Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The White People
An Annotated Edition
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English Edition · Branch 15 of 15
Sources and further reading
The White People
p. 15Sources and further reading
The reading text
Arthur Machen, “The White People,” in The House of Souls, Prologue, The Green Book, and Epilogue, printed pp. 113–166 in the edition transcribed by Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg ebook 25016, updated 3 January 2021; consulted 3 October 2026. The Gutenberg credits name Suzanne Shell, Stephen Blundell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Its transcription is the source of the fiction reproduced here.
Arthur Machen, introduction to The House of Souls, especially printed pp. xv–xvi in the same source. Machen dates the composition to 1899, discusses the anecdote about the injured fingers, and explicitly distinguishes his invented rituals from collected folklore. The new introduction’s account of his retrospective explanation rests on these pages.
Arthur Machen, “The White People,” Horlick’s Magazine, vol. 1 (1904), pp. 57–78. Digitized magazine volume at IAPSOP. This early printing corroborates the full three-part structure. The present edition does not supply a record of variants between printings.
References behind the notes
The Bible, King James Version: Matthew 11:12; Luke 7:35; 1 Corinthians 13:3; Revelation 21:8 and 22:15. These passages supply the scriptural comparisons identified in the notes. Chapter and verse are given so the allusions can be checked in any suitable edition. King James Bible at Project Gutenberg.
Guy de Maupassant, “Qui sait?” (1890), translated under such titles as “Who Knows?” The tale provides the walking furniture recalled by Ambrose. Its uncertainty over testimony and perception makes it a useful companion reading.
For the historical vocabulary of labyrinths, compare W. H. Matthews, Mazes and Labyrinths (1922), chapters X–XI and XVIII, on turf mazes and “Troy” names. Full text at Project Gutenberg. The historical name helps explain Machen’s reference; it does not authenticate the particular powers attributed to the game in his fiction.
Museum Wales, “Witch bottles and healing charms”, for Welsh serpent-stone traditions and Glain Nadredd. This supplies a comparison for the glame stone, not an attribution of Machen’s direct source.
Reading beside Machen
Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics (1902). His sustained discussion of literature and ecstasy is the most direct companion to the opening debate. It can clarify a recurring concern without making Ambrose a transparent spokesman for the author.
The other stories in The House of Souls offer different approaches to the relation between ordinary life and another order of experience. A Fragment of Life is particularly useful beside this tale because wonder need not always take a horrific form; The Great God Pan offers a more overtly catastrophic encounter with the hidden.
The annotations in this edition are explanatory and interpretive. They do not constitute an exhaustive bibliography, a historical catalogue of folk belief, or a claim to have identified every source of Machen’s invention.
Socrates
Reading The White People · Sources and further reading · Sources and further reading
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Arthur Machen’s The White People follows forbidden knowledge through an unsettling conversation and a girl’s private manuscript. This complete annotated English edition preserves the Prologue, The Green Book, and Epilogue, with 32 explanatory notes and sources for further reading.
Historical Text
The reading text follows The House of Souls as transcribed in Project Gutenberg ebook 25016. Machen composed the story in 1899, and it first appeared in Horlick’s Magazine in 1904. The supplied edition preserves the complete three-part story, its original paragraph divisions, spelling, punctuation, italics, and five verse couplets. Diotimos page numbers identify this reading edition.
About This Edition
Diotimos Editions prepared 32 explanatory notes for this English original. They clarify unfamiliar words, historical references, and details of Machen’s imagined rituals, while distinguishing a character’s account from an established explanation. Each note remains attached to its passage. The reading text retains the original paragraph divisions, spelling, punctuation, italics, and verse, including the long paragraphs of The Green Book.
Rights
Arthur Machen’s original English text is in the public domain in the United States. The editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked Gutenberg transcription identifies the reading text, while the 1904 magazine supplies an early historical witness. This is an annotated reading edition; it does not claim a complete collation of variants between printings.