Books with title The White Terror

"Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern District: Many Fatalities." The working man told me about it, and added some dreadful details. Corpses so terribly maimed that coffins had been kept covered; faces mutilated as if by some gnawing animal. . . . I took a tram to the location of the disaster; a raw and hideous shed with a walled yard about it, and a shut gate. The roof was quite undamaged -- this had had been a strange accident. There had been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill work-people in the building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars.

After two years we are turning once more to the morning's news with a sense of appetite and glad expectation. There were thrills at the beginning of the war; the thrill of horror and of a doom that seemed at once incredible and certain; this was when Namur fell and the German host swelled like a flood over the French fields, and drew very near to the walls of Paris. Then we felt the thrill of exultation when the good news came that the awful tide had been turned back, that Paris and the world were safe; for awhile at all events.

"The Terror" offer modern readers a story in a framework familiar from television shows like "The X-Files". During the midst of The Great War, odd occurrences and singular deaths have been plaguing a small town in Wales and its environs. There are hints that these strange incidents, mostly involving mass or singular killings in isolated locales but also encompassing destruction of factories and machinery, are actually occurring countrywide but a government-imposed news blackout has made this impossible to verify. The story follows two characters, a local doctor and a friend, as they begin to piece evidence together, at first not even realizing that some events are related. How could a small child be found smothered to death in a field with no mark on her person? Why did horses stampede through a military encampment in the middle of the night? Who beat a family to death outside their lonely country cottage? Why did a boat flounder and sink in calm water and another run aground, its crew dead and reduced to skeletons? What is the secret of a vast, dark cloud-like mass filled with twinkling lights that looms across the countryside at twilight?Machen spins a fine tale, although one must admit to a bit of repetition and circularity (one of the dozens, if not thousands, of Machen fans on the web are probably better placed to answer this, but I wonder if the work was originally intended to, or actually did, appear in a serialized form, as some of the chapter starts feature a mild form of story recap). Also, the story is told as a reporting of these events as already passed, framed with a (notably modern) feeling that the Government imposed censorship of the news reports did more harm than good. What this "collection of events" approach means is that there is no attempt at what modern readers would call "characterization" of the leads (they are really just "stolid Englishmen") and also no real ending to the story. More or less, it just stops. No clear-cut answer is given as to the events (another thing modern readers seem to demand), although two possibilities are posited, both of which require the reader to embrace a vaguely spiritual worldview (keeping with Machen's personal spiritual/quasi-paganist beliefs, if they can be termed that). It's not possible to say much more because the solving of the agency of the attacks, if not their origin, is the point of the exercise. But for those willing to enagage in a nearly century old work that touches on some modern themes (the major one not mentioned here, as it gives the tale away), some of which have been seen on film since the publication of this work, "The Terror" is a fine way to pass some time.

"Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern District: Many Fatalities." The working man told me about it, and added some dreadful details. Corpses so terribly maimed that coffins had been kept covered; faces mutilated as if by some gnawing animal. . . . I took a tram to the location of the disaster; a raw and hideous shed with a walled yard about it, and a shut gate. The roof was quite undamaged -- this had had been a strange accident. There had been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill work-people in the building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

"Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern District: Many Fatalities." The working man told me about it, and added some dreadful details. Corpses so terribly maimed that coffins had been kept covered; faces mutilated as if by some gnawing animal. . . . I took a tram to the location of the disaster; a raw and hideous shed with a walled yard about it, and a shut gate. The roof was quite undamaged -- this had had been a strange accident. There had been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill work-people in the building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars.

Conspiracy theorists will be thrilled with Welsh-born author Arthur Machen's short novel The Terror. In it, a number of residents of a quaint Welsh village begin to notice the alarmingly large number of strange incidents that have been occurring in and around their community. Gradually, a few begin to piece the clues together—and in the process, they stumble on a terrible secret.

Arthur Machen ( 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan (1890; 1894) has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror (Stephen King has called it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language". He is also well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons. The Terror (1917) — In wartime Britain, a series of unexplained murders occur with no sign of who or what is responsible.

After two years we are turning once more to the morning's news with a sense of appetite and glad expectation. There were thrills at the beginning of the war; the thrill of horror and of a doom that seemed at once incredible and certain; this was when Namur fell and the German host swelled like a flood over the French fields, and drew very near to the walls of Paris. Then we felt the thrill of exultation when the good news came that the awful tide had been turned back, that Paris and the world were safe; for awhile at all events.