When I did the post about doing yet another reread of the Dyson stories by Arthur Machen, I had the nagging thought that I was missing one or more — one, as it turns out.
“The Inmost Light” — which I have in a Knopf yellowback first of The House of Souls from 1922. I’ll get to it, when I have a moment free. I knew it was there, but on a quick prowl through my Machen shelves it didn’t jump out at me.
The tip came from my Robert E. Howard buddy Deuce Richardson, who sent a link informing me that a collection of the complete Dyson is coming up. A quick check of the contents, and the “missing” Dyson was found. If you are new to Machen, getting the whole shebang in one package might be a good thing — we’ll presume the intro will be excellent, the text free of typos, all the stuff you want in a book.
Deuce is one of the guys who really got into John D. Haefele’s book A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos — before he read Haefele, he thought that Fritz Leiber did the best litcrit on Lovecraft, but now he believes good old Fritz has been nudged into second place. (Yep, Haefele is that good.)
With his eyes opened to the sort of clews writers like Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard would have seen in Machen, Deuce recently did a reread on the seminal tale of cosmic horror, “The Great God Pan,” and he’s put his initial thoughts out on a forum. If you’re interested in literary speculation on writers such as Machen, check it out.
