Arthur Machen's Occult Catalogues

Book Description

Frontis. b/w. portrait of Machen, titles, contents list & introduction to front. In June 1885 Arthur Machen worked for the bookseller and publisher George Redway on 'a mass of odd literature stored in a garret in Catherine Street . . . as odd a library as any man could desire to see. Occultism in one sense or another was the subject of most of the books.’ The result was Machen's The Literature of Occultism and Archaeology, followed by a further catalogue in 1887. Arthur Machen was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. The death of his first wife led him to a spiritual crossroads, and he experienced a series of mystical events. After his experimentation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to which he was introduced by his close friend the poet & mystic A. E. Waite, the orthodox ritual of the Church became ever more important to him, gradually defining his position as a High Church Anglican who was able to incorporate elements from his own mystical experiences, Celtic Christianity, and readings in literature and legend into his thinking.