The Three Impostors or The Transmutations

<p>The Three Impostors is an episodic novel by British horror fiction writer Arthur Machen first published in 1895 in the Bodley Head's Keynote Series.</p><p> </p><p>Controversy:</p><p> </p><p>Publisher John Lane wary of the atmosphere following the trial of Oscar Wilde asked Machen to censor his manuscript. Barring the omission of one word Machen refused to do this.</p><p> </p><p>In Things Near and Far Machen wrote:</p><p> </p><p>   It was in the early spring of 1894 that I set about the writing of the said Three Impostors a book which testifies to the vast respect I entertained for the fantastic New Arabian Nights manner of R. L. Stevenson to those curious researches in the byways of London which I have described already and also I hope to a certain originality of experiment in the tale of terror.</p><p> </p><p>The novel incorporates several inset weird tales and culminates in a final denouement of deadly horror connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three imposters of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London-retailing the aforementioned weird tales in the process-as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: the young man with spectacles. (wikipedia.org)</p>