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Stated Second edition, with American copyright statement. Hard cover, 8vo, in publisher's navy cloth boards with titles and cover illustration by Beardsley blocked in silver and gold, the key device on spine containing the author's initials, "A.M.". Title page in black and red ink, with illustration of the god Pan, also by Beardsley. COLLATION: [6], 168, [8] plus [16] pp. John Lane Bodley Head catalogue dated 1895 at rear, with first item being Francis Adams' s "Essays in Modernity." CONDITION: Very Good Plus. Very light shelf-wear to covers with some minimal rubbing to decoration and at tips. Hinges in order. Small former owner signature in pen to upper ffep. Pages moderately toned. Now in mylar. ** The writer, Arthur Machen (1863-1947), moved from rural Caerleon, Wales to London, in 1882, just as the Aesthetic Movement" was taking root. Writers and artists were rejecting the utilitarian outlook of industrial efficiency, scientism and moralizing Victorian art, instead promoting a mystical view of the world. Proponents included Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Théophile Gautier, William Morris, and W.B. Yeats. ** This work is Volume V of the influential "Keynote Series" by the avante garde publisher John Lane of London in the 1890s. "The Great God Pan is a gothic novella set in London, with a pseudo-scientific experiment gone awry, and a mysterious stranger who corrupts and unhinges the unwary.... the final scenes are worthy of anything written by H.P. Lovecraft. "Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was conscious that the path from his father's house had led him into an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence, that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form. And in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a voice seemed to cry "Let us go hence," and then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of everlasting." The second short novel, "The Inmost Light," first published in 1894, concerns the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Black, the wife of a London physician and closet alchemist. ** REF: Henry Danielson, "Arthur Machen, A Bibliography" p.21. Bleiler, "The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Fantasy," p.130. Goldstone & Sweetser (1973), 6c: p. 23.
Ref: AMACH 9279
$975.00