The Shining Pyramid Machen, Arthur [Very Good] [Hardcover]

Description

First trade edition. Hard cover, 8vo, in publisher's blue cloth boards, with gold lettering to spine. Top edge stained blue, other edges untrimmed. COLLATION: 188, [4] pp. CONDITION: Very Good. Clean, bright covers. No inscriptions. Heavy foxing to first few pages and fore-edge of text block, as seems to be common with this edition. Some pages are unopened. Closed tear to one page, not affecting text. ** AUTHOR Arthur Machen (1863-1947), had a deep love of his native Wales and its Celtic past, and his early writings such as ""The Great God Pan"" (1894) evoked the horrors of a parallel world inhabited by demons and pagan unknowables, and the thin wall protecting us from them. ** ""The Shining Pyramid"" is a collection of previously published stories and essays, with an interesting history. The American author, Vincent Starrett, was an enthusiastic promoter of Machen, and compiled and published two volumes of Machen's ""forgotten works"": ""The Shining Pyramid"" (1923) and ""The Glorious Mystery"" (1924) - both published by the Covici-McGee Company of Chicago. Machen got to hear of this, and condensed the two volumes into one, which was published by Martin Secker in London under the title ""The Shining Pyramid"". This has an introduction by Machen explaining the publication history, and his comments on looking back on his works. He is generally quite critical of his own writing, but shows his enduring love of his homeland in Gwent, Wales. ** CONTENTS (with original date published, from ISFDB): Introduction by Machen, ""The Shining Pyramid"" (1895), ""Out of the Earth"" (1915), ""The Happy Children"" (1920), ""The Secret of the Sangraal"" (1924 - contains lengthy introduction, with Machen's thoughts on the original essay), ""The Mystic Speech"" (1924 - but originally published as ""A Secret Language"" in 1916), ""In Convertendo"" (1908), ""The Martyr"" (1907), ""Education and the Uneducated"" (1907). ** An interesting ""sampler"" of Machen's works, from his early medieval pastiches, to his horror stories and essays. ** REFS: Goldstone & Sweetser (1973) 31b, p. 52.