N

"For a moment, my heart stood still, and I gasped for breath. Before me, in place of the familiar structures, there was disclosed a panorama of unearthly, of astounding beauty. In deep dells, bowered by overhanging trees, there bloomed flowers such as only dreams can show; such deep purples that yet seemed to glow like precious stones with a hidden but ever-present radiance, roses whose hues outshone any that are to be seen in our gardens, tall lilies alive with light, and blossoms that were as beaten gold." Written in December, 1935, when Arthur Machen was his early 70s, N reveals itself as one of the finest of his pieces: a strange, mystical tale about a possible hidden paradise in the London suburb of Stoke Newington.