The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales by Mark Samuels Page A

intolerable fear of written signifiers, leading to acts of violence and memory-loss when the sufferer came into contact with text. But this was discredited after the corpses of those persons who perished accidentally in acts of book destruction were examined. Their brains showed no signs of abnormal development or damage. None of the theories advanced could be held with certainty.
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    Henry Glickman was on his way to a meeting with his new publishers, the Nemesis Press. The company that had issued his last collection of stories had recently gone into liquidation and another author who had told Glickman that their remuneration was extremely generous had recommended these new publishers to him. He was not a commercially successful author and had no agent, merely indulging in post-retirement fantasies of authorial fame.
    He was in his mid-sixties, thin, with a pinched, aquiline face and a mane of grey hair. Books had been his passion for as long as he could remember and his personal library consisted of well over two thousand volumes. His books were almost his very life, the casements that had opened up magical vistas.
    Glickman had never married and had long-since settled into a secluded bachelor mode. Quite honestly, women were not able to compete with the real love of his life. What money he earned he spent almost entirely on books and he had no desire to give up the pursuit of them for the pursuit of companionship. It seemed a logical step for him to begin writing some books of his own. He had the manuscript of his second collection in his briefcase.
    After a time Glickman reached his destination. He parked in front of the steps leading up to the main entrance of the building. It was a huge white Art Deco structure with flaking paint and decrepit pilasters. The windows were layered with dust. On a board next to the entrance were marked the names of the companies located there and Glickman saw that the Nemesis Press now occupied the entire building. The names of the previous companies had been covered over with tape. Such expansion seemed to bode well for the financial security of the business.
    The interior was a mass of activity. It seemed that attempts were being made to complete cataloguing of their stock but these were evidently well behind schedule. Passing along a corridor Glickman found himself in a vast warehouse. Books lay scattered and piled up in crates on the bare floorboards, being checked by clerks in shirtsleeves. They were too intent upon their work to pay any attention to Glickman as he mingled with them.
    Glickman wandered around for a brief time, along the aisles, checking the stock more carefully. He was somewhat surprised to discover that the books here were not only Nemesis Press publications, but came from a wide variety of sources.
    The editorial offices of the company were located on the third floor of the building and Glickman had to make his way up a tiled stairwell to reach them. He passed more clerks, all carrying piles of books up and down the steps. These men were all pallid and zombie-like as if they had long withdrawn from the world into the refuge of their duties.
    Upon arrival at the third floor, Glickman found the editorial offices at the end of a half-lit corridor. He was shown into an adjacent interview room by one of the staff.
    After he had waited a few moments a middle-aged and quite small man with an uncommonly large head and piercing green eyes entered the room. He was almost bald, with his white hair shaved close to the scalp. There was an air of quiet fatalism about him.
    “ My name is Janus Yaanek. I am the Chief Editor of Nemesis Press,” he said, “and you must be Mr Glickman.”
    “ I am. It’s good to meet you at last. I’ve brought the manuscript with me in which you expressed interest,” Glickman took an envelope from his briefcase containing a 200-page document; “it’s a collection of weird horror tales called The Rotting Brain and Other Stories. ”
    “ I