The following is Machen's introduction to The Three Impostors, published by Alfred A Knopf in 1923. This edition differed in its contents with the original John Lane edition of 1895.

I have retained the original pagination in brackets in the text. I have added a few notes identifying some of the characters mentioned, if known. I have also silently corrected several obvious misprints, but have avoided any correction of English spellings.

This letter is typical of many others. I began to get them pretty soon after "The Three Impostors" was published in 1895. Then, on the whole, I was rather displeased than pleased [end p. vii] at the question. We have our funny little ways, our amusing little points of pride and dignity, all of us, authors as well as the rest, and I was strongly inclined to resent the implication that I had embroidered rather that invented. I remember when "The Great God Pan" was issued, a friend of mine said, "I suppose it is just an old legend that was going down in your part of the country when you were a boy?" I was quite cross. I said to myself, and I daresay to others, "These barbarians can't bare to acknowledge that anybody can 'make up' anything. They know they couldn't do any of the kind themselves and the suggestion that, for all that, the thing is done now and again annoys them." I was proud of having invented "The Great God Pan": I was not going to have the credit of that fact taken away on the strength of a legend which never existed. And so with "The Three Impostors." I wanted to impress on all enquirers that the whole thing came out of my head -- I forgot to add "and Stevenson's" -- and that I had taken a great deal of trouble over the tales, and that there was no foundation in fact of anything between the two covers of the book. So far, from the point of view of the touchy author; but if this had been put out of the case and I had been asked whether I thought that anything like the ex-[end viii] perience of Professor Gregg -- see the "Novel Of The Back Seal" -- had occurred in actuality, I should have said, "Of course not!" And if a similar question question had been put as to the "Novel Of the White Powder," I am afraid I should have replied, "Don't talk such damned nonsense!"

And farther, if I had been asked about the general atmosphere of the book, the Arabian Nightish aspect of London, the strange encounters, the stranger disappearances, I should certainly have stated with some firmness that I had never come across anything of the sort, that no queer characters had ever crossed my track, that my walks about Soho and Islington, Barnsbury and Clerkenwell were void of all adventures. I would have said, I think, that London streets, like most things, were dull and grey and uninteresting. "And so," I might likely enough hav added, "we pretend that they are wonderful and enchanting, just because it's delightful to do so, just as children are always pretending and making believe."

That then, was my general attitude on these points in 1895 and for some years afterwards. I was quite sure that there was not and could not be the faintest foundation in fact for any of my tales, and I was quite sure too that London was not a bit like Arabian Night. I hardly think [ix] That I should be quite so positive today, if I were asked these old questions all over again. So many things have happened since the mid-nineties of the last century.

As the "Arabian" atmosphere of London, for example, I must admit modifications in my point of view. I think it was in the June of 1900 that I was sitting in the New Lyric Club in Coventry street, taking tea with a young friend of mine.⁽²⁾ He was telling me of some singular adventures in which he was then involved. It seemed that he had made a deadly enemy and that, furthermore, this enemy was a notorious Black Magician.⁽³⁾ This personage -- who is, I may say, and actual personage -- was guilty of the most hideous misdeeds, In the pursuit, doubtless, of his favourite art of Black Magic he had entrapped women in his house and had suspended them naked in cupboards, hanging in the air by hooks run though the flesh of their arms. There were other tales of strange horror which I forget. But not this. My friend had offended the magician; I do not think I heard what the offence had been. But he went in dread of his life.

"He has hired a gang down Lambeth way to smash me up and kill me if possible, and he is paying each of them eight-and six-a day."

