Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The White People
An Annotated Edition
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English Edition · Branch 8 of 15
The Green Book · Part 4
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Reading The White People · The Green Book · The Green Book · Part 4
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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 They clarify unfamiliar words, historical references, and details of Machen’s imagined rituals, while distinguishing a character’s account from an established explanation.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.