Arthur Machen 
A Fragment of Life 

“A Fragment of Life” is a 1904 short story by Welsh author Arthur Machan. A young couple unsatisfied with their banal married life turn to spirituality for fulfilment, but what they find in the end isn’t exactly what they were looking for. A masterful supernatural tale with macabre undertones, “A Fragment of Life” constitutes a must-read for fans of classic fantasy and sci-fi fiction. Arthur Machen (1863 – 1947) was a Welsh author and renowned mystic during the 1890s and early 20th century who garnered literary acclaim for his contributions to the supernatural, horror, and fantasy fiction genres. His seminal novella “The Great God Pan” (1890) has become a classic of horror fiction, with Stephen King describing it as one of the best horror stories written in the English language. Other notable fans of his gruesome tales include William Butler Yeats and Arthur Conan Doyle, and his work has been compared to Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, and Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Other notable works by this author include: “The Great God Pan” (1894), “The Hill of Dreams” (1907), and “The White People’ (1904)”. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.