A small volume of unpublished works by the great Welsh writer Arthur Machen, with our introduction, has been published by Dagon Press, edited by Pietro Guarriello. Available for purchase on Amazon.
These tales of Machen, almost all unpublished in Italy, are part of his most hidden production and remained in the shade compared to the recognized masterpieces, and cover a time span that goes from 1890, the year ofΒ Great god Pan, in 1937, when he put down his pen and completely stopped writing fiction. They are thriller and mystery tales, with some forays into the weird and the fantastic, but the unmistakable imprint of Machen's mysticism is present in all of them. They range from cases of witchcraft and unexplained disappearances ("Morduck the Witch", "The Strange Case of Emily Weston") to stories of doppelgangers and doubles ("Johnny and the Double", "A Double Return", "Psychology"), passing through strange visions that take place in the Welsh countryside ("Midsummer Night", "The Vision of Dr. Duthoit"), daring murders ("The Mystery of Islington") and singular rites that are celebrated in imaginary realms ("The Isle of Shadows ") or in the middle of less frequented areas of the London metropolis (" Il Circolo Scomparso "," The Ritual "). In all there are 12 stories and a poem (βThe Initiationβ), interspersed with photographic or pictorial images of Machen and linked by notes and comments by the curator. It is a critical edition that also includes a learned introduction by Marco Maculotti and, in the appendix, a rare essay by Machen himself on ghosts in literature.
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