The collection of works by the recognized master of horror Arthur Machen (1863–1947) includes the novel “Hill of Dreams” and the story “White Men”. In The Hill of Dreams, the young hero, whose reality is torn by images of non-existent worlds, responds to the magic of ancient Wales and burns himself in that secret garden where “every rose is a flame and from which there is no return.” The poetic story “White People,” perhaps one of Machen’s most beautiful, masterfully constructed works, tells about forbidden witchcraft and the customs of an ominous witch cult. Arthur Machen needs no introduction; it will be enough to give two reviews of the works included in the collection: In his review Lord Alfred Douglas wrote about the novel “Hill of Dreams”: “There is something sinful in the beauty of this book. She is like a strange orchid, the color of which is painfully painful and repulsive at the same time, and the smell is unbearably sweet and almost deprives one of consciousness. The cruelty of this book is far more savage than the most cruel of the descriptions presented in it... It is like a terrible liturgy in honor of pain that poisons itself, pain set to music, every note of which is strictly verified: the melody becomes truly unbearable, for every phrase is perfected to perfection, and the modulations are unsurpassed.” “Mr. Machen’s narrative,” wrote Howard Philips Lovecraft about the story “White Men,” “is a triumph of masterful selection and restraint <...>, and even the most severe critic recognizes in the narrative a masterpiece of fantastic prose, with incredible powerfully conveying hidden horror and cosmic aberration.”