Biography Machen, Arthur: Far Off Things, v.1, 12 January 2009

[Patricia]

Arthur Machen (1863–1947)
Far Off Things (1922)

Written in 1915 and first published in book form, 1922, this is an autobiography, in which Arthur Machen covers his childhood in South Wales and his early literary career in London. He shows how the landscape of Gwent deeply influenced his later writings. (e.g. “As soon as I saw anything I saw Twyn Barlwm, that mystic tumulus, the memorial of peoples that dwelt in that region before the Celts left the Land of Summer.”)

I made it from scans at the Internet Archive and added a cover picture of Twm Barlwm (which Machen spells as ‘Twyn Barlwm’), the mysterious, breast-shaped mountain that is a feature of the Gwent landscape. I actually walk along the canal path depicted quite often (though there is a motorway alongside parts of it now) and know most of the locations mentioned.

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