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The Tree of Life
- GenresShort Stories
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About the author
Arthur Machen
1,055 books983 followersArthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
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May 9, 2020
In Machen’s 1936 tale “The Tree of Life,” Teilo Morgan had a few boyhood years of health in the Welsh hills, but he’s stricken by sudden illness and becomes an invalid and recluse. Teilo’s father had been a rakehell before he discovered the young girl he took to himself and on whom he fathered the boy. Years later, an elderly clubman remembers him mourning his innocent son’s plight; “’He used to talk about his sins finding him out.’”
Teilo suffers mental impairment as well as ruined physical health. At his father’s direction, the boy’s tutor “teaches” him in such a way that learning is a delight, even if riddled with error. However, when the father dies, it turns out that the boy’s mother has no proof of marriage, and she and her son end up in a London slum. Later, Harry Morgan, who inherits the property, tracks them down, not in time to save the mother’s life, but bringing Teilo back to Wales, and instructing the estate agent, Captain Vaughan, to keep him in the illusion that he is lord of the property and to encourage him in his fanciful notions about agricultural improvement. Teilo loves thinking of clever innovations that will benefit everyone in the area, e.g. relating to growing pineapples, and talking his ideas over on Vaughan’s weekly visits. Vaughan plays his role right up to Teilo’s death, conjuring vivid images of the land round about, which Teilo relishes. (One thinks of the dog in Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary.”) The story ends with a strong affirmation of Vaughan and Morgan’s compassionate deception, voiced by a major who has listened to the story...
Teilo suffers mental impairment as well as ruined physical health. At his father’s direction, the boy’s tutor “teaches” him in such a way that learning is a delight, even if riddled with error. However, when the father dies, it turns out that the boy’s mother has no proof of marriage, and she and her son end up in a London slum. Later, Harry Morgan, who inherits the property, tracks them down, not in time to save the mother’s life, but bringing Teilo back to Wales, and instructing the estate agent, Captain Vaughan, to keep him in the illusion that he is lord of the property and to encourage him in his fanciful notions about agricultural improvement. Teilo loves thinking of clever innovations that will benefit everyone in the area, e.g. relating to growing pineapples, and talking his ideas over on Vaughan’s weekly visits. Vaughan plays his role right up to Teilo’s death, conjuring vivid images of the land round about, which Teilo relishes. (One thinks of the dog in Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary.”) The story ends with a strong affirmation of Vaughan and Morgan’s compassionate deception, voiced by a major who has listened to the story...
Displaying 1 of 1 review