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The Ceremony
- GenresShort StoriesHorror
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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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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 11, 2022
Arthur Machen is a name that horror and fantasy fiction fans will be familiar with.
In this book, he tells the story of a young lady who is having visions of a grey stone in the woods.
She is afraid of the stone. One day she hears a sobbing from the woods. She sees a young lady who she is familiar with standing near the stone and a ceremony being done in honor of the stone. What will happen to her? Why was the ceremony being done? Many questions will come to the reader's mind while reading this book
With his beautiful narration, the author takes us deep into the story with just a few lines. He finishes the book abruptly in an open-ended manner leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. This book will give you an interesting reading experience.
In this book, he tells the story of a young lady who is having visions of a grey stone in the woods.
"She often used to think of the strangeness of very early life; one came, it seemed, from a dark cloud, there was a glow of light, but for a moment, and afterwards the night. It was as if one gazed at a velvet curtain, heavy, mysterious, impenetrable blackness, and then, for the twinkling of an eye, one spied through a pin-hole a storied town that flamed, with fire about its walls and pinnacles. And then again the folding darkness, so that sight became illusion, almost in the seeing."
She is afraid of the stone. One day she hears a sobbing from the woods. She sees a young lady who she is familiar with standing near the stone and a ceremony being done in honor of the stone. What will happen to her? Why was the ceremony being done? Many questions will come to the reader's mind while reading this book
With his beautiful narration, the author takes us deep into the story with just a few lines. He finishes the book abruptly in an open-ended manner leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. This book will give you an interesting reading experience.
November 16, 2022
The Ceremony is one of ten literary vignettes contained in Machen's Ornaments in Jade volume. These short narratives are considered by most as prose poems which begin and end in medias res where a character is introduced in the midst of a scene emphasizing magical instances, spiritual experiences, and fleeting moments where the veil between worlds becomes thin this being a major theme in most of Machen's work.
This story is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards fearful young females and draws them to make strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic ceremonies.
This story is the eerie tale of a standing stone which exerts a supernatural pull towards fearful young females and draws them to make strange and mysterious offerings, at secret erotic ceremonies.
July 2, 2018
A young girl is troubled by visions or memories from her youth of a unnatural grey stone in the woods which she has an irrational fear of. Eventually she creeps out and observes another girl enacting a ceremony in honour of the stone, and eventually, she in her turn acts it out also.
May 8, 2020
Find it difficult to understand. A young little girl had her dear of grey stone. Later she found another girl named Annie Dolben who happened to be performing a ceremony in honour of that stone and it continues by her joining too...
August 1, 2023
Pagan, erotic, female gaze ❤️
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews