Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Welcome welcome to our first spooky tome of 2024 "The Terror by Arthur Machen - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) (Delphi Parts Edition by Arthur Machen!

Hope you will be delighted by this story.

Enjoy!

Arthur Machen (3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) 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 Terror (1917): short horror novel. Rural supernatural horror set in wartime Britain, where a series of unexplained countryside murders occur with no sign of who or what is responsible.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35617

I'll read this in a few days.

I hate when a goodreads description is just talking about the publisher and nothing about the plot of the book. I think this one is better: The Terror A Mystery: ARTHUR MACHEN

Book Nerd wrote: "I hate when a goodreads description is just talking about the publisher and nothing about the plot of the book. I think this one is better..."

I agree Book Nerd much better than what I found too.

How did you like it?

I'll be reading this in a few days too.

Imagine beginning the year with a spooky tale of Nameless Horror.

Well, I did and loved it. This book was written over a hundred years ago, and everything new was magical -- x-rays, air pockets, tanks, even censorship. The terror it describes could not possibly be a terror to our blasé twenty-first century minds, but the skill and the deliberate, slow and even tortuous descriptions really makes the hair stand on end.

I really enjoyed this. It kept me guessing until the very end with all the very different deaths.
(view spoiler)[I was thinking some Lovecraftian terror or avenging angels and near the end I thought there wouldn't be any explanation. I'm not sure if that would have been better.
The explanation was kind of diappointing to me. I know it's over a hundred years old but we've seen the whole "when animals attack" plot so often it feels like a huge cliche, (hide spoiler)]

Mbuye wrote: "The terror it describes could not possibly be a terror to our blasé twenty-first century minds, but the skill and the deliberate, slow and even tortuous descriptions really makes the hair stand on end"
Yeah, that's something old horror does really well.

I’ll try and get to this in the coming week. This will be a re-read for me, but it’s been quite a while since my last exposure to it. I’ll probably be reading the version found in Machen’s Tales of Horror and the Supernatural. This posthumous collection first appeared in 1948, but I have a more recent edition published by Tartarus Press, who have in the last few decades republished almost all of Machen’s work.

Has anyone tried to describe such an attack before Machen?

Mbuye asked: Has anyone tried to describe such an attack before Machen?

(view spoiler)[I’m not aware of any precursors, but I am no expert, so wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few existed. I know that a number of stories seemed to draw inspiration from Arthur Machen’s short novel, many of them having to do with birds — e.g., Philip MacDonald’s 1931 story “Our Feathered Friends” and Daphne du Maurier's 1952 story “The Birds”. (hide spoiler)]

I like the mounting suspense and mystery in this one. It had some very creepy moments, especially in the final chapters.
It managed to have some humour, when Remnant was talking about Z Rays. I can imagine the doctor mentally rolling his eyes at that.

Hello, Canavan,
Thanks for your reply. Both the authors you mention came, as you rightly say, after Machen.

So it seems to me that a theme or idea we're sick of today actually was first imagined by Machen, and if so, then the novella is truly terrifying and most correctly titled.

I’m glad you all liked this one!

Anyone else still reading it?