Antonio Sanna is a support teacher in Sassari, Italy.

Although praised by many, including Stephen King, Arthur Machen’s work remains a niche interest (with some exceptions) largely overshadowed by work of other late-19th- and early-20th-century writers of the supernatural and gothic. In the introduction to this book Sanna provides a thorough introduction to Machen’s life and work. This is followed by a dozen careful essays grouped into three sections: “Human Beings and Their Environments,” “Darwinism and Degeneration," and “Spirituality." Two of Machen’s most familiar texts, The Great God Pan and “The Bowmen,” are treated in separate essays, but the volume is more valuable for the discussions of Machan’s less-known work—his detective stories, his prose poetry, and some of his other novels... Sanna’s own contribution, “Heterotopic Spaces in Machen’s Fiction,” invokes Foucault in a sophisticated treatment of alternative worlds. Although Machen died in 1947, this collection leaves one with the sense that he was well rooted in fin de siècle decadence.

• Introduction: Arthur Machen: His Life, His Works, and His CriticsAntonio SannaPart I: Human Beings and Their EnvironmentsChapter 1: ‘A London cognita and a London incognita’: Contesting London in Arthur Machen’s The London Adventure, or the Art of WanderingAmanda M. CalebChapter 2: The Problem of Agency in Arthur Machen’s The TerrorFrancesco Corigliano Chapter 3: Heterotopic Spaces in Machen’s FictionAntonio Sanna Chapter 4: Dead Matter: Posthumanism and StonesFernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Emiliano Aguilar Part II: Darwinism and DegenerationChapter 5: Fear and Fossils: The Legacy of Arthur Machen’s ‘Little People’ StoriesJustin Phillip Mullis Chapter 6: ‘Dissolution and Change’: Reading The Great God Pan as Monstrous AdaptationJessica GeorgeChapter 7: Lucian’s Ornaments in Jade: Symbolist Decadence in Arthur Machen’s Prose PoetryKostas BoyiopoulosChapter 8: ‘A Substance as Jelly’: Helen Vaughan as Infectious Pathogen in The Great God PanLoredana Salis and Laura Mauro

Antonio Sanna is a support teacher in Sassari, Italy.

Although praised by many, including Stephen King, Arthur Machen’s work remains a niche interest (with some exceptions) largely overshadowed by work of other late-19th- and early-20th-century writers of the supernatural and gothic. In the introduction to this book Sanna provides a thorough introduction to Machen’s life and work. This is followed by a dozen careful essays grouped into three sections: “Human Beings and Their Environments,” “Darwinism and Degeneration," and “Spirituality." Two of Machen’s most familiar texts, The Great God Pan and “The Bowmen,” are treated in separate essays, but the volume is more valuable for the discussions of Machan’s less-known work—his detective stories, his prose poetry, and some of his other novels... Sanna’s own contribution, “Heterotopic Spaces in Machen’s Fiction,” invokes Foucault in a sophisticated treatment of alternative worlds. Although Machen died in 1947, this collection leaves one with the sense that he was well rooted in fin de siècle decadence.

• Introduction: Arthur Machen: His Life, His Works, and His CriticsAntonio SannaPart I: Human Beings and Their EnvironmentsChapter 1: ‘A London cognita and a London incognita’: Contesting London in Arthur Machen’s The London Adventure, or the Art of WanderingAmanda M. CalebChapter 2: The Problem of Agency in Arthur Machen’s The TerrorFrancesco Corigliano Chapter 3: Heterotopic Spaces in Machen’s FictionAntonio Sanna Chapter 4: Dead Matter: Posthumanism and StonesFernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Emiliano Aguilar Part II: Darwinism and DegenerationChapter 5: Fear and Fossils: The Legacy of Arthur Machen’s ‘Little People’ StoriesJustin Phillip Mullis Chapter 6: ‘Dissolution and Change’: Reading The Great God Pan as Monstrous AdaptationJessica GeorgeChapter 7: Lucian’s Ornaments in Jade: Symbolist Decadence in Arthur Machen’s Prose PoetryKostas BoyiopoulosChapter 8: ‘A Substance as Jelly’: Helen Vaughan as Infectious Pathogen in The Great God PanLoredana Salis and Laura Mauro