Angel of the Western Window

"Angel of the Western Window" is the most significant work of the Austrian writer and esotericist Gustav Meyrink. The author presents his heroes as immortal: they live and act in the Shakespearean era, in the 20th century, and in the afterlife, where their true nature is revealed. At the center of the narrative is the fate of a real figure, English natural philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and alchemist John Dee, inextricably intertwined with the fate of his distant descendant, who eventually succeeds in breaking the spell of evil forces and consciously crosses the threshold of the otherworld. Besides the novels of other authors, "Angel of the Western Window" and “The Green Face” by Meyrink had a great influence on the works of M. Bulgakov; "The Master and Margarita" is essentially a variation on Meyrink's themes: doppelgänger characters, the motive of redemption, and an ironic epilogue.