RIP Mark Samuels [by R.B. Russell]

We are very sorry to hear that the author Mark Samuels passed away peacefully in his sleep on the night of 2nd/3rd December, aged 56 (writes R B Russell on behalf of The Friends of Arthur Machen). We would like to pass on condolences to the family and friends of Mark, who will be known to many as the author of a number of books in the weird fiction genre, beginning with his collection The White Hands and Other Weird Tales in 2003.  More recent fiction has been scheduled for what will now be posthumous publication.

Mark was a member of the original Arthur Machen Society in the 1990s, and would later become active in its successor, the Friends of Arthur Machen, becoming Secretary for two different terms. He will be remembered from many meetings of the Friends (from annual dinners, to more ad hoc pub crawls), as great company; he was a knowledgeable and passionate advocate for writers such as Machen, Lovecraft and Ligotti, as well as enjoying, like Machen, good conversation, drink, food and tobacco.

I first met Mark in the 1990s through the Society and we met many times in London and Wales, sharing an interest not only in weird fiction, but authors of the 1890s. I remember having a long conversation with Mark about Edgar Allan Poe’s philosophy of ‘unity of effect’ in the short story, and published his essay on the subject, ‘Brilliance beyond Darkness’ in 1994. Mark’s own fiction was often at its best when he employed Poe’s philosophy: Mark was not particularly interested in writing stories set in recognisable and benign present day settings into which the weird or uncanny might slowly intrude.

From the outset, Mark’s stories take place in a strange and decaying world—one that is often blighted, if not diseased. This gives his fiction a bleak vision and an intensity that has been admired by many readers as well as fellow-authors, since the first magazine appearances of his stories in the 1980s. Apart from in his own books, his stories have been published in such prestigious anthologies as The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, A Mountain Walks, and The Weird.

Mark’s first great literary influence was H.P. Lovecraft, but Machen was to become an equally strong influence. Mark wrote:

'Machen had a significant advantage over Lovecraft for me, in that he was a Londoner like myself. So I could immediately identify with the locales he describes in much of his fiction in a way that I couldn’t with Lovecraft’s Providence and Rhode Island. Machen’s vision of London as some interminable labyrinth of mysterious wonder and horror took firmer hold of my imagination, since I experienced it on a daily basis. Now one could argue that this is just an accident of birth and has no bearing on their respective literary merits, which I think is true. In terms of their contribution to the literary weird continuum, I would place them on an approximately equal level. I don’t think Machen’s work is, overall, necessarily superior to Lovecraft’s. . . . Both men were remarkable prose-stylists who recognised that the creation of atmosphere in a supernatural horror tale required a language of heightened sensitivity.'

Mark Samuels was not averse to controversy. I had a couple of bust-ups with him (I was not without some degree of blame both times) and we had some profound disagreements, but we always managed to put those things behind us, sit down over a drink, and resume our friendship. I was delighted when (post disagreements) he dedicated his 2011 Chômu Press edition of The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Stories to me.

Mark had become a Roman Catholic in his mid-twenties, and discussed his faith in relation to his literary interests and writings in a fascinating interview with Matt Cardin in 2000. On his death, Mark received, as was his request, Last Rites.

In recent years Mark had moved to King’s Langley, just outside of London. He was living close to his partner, Madeleine Harrison, with whom he planned his future. When The Friends of Arthur Machen meet in Hay on Wye in March, in the midst of the bookish and Machenian talk, he will be sorely missed, and we will raise a glass to him. In the wider world of weird literature, he will continue to be read.

A Mark Samuels Bibliography

Novels

 A Pilgrim Stranger, self published 2017

Witch-Cult Abbey, Zagava, 2021

Novellas

The Face of Twilight, PS Publishing, 2006, reprinted self published 2016

Glyphotech, PS Publishing, 2008

Short Story Collections

The White Hands and Other Weird Tales, Tartarus Press, 2003 (translated as Die Weißen Hände und andere Geschichten des Grauens)

Black Altars, Rainfall Books, 2003

The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Stories, Ex Occidente Press, 2010, reprinted as The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales, Chômu Press, 2011

Written in Darkness, Egaeus Press, 2014, Chômu Press, 2017

Glyphotech and Other Macabre Processes, self published 2016

The Prozess Manifestations, Zagava, 2017

The Age of Decayed Futurity: The Best of Mark Samuels, Hippocampus Press, 2020

Essays

Prophecies and Dooms, self published, 2018

(R B Russell)