NEW POETRY

From December 2020 to September 2021, Darkly Bright Press serialized The Pilgrimage, a long-form poetry project by Phillip Neal Tippin. This week, we happily announce the commencement of Book II.

The Trees by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE MACHEN WEEKLY

The Apologia of Princess: It is impossible, of course, to form a judgement on the story that follows. The Princess’s tale is none too clear; she talks of enemies in high places, of spies, of malignant and concocted scandals, of curtains moving gently in her apartment, of shadowy forms slinking away from her boudoir door. It seems clear that the Tuscan princess was “free and easy,” and the Court of Dresden was the reverse of free and easy. The reigning family, according to the author, is dévote: she, as we have seen, does not like many rosaries in a house. …

I Have No Island by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

The Real King Edward: And there can be no doubt that there has been a very wide impression that King Edward was his own foreign secretary, that in his hands were all the delicate wires which controlled the movements of European international politics. The Germans, indeed, were convinced that King Edward was their deadly foe, a supreme and malefic enchanter who was slowly building up against them a wall of hostile nations and threatening armaments of war. …

Vin Nouveau by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

John Keats:

“Are you fond of Keats?” said the enthusiastic young lady to her partner at the dance.

The young gentleman gave a glance of nervous perplexity and asked, in stammering tones:

‘‘I beg your pardon, but—er—er—what are Keats?”

Kew Gardens: Photo by David Iliff 

NEW POETRY

Always to the Clouds by Joshua Alan Sturgill

GHOSTLY FICTION

At Chrighton Abbey by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Death in some form or other—on too many occasions a violent death—had come between the heir and his inheritance. And when I pondered on the dark pages in the story of the house, I used to wonder whether my cousin Fanny was ever troubled by morbid forebodings about her only and fondly loved son. Was there a ghost at Chrighton—that spectral visitant without which the state and splendour of a grand old house seem scarcely complete? …

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

A Leap into Midsummer: This week, we offer a forgotten news article by Machen and a delightful essay on the Little People.

Return to the Elixir by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

The Night Sky of London: I was looking at this blurred veil of the sky the other night as I strolled from Trafalgar Square towards the Embankment, when I saw a sight that struck me as strange even in the city of strange things. To the left, floating, it seemed, above the housetops, was a rosy cloud, glowing in its heart, and fade away into pale and fleecy wisps of smoke. I walked on; there was a ruby electric light on the roof of the theatre, and this smoke or steam curled about the red globe and took its colour and floated away over the dark walls. …

LATE SUMMER: Akboritha by Richard W. Rohlin

I Tried Walking Off The Job: A prose-poem by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

Andrew of the Brindled Hair: Andrew Lang is dead; and English literature has sustained a loss which it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to repair…

This summer, Akboritha by Richard W. Rohlin will be published by Darkly Bright Press. Read more.

Informed by Joshua Alan Sturgill

The Weekly Machen

The Life Worth Living: There is one thing that makes me sorry about the Prefatory Note with which Mr. Sidney Dark introduces his story, “The Man who would not be King.” That one thing is that I wish I had written every word of it myself…

POETRY

Four Poems by Osip Mandelstam in new translations by Benjamin Rozonoyer

Boundary by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

A New School of Acting: What I do hope is that the cinema may reform and purge the theatre, both in little things and in great. It is a little thing, perhaps, that in a costly scene, a Norman keep, with walls that pretend to be ten feet thick, should shake and quiver in a draught as if the massy stones were aspen leaves; but such odd doings of the scenery distract the attention and shatter the illusion that they are meant to provoke. They destroy the drama which scenic art is designed to illustrate and intensity and enhance.

The Sunday of the Paralytic by Joshua Alan Sturgill

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

Into the Great Deep: This service over those drowned men of the lost submarine was surely one of the strangest that has ever been held. They, in the very act of death, were already buried: they were coffined in the boat that they had served, and as they died their roomy grave was prepared already and awaited them; even the vast and shining hollow of the sea.

Whereunto Shall I Liken This Generation? by Joshua Alan Sturgill

GHOSTLY FICTION

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle guides into the frigid wastes on an expedition of horror in The Captain of the “Pole-Star.”

THE WEEKLY MACHEN

The War Behind The War: So all through the book Mr. Hind sees the temporal conflict as the mere veil of the eternal battle; and thus, I say, that he has been afforded a great and singular privilege: that is, he has written the book which our Bishops should have written. Presumably; it is their business, or a chief part of their business, as pontiffs of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to discern things eternal in things temporal, to proffer the clear lamp of eternal light to those who go down into the thick darkness of the battle. However, they have not quite seen their duty in this aspect…