I listened stupefied; more stupefied still when [end x] I heard of the threatening letters sealed with a "Rosecrucian Seal" that had been received. I can't say whether I believed and disbelieved, or how much I believed and how much disbelieved, I don't know to this day what relation this queer tale bore to the hard solid facts; thought I must say that some years later I myself received a minatory epistle, sealed with a "Rosecrucian Seal" which I have always put down to the credit of the Adept of the Black Art. But I was not bothering about the possible truth or possible falsity of the tale that I had been told; I was think of its queerness, of its incongruity with the comfortable chairs of the New Lyric Club, and the view of Coventry Street as seen from the window. I do not think that I realized with whom I had been talking till I got home to my chambers in Verulam Buildings, Gray's Inn. Then I recalled my friend's face and aspect as he told his story; certain phrases came into my mind: "youngish looking man with dark whiskers and spectacles ...of somewhat timid bearing he is pale, has small black whiskers and spectacles. He has rather a timid, almost frightened expression and looks about him nervously form side to side."⁽⁴⁾ And so on, and so on: and it was with a shock that I realized that I had been talking with The Young Man in Spectacles, and that he came [end xi] out of "The Three Impostors." I must add that I had first met him in a secred Assembly, more harmless than the gatherings of the terrible Lipsins, but quite as queer. The Young Man in Spectacles! It was astounding, but it was undeniable; and the discovery opened my eyes to the fact that Miss Lally⁽⁵⁾ had also come up out of the book into my life and was involving me daily in strange adventures, in meetings and encounters that would have charmed the ear of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, relating as she went on her incalculable way the most wonderful and unexpected tales. Miss Lally and The Young Man With Spectacles met more than once in my rooms. Naturally, they did not recognize each other since neither had read my book. But I shall never forget the gravity with which Miss Lally related to the Young Man in Spectacles the "Novel of My Aunt, The Enchantress." The aunt, I remember, burned curious gums obtained from the East before rising in the air; and when the operation was to be performed, the room had to be hung round with curtains distant one foot from the walls, and nine inches from the ground. It was, indeed, a sumptuous fable. And, to resume the old manner for a moment: "The Young Man in Spectacles" listened with the gravest attention to the history of the Enchanting Aunt, asking many [end xii] questions of a highly pertinent character, and expressing himself as mor particulary satisfied with the singular circumstance of the draperies before the walls of the magic chamber. He took notes on many points, and went away with a countenance which fully expressed the serious nature of the communication he had received."

Indeed, the tale had been told with such grace earnestness, with such an attention to the smallest minutia of detail, that I myself could not help thinking that it was a tale about something. That it was an illumination of some sort of text. I therefore questioned Mis Lally pretty closely after the departure of the Young Man, whereupon she informed me with happy laughter that all was quite devoid of truth. I think she had an aunt: but that was all the fact; the rest was fiction.

And the insurgence of Miss Lally and the spectacled one from the pages of the printed book was only one, amongst many, extraordinary circumstances that now gathered thick around me. One day, for example, I go a letter from my publisher asking me to call upon him. I went at once, thinking that he wished to commission a new masterpiece. He did not want to do that. He explained to me that he had an ac [end xiii] quaintance; a distant cousin, if I remember, whose existence annoyed him. I forget what poor Rundle had done, so far as I know nothing in particular, beyond being there, but, anyhow, he offended the publisher and could I help? I was not asked to murder Rundle; I was simply to found a secret society. Into this the poor fellow was to be entrapped, and from the moment of his capture his life was to be a burden to him. The agents of the Society were to beset all his ways; he was to be accosted suddenly in the street and sent on impossible errands; he was to keep appointments with mysterious persons, and these appointments were to end in nothing but annoyance and deep confusion; he was to be terrified by dark threats; doom was to hover like a firey cloud above his devoted head. Cheerfully, I undertook this business; when in an Arabian Night behave like the Arabian Nighters. But, somehow, the Secret Society was never founded; there must have been some strange infusion of cool reason into the wild world which I inhabited, that London which I once thought so commonplace.

It is just possible, it strikes me, that many people have found the odd encounters related in "The Three Impostors," to be of a highly improbable nature. Indeed as I have confessed, I thought so myself as I was writing them. But [end xiv] experience, the experiences of 1899-1900, thoroughly convinced me that I was wrong. I became subject at this time to the oddest encounters at every turning, in every quarter of London. Total strangers would accost me on one excuse or another. I have counted ten such unexpected meetings in a day. They would babble confused thing, narrate odd adventures, things, I should say, without head or tail or reason, and then sink back into the great deep of the London from which they had emerged. These were utter strangers, and remained such; but there were others whom I knew, who were equally entertaining and extravagant; but were so only for a certain appointed season. Thus, a gentleman, who is now one of the most serious of men, used to meet me at the cafe de l'European in Leicester Square and come home with me to my rooms in Verulam Buildings, and there discourse amazing fables, with such eloquence, weightliness, humour, vivacity, that I was convinced of the truth of every word that was uttered. What added to the charm was the fact that after ten o'clock at night my friend seldom spoke English. He addressed me in French, and I may say that, having lived a good deal in Touraine, I have heard few Frenchmen who could speak their native tongue with so pure and winning and perfect an intonation. And I heard from men familiar [end xv] with German and Italian that he excelled in these tongues also; and a Spaniard could have taught him nothing of Spanish. Well, infinitely to my delight, this personage would come home with me as I say, and tell tales till far into the night. I remember a few scraps of these fables. Ir related to a well known London restaurant which we may call Pergolesi's. My friend, as he puts it, had been one of the fondatori, the earliest customers of the establishment. There were others with him, many of them well known, even famous men, in later years.

