The House of Souls - Arthur Machen

The Great God Pan and 'The White People' are classics of the horror genre, while The Inmost Light is more conventional, but still a damn good piece. A Fragment of Life, the only non-horror tale in the collection, has its tedious sections, but this proves to be intentional as a rendering of the ephemera of life drowning out the beauty.

Machen's career, though rarely less than entertaining, eventually descended into lesser material going over the same ideas, but The House of Souls is one of his essential books along with The Hill of Dreams, Ornaments in Jade and The Three Impostors. Uniquely powerful literature from a veritable visionary. (Jim Smith)