Some of Machen's horror tales have a tantalizingly unfinished quality. I am tempted to try to put them together like parts of a jigsaw puzzle. One approach to this is to look for recurring characters. Here's what I have found so far:

DYSON - An idle London bachelor of independent means, who claims to be producing literature, though he never ever seems to produce anything for publication. More through instinct and fate and luck than through method and skill, he is also an occasional occult detective. He appears in (at least) 4 tales: "The Inmost Light", "The Three Impostors", "The Red Hand", and "The Shining Pyramid".

AMBROSE THE RECLUSE (from "The White People") and THE HERMIT (from "Hieroglyphics) - these are evidently the same person, both living in North London in a moldering house behind an unkempt garden, and both having similar views and personality.

CHARLES PHILLIPPS - An acquaintance of Dyson, a materialist, and an amateur ethnologist familiar with prehistoric relics, who lives in Red Lion Square. Appears in "The Three Impostors" and "The Red Hand," and (perhaps, if it is not another person with the same last name) in "The Lost Club."

AUSTIN - A well-to-do gentleman with some familiarity with clubs and society. He appears in "The Great God Pan" and "The Lost Club".

DAVIES: Member of a hidden cult. Is mentioned, in "The Inmost Light", where he also may be the drunk man, and in "The Three Impostors" as Mr. Davies a/k/a Mr. Burton. In both works he is associated, in a fuzzy indetermined way, with the pursuit of a mysterious opal - the same opal, perhaps, that Dyson destroys at the end of "The Inmost Light".

HELEN: An absolutely diabolic young woman associated with hidden pagan activities. Appears in "The Great God Pan" (as Helen Vaughan a/k/a Helen Raymond a/k/a Helen Herbert a/k/a Mrs. Beaumont) and in "The Three Impostors" (as Miss Lally a/k/a Miss Leicester). Through her aliases and impostures, she is also associated, in some obscure way, with "The Novel of the Black Seal" and "The Novel of the White Powder". This is the one I take to be the most disputable. Does anyone care to argue they are not the same person?

Quote:

Platypus
DYSON - An idle London bachelor of independent means...

This wouldn't be Sir James Dyson, the inventor of the vacuum cleaner with the brushless electric motor, would it?

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Feb 22 | 06:38PM by Sawfish.

Sawfish Wrote:
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> DYSON - An idle London bachelor of independent
> means...
>
> This wouldn't be Sir James Dyson, the inventor of
> the vacuum cleaner with the brushless electric
> motor, would it?

Born about 90 years too late. Besides which, achieving anything of practical usefulness would be entirely contrary to Dyson's character.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Feb 22 | 08:02PM by Platypus.