Such an impressive author demands an equally impressive narrator and we knew just who fit the bill: Audie Award-winning narrator and longtime friend of Skyboat, Kristoffer Tabori. Today, he is recognized for his groundbreaking influence on supernatural and horror fiction. He became a household name on both sides of the Atlantic, and while at home in Britain his gothic and terrifying tales began to fall out of fashion, American academics lauded his work as an avant-garde marvel. Lovecraft wrote in his survey on Supernatural Horror in Literature, that they “perhaps represent the highwater mark of Machen’s skill as a terror-weaver.” At the time, Machen’s work was seen as decadent and degenerate, but in the early twentieth century public opinion was quite changed. The Three Impostors or, The Transmutations is an experimental tale of vengeance and the occult, weaving together five stories that culminate in a deadly horror.
But when he and his friends attempt to discern the meaning behind this, they discover a sinister force behind the strange symbols and structure. In “The Shining Pyramid,” a classic of supernatural fiction, a young man discovers stones miraculously arranging themselves on his land. “Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.” After publishing “The Great God Pan,” Machen wrote The Three Impostors, and the short story “The Shining Pyramid,” both included in an original audiobook compilation from Skyboat and Blackstone Publishing.
He continued to write fiction during this time, but in the 1890s his writing took a drastic turn from the seventeenth century style for which he had become known and drew closer to the horror stories he is known for today. His grandfather found such carvings in his very own churchyard, and this tangible presence of ancient strangeness influenced much of Machen’s writing.Īfter his first (anonymous) publication Eleusinia, he pursued a career in journalism and moved to London. Growing up in Wales, Machen was intrigued by the findings of pagan sculptures and inscribed stones from the Roman era by local archaeologists. In fact, Stephen King has said that Machen’s 1894 novella “The Great God Pan” is “one of the best horror stories ever written.
Lovecraft, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King. Machen’s work has influenced writers for generations including H.P. Image via The Paris Review.Īrthur Machen (1863-1947), was the pen name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic known best for his supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction.
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