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Hopefully, at this point, you have come to appreciate the beauty of Machen’s influence on not only Lovecraft, but the landscape of horror as a whole. He is a personal favorite of mine! For the last piece we really need to discuss the masterpiece of horror: The White People. While other pieces had more subtle impact, Lovecraft explicitly stated that this piece was a major piece for him personally.
THE WHITE PEOPLE
A weird fiction novella, The White People opens with the ‘Green Book’. This book acts as a diary for the narrator to express her initiation into what can only be described as the occult. Readers of Lovecraft will already see the nod. Lovecraft’s plot device of crazy cult members is paramount to a plethora of his works.
While Machen’s primary focus always is Welsh Mythology, he subverts tropes in his works. The ‘white people’ are a fairy people. You thought about Tinkerbell, didn’t you? Not Machen’s fairies. These are a sinister species. This immediately invokes terror in the average reader and, indeed, the readers of the ‘Green Book’ (Cotgrave and Ambrose) are horrified by what they are reading.
The things described therein are not of the natural world.
Lovecraft’s Adaptation
On the surface, Lovecraft dealt with a cosmic structure that (thanks to August Derleth) we now lovingly refer to as the Cthulhu Mythos. In this way, a lot of people might dismiss the influence of mythological and folk works on Lovecraft. However, that would be a very shallow understanding of the sinew that connects everything together.
In Shadow Over Innsmouth we have a focus on degeneration of a species. The ‘white people’ of Machen are described as primitive, sub-human even. Are the abominations of Innsmouth not also borderline sub-human with their fishlike features?
The most telling of Lovecraft’s love of Machen’s The White People however, is in the use of the Aklo text. This language is a cryptic text and one that is found in both The Dunwich Horror and (I would argue) in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward as well. As we discussed in the previous Part of this series, the latter has a ton of hallmarks showcasing the love of Machen through the attention of transplanting the soul. Dexter Ward has to decipher an ancient text to do so. I am of the belief that this text was referencing Aklo.
The former, however, is explicitly stated as the language used by Wilbur Whateley for the ‘Aklo Sabaoth’ as referenced in his diary. It allows him to convene with and communicate with the spawn of Yog-Sothoth.
In Other Weird Tales
Being a part of ‘Lovecraft Circle’ it would be foolhardy not to mention that one of the most well-known uses of the Aklo text is found in Robert E. Howard’s own additions via the Unaussprechlichen Kulten. While this is not the space to discuss Howard’s contributions, it deserves a footnote here.
There should also be an honorable mention for T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies, which goes out of its way to honor The White People, as an expansion of Machen’s world.
Final Words
I hope that you have enjoyed my deep dive in to Machen’s influence on H.P. Lovecraft. For now this is the final chapter in my analysis. Machen is a major impact on me as an author, as well. He was one of a kind and a truly a master of horror. If you haven’t read anything by him I definitely suggest picking up a collection of his works. I have an affiliate link to one below.
Thank you for reading! I hope you will subscribe to my blog!
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. I only recommend works—like those of Arthur Machen—that have had a profound impact on my own craft.
Further Reading
Old Ones Keeper 
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