The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories

by Arthur Machen

This collection includes the following horror stories and novellas by Arthur Machen:
THE GREAT GOD PAN
THE INMOST LIGHT
THE SHINING PYRAMID
ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS
THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT
NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY
ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER
NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL
INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR
THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION
NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID
THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER
NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER
STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL
HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH SPECTACLES
ADVENTURE OF THE DESERTED RESIDENCE
THE THREE IMPOSTORS
THE RED HAND
THE PROBLEM OF THE FISH-HOOKS
INCIDENT OF THE LETTER
SEARCH FOR THE VANISHED HEAVEN
THE ARTIST OF THE PAVEMENT
STORY OF THE TREASURE-HOUSE
THE HILL OF DREAMS
THE WHITE PEOPLE
THE SECRET GLORY
THE ANGELS OF MONS
THE BOWMEN
THE SOLDIERS’ REST
THE MONSTRANCE
THE DAZZLING LIGHT
THE TERROR

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy

831 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 14, 2016

About the author

Arthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.

In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.

Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.

Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, the UK Lovecraft

[Austin Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand why so many modern horror authors cite this story as one of the stories that inspired them to write