Gustav Meyrink (Supernatural Fiction Author)

Gustav Meyrink was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer an Austrian author who was born January 19, 1868 and died December 4, 1932.

He was a highly recognized figure in the genre of “supernatural fiction.”

Gustav was very much involved with the occult and in many of his novels that knowledge is apparent.  He was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Theosophical Society.  The story of how he came to studying the occult is that at one point of his life he was ready to end his life with a gun to his head.  Then he heard a scratching sound at the door and a slim book was slid under it.

This event literally changed his entire life, from there dedicating his time to studying all aspects of the occult.  While he was running his banking operations he was charged with using spiritualism to benefit it.  He was jailed but, was released after two months.

In 1900 while spending time in a Sanitarium he became friends with Oscar A. H. Schmitz.  After Oscar had spent time hearing Gustav’s stories he helped him to begin getting them published.  The rest is history.

His main novels of interest are the following:  The Golem (Dedalus European Classics) (1914) (my review can be read here), The Green Face (Dedalus European Classics) (1916), Walpurgisnacht (Dedalus European Classics) (1917), The Angel of the West Window (Dedalus European Classics) (1927), WHITE DOMINICAN (Dedalus European Classics) book or the kindle edition The White Dominican (Dedalus European Classics) (1921).

All of these novels I will be or am in the process of reading and am looking forward to reviewing them in the future.  I have also come across a biography about him as well which I will be reading in the near future too called Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink (Dark Master Series).  I am very much looking forward to this.

I think what I like about his writing so far is how it literally moves my spirit.  While reading The Golem, in the first few chapters, I was literally in and out of a trance.  I have always enjoyed books that incorporate the supernatural and Western Magical practices, Dion Fortune comes to mind here and she too was a member of the Golden Dawn as well.

I do hope to review and refresh this little bio sometime soon once I get Vivo read and digested.  I do hope though that with what is here though it will interest some to go and start reading some of his works anyways.  I would suggest The Golem first.  It is his best and widest known story.  The links above are all to the paperbacks, The White Dominican though is to a kindle edition.  The paperback for that is ridiculously expensive and I do hope that Dedalus has a reissue for it in the near future.