Page:Arthur Machen, A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin.djvu/36

30 in London and the shabbiest music halls in London's East End. For the last six years or so he has been a descriptive writer on the London Evening News.

His works not before mentioned comprise a translation (the best) of the "Heptameron"; "Fantastic Tales," a collection of mediaeval whimsies, partly translated and partly original and altogether Rabelaisian and delightful; "The Terror," a "shilling shocker" (his own characterization), but a finer work withal than most of the "literature" of the day, and "The Great Return," an extraordinary short tale which may find place some day in another such collection as "The House of Souls."

I have mentioned "The Chronicle of Clemendy," calling it a classic, and something further should be said about that astonishing book. It is the Welsh "Heptameron," a chronicle of amorous intrigue, joyous drunkenness, and knightly endeavor second to none in the brief muster of the world's greatest classics. In it there is the veritable flavour of mediaeval record. Somewhat less outspoken than Balzac in his "Droll Stories," and less verbose than Boccaccio, Machen proves himself the peer of either in gay,