Arthur Machen's Occult Catalogues

In June 1885 Arthur Machen worked for the bookseller and publisher George Redway on 'a mass of odd literature stored in a garret in Catherine Street . . . as odd a library as any man could desire to see. Occultism in one sense or another was the subject of most of the books.’ The result was Machen's The Literature of Occultism and Archaeology, followed by a further catalogue in 1887.

Later, Machen and his friend Harry Spurr created a business under the name of ‘Thomas Marvell’ and produced Thesaurus Incantatus, ‘a remarkable combination of magico-alchemical fable and a very select catalogue of alchemical books’. This was published in a small edition in December 1888.

Machen retained his enthusiasm for esoteric literature and thirty-five years later gave his support to a catalogue of modern literature issued by R. Townley Searle’s First Edition Bookshop in 1923. Machen’s foreword, ‘The Grande Trouvaille’, describes a successful quest for books in the company of Waite.

Tartarus Press has kindly produced, for The Friends of Arthur Machen, a new hardback book, Arthur Machen's Occult Catalogues, edited by R.A. Gilbert, and reproducing all these rare and recondite catalogues.

This limited, hardback, first edition, will be available free, only to members of The Friends of Arthur Machen, and cannot be obtained elsewhere. To join, subscribe here. The offer will end when the edition runs out.

If you are already a member, you should receive your copy in the Friends' Spring mailing (around May), along with the hardback journal, Faunus, and newsletter, Machenalia.

Mark Valentine