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The Pattern on the Carpet

Arthur Machen

First published 1955
Type Essay

A passage from chapter III of The London Adventure (1924). Untitled in the original, it is here referred to by the title that Borges and Bioy assigned when they excerpted it in Cuentos breves y extraordinarios. In it, Machen (working on writing The London Adventure) reflects on how writers tend to have a single theme they express over and over, and relates a story by Henry James that stuck in his mind, about a writer who said that his works were like an Eastern carpet with a repeating pattern, if readers could find the hidden pattern.

Date Publication Publisher Type Page
1955 Cuentos breves y extraordinarios Raigal Anthology 111
1968 Cuentos breves y extraordinarios Santiago Rueda Anthology 62
January 1970 Cuentos breves y extraordinarios Santiago Rueda Anthology 77
1971 Cover Extraordinary Tales Herder and Herder Anthology 85
1990 Extraordinary Tales Allison & Busby Anthology 85
2004 Cover Cuentos breves y extraordinarios Losada Anthology 111