In 1938, he edited an issue of the "London Bulletin" which included a "collection of texts on the Impact of the Machine" and he used this material to prepare a series of talks to miners in the Swansea Valley while making "The Silent Village" several years later. This prompted him to add more material and he obtained a contract from Routledge to prepare it for publication as a book; he worked on it fitfully and thought it was almost ready just before his death. His daughter, Mary-Louise, asked Charles Madge to assist in finally editing it for publication in 1985 as "Pandaemonium, 1660–1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers". The book was cited by writer Frank Cottrell Boyce as an influence in the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, with an early section of the ceremony named after it.