NEW POETRY
Joshua Alan Sturgill returns with Things.
Scrooge 1920: Scrooge was undoubtedly getting on in life, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Ten years had gone by since the spirit of old Jacob Marley had visited him . . .
How Will Mr. Machen Spend Christmas Day?
Folk-Lore, Water Babies and Mermaids: The last reported appearance of a mermaid is so recent as the end of April 1910. Several people, including Martin Griffin, my informant, saw what they are firmly convinced was a merwoman in a cove a little to the north of Spanish Point, near Miltown, Malbay. She was white-skinned, and had well-shaped white hands. The party tried to make friends with her, giving her bread, which she ate. Then a Quilty fisherman got frightened, said she was “something bad,” and threw a pebble at her, on which she plunged into the sea and disappeared.
NEW POETRY
Melancholia by Joshua Alan Sturgill
A Welsh Mystery: Perhaps Mr. Arthur Machen is at the back of it all.
Six Weeks’ Drought: Six weeks’ drought, with a few slight rainfalls that are hardly worth mentioning; I thought I should find a brown desert; such as I saw in travelling from London to Harwich on a day in August 1914; the day when the news of the Namur was announced. But there was nothing like this.
NEW POETRY
The Dream About My Grandmother by Joshua Alan Sturgill
A Strawberry Idyll: And so the best berry that God made is scarce and dear this year. I am sorry for it. The strawberry is a great part of our English summer; it is part of the splendour, with sunlight and wild roses swaying from hedgerows, and cool cups and asparagus and solemn, scented nights.
NEW POETRY
Abandoned by Joshua Alan Sturgill
MARTINMAS: Arthur Machen on the High Holy Day
Through a Door Off Oxford-Street: Here is another face of the everlasting wonder and enchantment of London. You stray into some new, red, raw suburbs, all plate-glass shops, cheap goods, shiny villas, and the rest of it; and at a corner here is a mansion that deny with one voice that Queen Anne is dead.
NEW POETRY
A Strange Certainty by Joshua Alan Sturgill
A short study on two Welsh saints and their role in Arthur Machen’s work.
Patsy—The Bad Boy: That is one side of the matter; and Mr. G. K. Chesterton, author of “Irish Impressions” (Collins, 7s. 6d., net) enforces it very clearly. But he is apparently unaware that there is another proposition to be stated, as equally and as absolutely true: Ireland has failed to govern itself.
LISTEN TO THE BOWMEN
The EnCrypted Podcast is an excellent series of classic ghost stories performed by a talented voice actor and boosted by high-production values. The program list highlights classics from M. R. James, E. F. Benson and many other masters of the craft. Of course, I highly recommend the episode which presents both “The Bowmen” and “Out of the Earth” by Arthur Machen.
Gossip About Books and Authors: So impartial was he that he was clearly inclined to attribute the noise made by a man knocking out his pipe in a railway carriage to “the spirits.” The Spiritualist who was with Mr. Moseley told him that the sound was made by a man knocking out his pipe. And Mr. Moseley notes that this remark was to the Spiritualist gentleman’s credit. This is odd: if you are speaking of a man of presumed humour and honesty, you do not praise him for not cheating at cards.
Purchase Ordeal by Beauty by Ralph Adams Cram here.
NEW POETRY
The Passerby by Joshua Alan Sturgill
MACHEN MISCELLANEA
The fourth installment of Gossip About Books and Authors: “Bhoys,” he said, “I am an old soldier myself, and I could give you a few wrinkles in drill.” The Sinn Fein army accepted his offer, and for two Sundays he “Drilled the hell out of them”– to use his own idiom. On the third Sunday there was no rebel army: it had got tired.
COPIES STILL AVAILABLE:
“Beauty must be linked again with life, and art given back its true service.” Ralph Adams Cram
Darkly Bright Press is pleased to present a new limited chapbook edition of Ralph Adam Cram’s Ordeal by Beauty, a challenging indictment of modernity, which describes the antidote to its sterility and decadence. As the recovery of beauty remains a vital concern for the twenty-first century, an era of re-enchantment, this needful essay is now being offered to the modern reader.
Limited Edition of 50 Copies
TO ORDER CHAPBOOK ($12 USD + Shipping)
Other International Customers: Please contact us for shipping rates to your country: info@darklybrightpress.com.
A third installment of Gossip About Books and Authors: “The Anchor,” by M. T. H. Sadler (Constable), is not perhaps a very good novel. But it is a very interesting experiment. There is a newness in the author’s vision of things which seems to me to promise that he will experiment and experiment again, and that he will find gold in his crucible at last.
“Beauty must be linked again with life, and art given back its true service.” Ralph Adams Cram
Darkly Bright Press is pleased to present a new limited chapbook edition of Ralph Adam Cram’s Ordeal by Beauty, a challenging indictment of modernity, which describes the antidote to its sterility and decadence. As the recovery of beauty remains a vital concern for the twenty-first century, an era of re-enchantment, this needful essay is now being offered to the modern reader.
Limited Edition of 50 Copies
TO ORDER CHAPBOOK ($12 USD + Shipping)
Other International Customers: Please contact us for shipping rates to your country: info@darklybrightpress.com.
NEW POETRY
Which I? by Joshua Alan Sturgill
The first Gossip About Books and Authors: It this a true statement? Is humanity in the mass deaf and blind and insensible to all that is beautiful in art? I am afraid that this or something very like this is the truth.
darklybrightpress.com 