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He was pondering these problems one evening in a house of call in the Strand, and the obstinacy with which the persons he so ardently desired to meet hung back gave the modest tankard before him an additional touch of bitter. As it happened, he was alone in his compartment, and, without thinking, he uttered aloud the burden of his meditations. `How bizarre it all is!' he said, `a man walking the pavement with the dread of a timid-looking young man with spectacles continually hovering before his eyes. And there was some tremendous feeling at work, I could swear to that.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of my favourite books by Arthur Machen, in my opinion more subtle & engrossing than "The Great God Pan" but in many ways just as unsettling. This is a fascinating selection of inter-weaving tales set in a wonderfull turn of the century Victorian London. All thoughout the book (as indeed through all Machen's work) there is the hinted at knowledge that beneath the everyday surface of life there is a dark undertow, a kind of pagan force, by turns evil & magnificent. I absolutely adored this, truelly something to soak up & immerse yourself in. Although known as a "horror" writer, if your looking for a gore or out & out ghosty story look elsewhere, this is far more elusive (although it has to be said, the section entitled "novel of the white powder" is pretty full on). Wonderful.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What makes this stand out among other Arthur Machen collections is that it's not a collection but an original work, entwining three stories together and it is, also, precisely the incidents that hold the stories together that are particularly evocative of undefineable horror. H.P. Lovecraft used "The Novel of the Black Seal" (The Whisperer in Darkness) and, especially, "The Novel of the White Powder" (The Thing on the Doorstep), as basic inspiration. The reaction to coming horror by the protagonists of Machen is, however, neither a frenzy of screaming nor seeking admittance, mercifully, to madness' ebony gates of oblivion, for they await their Doom with awful foreknowledge.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Death In Disguise
10 Aug 2003
Format:Paperback
Horror master Arthur Machen's crowning achievement, a still shocking compendium of interwoven short horror tales. In late 19th century London, a scientist and an unpublished writer join forces as amateur detectives in an attempt to solve a minor but puzzling mystery which ultimately leads to the discovery of a truly diabolical conspiracy. In the course of their investigations, the two men find themselves repeatedly surrendering their attention to a series of seemingly outlandish tales spun by an assortment of eccentric story tellers. The stories, which all deal with imposture of some kind, are only tangentially related to each other, yet offer the somewhat bumbling sleuths important clues to the mystery at hand. Machen builds suspense slowly and methodically, masterfully leading the reader on to a completely unexpected, gruesome climax. Comical, tragic, sophisticated, violent, horrific, and even downright disgusting, THE THREE IMPOSTORS is a classic horror novel of sly deception and wit.
The 1995 Everyman paperback is the only critical edition of this remarkably rich book released to date, offering a scholarly introduction (by editor David Trotter) that carefully details Machen's main influences (chiefly Robert Louis Stevenson) and themes (imposture of various kinds, also derived from Stevenson). A short text summary nicely encapsulates the narrative's various twists and turns. Finally, a section entitled "Machen and His Critics" provides a welcome offering of mostly contemporaneous critical responses to this remarkable book; while many of these reviews were laudatory, quite a few passionately outraged quotes reveal just how shocking THE THREE IMPOSTORS must truly have been in its time.
The 1995 Everyman paperback is the only critical edition of this remarkably rich book released to date, offering a scholarly introduction (by editor David Trotter) that carefully details Machen's main influences (chiefly Robert Louis Stevenson) and themes (imposture of various kinds, also derived from Stevenson). A short text summary nicely encapsulates the narrative's various twists and turns. Finally, a section entitled "Machen and His Critics" provides a welcome offering of mostly contemporaneous critical responses to this remarkable book; while many of these reviews were laudatory, quite a few passionately outraged quotes reveal just how shocking THE THREE IMPOSTORS must truly have been in its time.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
An Excellently Presented Anthology
9 Sep 2000
Format:Paperback
Arthur Machen can easily be described as one of the writers who provided the foundation to the 20th century fantasy and horror literature. This one is a great collection of horror stories, most of which has a quite Lovecraftian style. If you are new to Machen, and/or like stories with a tinge of "Mythos Horror" in them, you'll definetely like this one.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Still Impressive After All These Years
20 Mar 2011
I first read Arthur Machen (pronounced MACK-ken) back when I was in college in the early 1970s. I was already a fan of supernatural fiction especially the Victorian ghost story as exemplified by M.R. James and Sheridan Le Fanu. I first found out about Machen when I saw him listed as an influence on H.P. Lovecraft and I had read one of the stories from THE THREE IMPOSTERS, the often excerpted THE NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER and was suitably impressed. THE THREE IMPOSTERS, in its entirety, is a truly remarkable work that links several diverse stories into a framing story of amateur sleuths trying to solve a tantilizing mystery. The writing is suitably colorful, the imagery is astonishly vivid, and the climax is as gruesome as anything that I have come across in books or movies since then.
Machen crops up in fantasy/horror anthologies a lot especially his stories THE GREAT GOD PAN, THE BOWMEN and THE WHITE POWDER which is the most terrifying of the tales told in THE THREE IMPOSTERS. While that story can certainly stand on its own as can another called THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL, they really need to be read within the context of the entire book so that you can really appreciate Machen's skill at constructing a narrative that is deceptively simple yet surprisingly complex. My old Ballentine paperback has seen better days since I first bought it in 1972 so I am glad to see THREE IMPOSTERS in an improved edition as well as available on Kindle, a development that would no doubt have pleased Machen who being an author, journalist, essayist, and translator, would have wanted to reach as wide a reading public as possible.
Machen crops up in fantasy/horror anthologies a lot especially his stories THE GREAT GOD PAN, THE BOWMEN and THE WHITE POWDER which is the most terrifying of the tales told in THE THREE IMPOSTERS. While that story can certainly stand on its own as can another called THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL, they really need to be read within the context of the entire book so that you can really appreciate Machen's skill at constructing a narrative that is deceptively simple yet surprisingly complex. My old Ballentine paperback has seen better days since I first bought it in 1972 so I am glad to see THREE IMPOSTERS in an improved edition as well as available on Kindle, a development that would no doubt have pleased Machen who being an author, journalist, essayist, and translator, would have wanted to reach as wide a reading public as possible.
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