The White People
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| Author | Arthur Machen |
|---|---|
| Country | Wales |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short Story |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1904 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | NA |
The White People is a horrific short story by Welsh writer Arthur Machen.
[edit] Synopsis
A discussion of two men on the nature of Evil leads one of them to reveal a mysterious Green Book he possesses. It is a young girl's diary which outlines in strange and evocative writing her day to day life, and conversations with her nurse, gradually developing a mounting atmosphere of horror with suggestions of witchcraft. The story makes curious allusions to nymphs," Dols," voolas," "white, green, and scarlet ceremonies," "Aklo letters," "Chian language," and "Mao games."
[edit] Details
Written in the late 1890s as part of a longer unfinished novel this story is generally thought to be one of the greatest of all works of supernatural horror, and is frequently reprinted. H. P. Lovecraft called it the second greatest work in weird fiction after Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. He used many of Machen's strange references in the tale in his stories in the Cthulhu Mythos. Machen's own occult experiences of ritual magic in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, may form a basis for some of the ideas in the story. T. E. D. Klein's novel The Ceremonies also was heavily influenced by the story while the plot for Pan's Labyrinth also may draw on it. The idea of the Green Book as a false document is an old idea in the Gothic Novel and is of course similar to the many such items used by Lovecraft like the Necronomicon.
