The White People and Other Weird Stories

Arthur Machen wrote of ancient, pagan things surviving underneath the orderly surface of Victorian Britain, and did it with a restraint that makes the horror worse. The title story, a young girl’s diary of initiation into something she does not understand, is among the greatest weird tales ever written. Lovecraft revered him. This Penguin Classics edition carries a foreword by Guillermo del Toro, who praises Machen for weaving a subtle sense of dread from pagan panic and atavistic fear.