Felix John Taylor

ft. my essay on what Lovecraft thought of Wales and Welsh people (not flattering, with the exception of Arthur Machen) - whole issue should be online soon!

It's half nine in the evening, fool, quit trying to index a whole book

A short post about my trip to the US to see some Arthur Machen archives (part one of who knows how many?) felixtaylor.org/arthur-mache...

A highlight: the cavernous basement of the Strand bookshop in NYC!

‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ will be published by Oxford University Press on 10 September 2025. Set your watches, mark your calendars, and spread the word!

How the hell is anyone with a wfh desk job expected to do 10k steps a day? I would LOVE to do 10k steps a day.

Lucia Joyce - daughter of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle - in 1928. Photo by Berenice Abbott, born 17 July.

British artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare
#AustinOsmanSpare

Astral body and ghost, 1946
(Spare's interpretation of the merging of the astral body and the Kia (or Zos), representing the state of self-realization and potential transformation.)

#Occultism #Thelema #ChaosMagic

Not very representative, really! Prose writers in the Welsh language were mainly social realists like Kate Roberts. Allen Raine was writing romantic novels in late 19thC, some of them witchy, but I don't know if they're much like Machen.. hope this helps

I was in New York for the first time last week, my neck hurts

How does the pulp scholar access their primary material, is it archives (John Hay?) or do you find yourself having to buy a lot of the stuff you write about

I agree, I read it in equal wonder and disbelief. I don't think I've come across a better response to Lovecraft's world

He spoke about it in an interview a few years later, just that he thought he went too far with some of it. I mean, he went on to write Providence, so I don't think the regret was deeply felt!

Neonomicon yikes - he regrets writing this

Good fresh takes on an exceptional career in this. I read Garner's memoir a few months back - he continues to mine the same themes, but with age is far more candid and says things he's never said before

Novel reading is declining at the same rate across genders, I've heard. Situation sucks but I doubt applying 'romantasy' tropes to 'male-oriented fiction' is going to help!

Photo of a bird called a Japanese Snow Fairy, which looks like a snowball with wings.

Japanese Snow Fairy.

Processing some interesting stuff today, this issue of Astounding Science Fiction from 1950 - contains one of Sprague de Camp's anthropological essays, and a discerning fan letter from a 20-year-old Lin carter

Both great, have you come across Alex Murray's Decadent Conservatism, out earlier this year? Section on Machen and little magazines

Out on July 17th from British Library Publishing. This is an absolute must for me. Love Buchan’s weird fiction.

The Strange Stories of John Buchan - British Library Gilded Nightmares edited by James Machin.

New blog post on people who were not members of the Order of the Golden Dawn: felixtaylor.org/the-order-of...

Arthur Machen owned a pet bulldog during the 1890s called Juggernaut (or 'Jug' or sometimes 'Juggy').When he entered a room he would take the best seat by the fire 'with many groans and grunts of joy'. But who looked after him when Machen went off on his acting tours?? The true mystery.

Frank O'Hara Lunch Poems

It's lunch time (kind of) and it's a good opportunity to remind you how great this is

Owl by (I think) Claud Lovat Fraser, 1921

I'd say it must have the qualities of a folktale, or else use as a device traditions of a particular culture, real or invented

How deep an influence was HPL on REH? Do you think his writings would have developed in the same way had the they not corresponded?

How long is the entry? Love the idea of plentiful Machens

Victor Hugo, 'Planet-Eye' (c. 1854)

Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker by Zachary Leader Leader (The Life of Saul Bellow), an English professor emeritus at the University of Roehampton in London, provides an excellent...

This is the next level down (or up?), there can't be many biographies of biographies out there www.publishersweekly.com/9780674248397

I am nothing if not naïve