"We noticed," the story went on, "night after night, a very beautiful woman who sat in a corner, apart by herself. There was something entrancing, something almost mystic about her beauty. No one knew who she was. Somehow I succeeded -- I need not trouble with an account of the little stratagems that I may have employed -- I succeed in making her acquaintance. We became, shall I say, friends? After a few months I had reason to suppose that she was a secret agent of the Russian Government. I found myself beset with hints, with half-expressed questions. I parried them as well as I could. At last I discovered that the continuance of the lady's favour depended on my willingness to betray the secrets of my country. I refused: in spite of tears, prayers, endearments; I refused." [end xvi]

"That night I was sitting in our drawing-room. I was in an armchair, facing a mirror, and in this mirror I could see reflected the curtains hanging across the entrance to an inner room. Suddenly, the lady appeared, parting the curtains. Her feet were bare. I could not hear her, but I saw her slowly advancing into the room. One hand was raised; in it there was a revolver, levelled at my head. I hardly knew what I did, but I cried out "'Au moins, madame, titez juste!'"

"She burst into tears and the revolver fell from her hands. I never saw her from that night She fled."

I think it was some years before I began to hesitate to myself about this adventure. Indeed, for all I knew, every word of it may be true. But: I have no reason for supposing that my friend was ever acquainted with the secrets of the British Government; so ...what could he have betrayed, if he had been willing to betray?

Still: that doesn't matter, The point is that for many months of my life was more Three-Impostory than "The Three Impostors." I relished al the queer atmosphere of "Arabian" in consequince which I had enjoyed describing, though I didn't believe there ever was or would be anything like it in actuality. I was and am convinced of my error. London will turn into Bagdad in an [end xvi] instant if you have the true wand of transmutation

So much for the atmosphere of the framework of "The Three Impostors"; now as to the "foundation in fact' question, where the stories are concerned. This is a much more doubtful and difficult matter. I have attempted to deal with it in a book called "Things Near and Far."⁽⁶⁾ Does the impossible ever happen? Well, the utmost I would say is this; that I have had experiences which debar me from returning the absolute negative of the earlier years; the years in which I was writing the book and the years afterwards. These experiences of mine were trifling enough but they suggest the possibility of far greater things and far mor extraordinary things for those with the necessary qualifications. For, if you think of it, from the scratched pictures of primitive man, the images he drew on reindeer horn, you may infer all the majesty of pictorial art, all the might names and magistral achievements of the ages. There are, I believe, savage tribes who cannot count beyond ten; yet all the science of numbers is latent in that decad of theirs. The savage scratches, the savage numberings at least proves the possibility of great art and him mathematics; and so I am in- [end xviii] clined to urge that the things which I have known may suggest the probable existence of a world very far and remote from the world of common experience.

It may turn out after all that the weavers of fantasy are the veritable realists. [end xix]

2. The poet W. B. Yeats; see "Order of the Twilight Star", note 1. 

3. Aleister Crowley; see "Order of the Twilight Star", note 2. 

4. This may be a tell-tale error on Machen's part. W.B Yeats wore a beard in the 1890s, but was clean shaven for most of his life thereafter, as many photos clearly show. 

5. Identified as Hilda Wauton, see "Order of the Twilight Star", note 3. I suspect she may, in fact, be a composite character. 

6. Chapter IX of Things Near and Far (1923), concerns certain mystic and visionary experiences of Machen in 1899 and 1900. 

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