One might devote a great amount of time and give considerable thought to
the final pages of a book about Arthur Machen. It is not easy for anyone
who admires Machen to leave off talking or writing about him.
This book was planned and begun while Arthur Machen still lived. He
knew of its creation, its aims and its purpose, and he gave the book
his “plenary blessings.” The early chapters were sent in galley form to
Amersham. Machen read the proofs or, his sight failing badly, had them
read to him by his son Hilary. The proofs were returned with a little
note and sometimes with comments or corrections written in the margins.
I have hoped many things for this book—that it would arouse more interest
in Machen, that it would bring about a great revival of reading his
books. He has been sadly neglected as a writer, we all feel that, and
yet Machen writes: “I question whether what you call the neglect of my
work is due to any fault of publishers or public—the real cause of it,
I believe, is the fact that I have been interested as a writer in a
variety of things which only interest a few people. This is a matter of
individual constitution: it is incurable.”
We who are incurable, and we are not few, can only hope to interest many
people in the variety of things about which Arthur Machen wrote.