The Hill of Dreams

Often compared to Huysmans' A Rebours, The Hill of Dreams is a meditation on alienation and the lure of the fantastical

From his earliest literary experimentation, Arthur Machen refused to sit in his own time, clawing his way back to a past inhabited by false gods and terrifying fairies. The Hill of Dreams thus performs a kind of reverse archeology. Instead of the writerly excavation of character development and world-building, Machen entombs his main character, Lucian Taylor, in his own min...