03447, USA
    Interests: bringing Machen's works to the screen (currently adapting The Hill of Dreams into a screenplay); 20th century poetry and fiction; the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, cultures and peoples; archeology; anthropology; philosophy; the psychology of memory and dreaming, etc

    Preece, Jon
    9 Ridgeway Drive,
    Newport, South Wales, NP9 5AR email: jon@ereddison.com

    Roden, Barbara
    Link to Ghost Story Society website
    email: ashtree@ash-tree.bc.ca
    snail: PO Box 1360, Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada VOK 1AO
    interests: ghost-stories, both contemporary and historical (see website for publication details)

    Russell, Ray (FOAM Chair and co-editor of Faunus)
    Link to Tartarus Press website
    email: tartarus@pavilion.co.uk
    snail: Coverley House, Carlton-in-Coverdale, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY
    Ray is Tartarus Press.

    Salmondson, Jessica
    Link to website
    email: violet@drizzle.com
    snail: PO Box 20610, Seattle WA 98102, USA
    interests: Jessica does book catalogues. She has a special interest in, and much information on, lost-race fantasies (see website).

    Samuels, Mark (FoAM Secretary)
    email mark699@btinternet.com
    snail: 210 Archway Road
    London N6 5AX
    Link to Mark's website

    Smith, Iain
    email: iscr@fish.co.uk
    interests: Iain is founder of the Ancient Order of Banwick, a sub-group of the Friends with interests and loyalties in the north of England; he also publishes Eskimo Chain, a Syd Barrett fanzine, which has recently developed through spontaneous combustion into a full-blown website.
    Go there now!

    Svenson, Ola
    email: dan.svenson@sverige.net
    snail: Angelholmsvagen 8, S-266, 31 Munka-Ljungby, Sweden
    interests: Ola is interested in all aspects of non-realist fiction, and in mysticism, alchemy and the occult.

    for Tartarus Press see Russell above.

    Thomas, Edward - The Edward Thomas Fellowship
    Click here to visit a site devoted to Machen's finest poet-contemporary.

    Valentine, Mark (FOAM Secretary and co-editor of Faunus)
    email: lostclub@btopenworld.com
    snail: Stable Cottage, Priest Bank Road, Kildwick, Keighley, BD20 9BH.
    Mark edits "Wormwood", a journal of discussion for fantasy, supernatural and decadent literature" and coedits "The Lost Club Journal"

    Wilson, Dave
    email: dcwilson@mcmaster.ca
    interests: is rumoured to be adapting an episode from "Three Impostors' for the stage

    Wood, Jonathan
    e-mail: thratheewoodz@hotmail.com
    snail: BM Spellbound, London WC1N 3XX
    Interests: produces irregular catalogues of interesting and obscure second-hand stock. Proprietor of the Arbor Vitae Press and publishes 'Through the Woods', an idiosyncratic journal of weird fiction, poetry and discourse specialising in lovelorn reveries, obscurantism and cultural timeslips.

 

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