Description

The Autobiograpy pf Arthur Machen: Far Off Things Near and Far

Hardcover – Tartarus Press – 2017 – 309 pages

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) waas born in Caerleon-on-Usk in South Wales, and looked back on his youth as an inspiration for much of his writing. He moved to London as a young man and lived the greater part of his adult life in the city, first as a book cataloguer, translator, journalist, and, for some years, as a touring actor. He achieved his first success, and notoriety, with The Great God Pan (1894). In this decade he wrote arguably his most important work, including the novel The Hill of Dreams (not published until 1907) and the prose poems, Ornaments in Jade (not published until 1924).

In 1915 Machen was working for the London Evening News when the paper’s acting editor, Alfred Turner, commissioned thirty-five instalments of the “Confessions of a Literary Man’. These were collected as Far Off things by the publisher Martin Secker in 1922, and where enough of a success to cause Secker to commission a second memoir from Machen, Things Near and Far. These two wonderful books of reminiscence were first collected as The Autobiography of Arthur Machen by Richard Press in 1951. This Tartarus press edition includes a new, insightful Introduction by Stewart Lee.