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The Great God Pan and Other Classic Horror Stories
"Of creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few can hope to equal Arthur Machen." — H. P. Lovecraft
Arthur Machen (1863–1947), Welsh novelist and essayist, is considered one of the most important and influential writers of his time. While displaying a preoccupation with pagan themes and matters of the occult — an interest he shared with his close friend, the distinguished scholar A. E. Waite — his writing transcends the genre of supernatural horror. Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Paul Bowles and Jorge Luis Borges are just a few of the literary notables who are counted among his admirers. Machen is also a key figure in the development of pulp magazine fiction (e.g., Weird Tales ), a line of ancestry that leads directly to today's popular graphic novels. Further, Machen's name often crops up in the writings of theorists and practitioners of psychogeography, a school of thought and literature which explores the hidden links between the landscape and the mind.
In "The Great God Pan," Arthur Machen delivers a tense atmospheric story about a string of mysterious suicides. With its suggestive visions of decadent sexuality, the work scandalized Victorian London. This edition also includes "The White People," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid." Taken together, these short stories are considered some of the first works of horror and have inspired generations of subsequent writers and creators.
Arthur Machen (1863–1947), Welsh novelist and essayist, is considered one of the most important and influential writers of his time. While displaying a preoccupation with pagan themes and matters of the occult — an interest he shared with his close friend, the distinguished scholar A. E. Waite — his writing transcends the genre of supernatural horror. Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Paul Bowles and Jorge Luis Borges are just a few of the literary notables who are counted among his admirers. Machen is also a key figure in the development of pulp magazine fiction (e.g., Weird Tales ), a line of ancestry that leads directly to today's popular graphic novels. Further, Machen's name often crops up in the writings of theorists and practitioners of psychogeography, a school of thought and literature which explores the hidden links between the landscape and the mind.
In "The Great God Pan," Arthur Machen delivers a tense atmospheric story about a string of mysterious suicides. With its suggestive visions of decadent sexuality, the work scandalized Victorian London. This edition also includes "The White People," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid." Taken together, these short stories are considered some of the first works of horror and have inspired generations of subsequent writers and creators.
144 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2018
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About the author
Arthur Machen
1,105 books994 followersArthur 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 14, 2020
"The great god pan" 4 Stars
"The white people" 3 Stars
"The shining pyramid" 3.3 Stars
"The inmost light" 2.9 Stars
Overall, I really liked the themes of the short stories. Folklore, mythology, occult, that's right up my alley. However, to be honest, I didn't understand every short story entirely. Some parts left me a bit confused. Might have been done on purpose by the author. It adds to the mysterious nature of the stories.
"The white people" 3 Stars
"The shining pyramid" 3.3 Stars
"The inmost light" 2.9 Stars
Overall, I really liked the themes of the short stories. Folklore, mythology, occult, that's right up my alley. However, to be honest, I didn't understand every short story entirely. Some parts left me a bit confused. Might have been done on purpose by the author. It adds to the mysterious nature of the stories.
July 26, 2023
“The Great God Pan” is the most well-known story and anchor of this collection but I was more entertained by every other tale present.
October 17, 2025
the great god pan was by far my favorite next would probably be the shining pyramid. i liked the white people and the inmost light but i dont like an open ended mystery
April 3, 2025
The novel starts off with a doctor performing a strange experiment to give a woman a spiritual experience called seeing the Great God Pan. The ritual succeeds, and then the story is taken up some years later as the characters gradually realize the consequences of this kind of occult meddling through strange behaviors, implied sexual immorality, and grotesque disfigurements.
It’s a true classic of the genre, written in 1894. And it was quite sensational for the time. In fact, though modern readers jaded by the excesses of the horror genre in the decades since might find it pretty tame, its content did serious harm to its author’s reputation. Despite that, it’s been cited as an inspiration for just about everyone who followed in the horror genre including Bram Stoker, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft. In my opinion, I think the latter influence is the most directly observable.
The real question is how well it holds up for modern readers. Is it a great and timeless horror novel that we’ll all continue to love, similar to Dracula or Frankenstein? Or is it a sort of proto-horror novel of interest primarily to those engaged in a study of the genre’s history? The answer is somewhere in between. Because so much has been done in the genre since its publication, I don’t think this one has the ability to really shock or scare audiences anymore, though it’s clear to see how many of our modern tropes developed from it. But even if you’re not a genre historian, I still think you’ll find it a good read. It does require a bit more effort on the part of the reader than many of us might be accustomed to, but if you take your time with it and give it its due, you’ll still find it rewarding.
My edition of the book also includes three other short stories or novellas: The White People, The Inmost Light, and The Shining Pyramid. While lesser-known than the title novella, these works are also worth reading and I think some of them are at least on par with their more famous cousin. They may not have had quite as broad an influence, but some of them might actually be more palatable to modern readers.
It’s a true classic of the genre, written in 1894. And it was quite sensational for the time. In fact, though modern readers jaded by the excesses of the horror genre in the decades since might find it pretty tame, its content did serious harm to its author’s reputation. Despite that, it’s been cited as an inspiration for just about everyone who followed in the horror genre including Bram Stoker, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft. In my opinion, I think the latter influence is the most directly observable.
The real question is how well it holds up for modern readers. Is it a great and timeless horror novel that we’ll all continue to love, similar to Dracula or Frankenstein? Or is it a sort of proto-horror novel of interest primarily to those engaged in a study of the genre’s history? The answer is somewhere in between. Because so much has been done in the genre since its publication, I don’t think this one has the ability to really shock or scare audiences anymore, though it’s clear to see how many of our modern tropes developed from it. But even if you’re not a genre historian, I still think you’ll find it a good read. It does require a bit more effort on the part of the reader than many of us might be accustomed to, but if you take your time with it and give it its due, you’ll still find it rewarding.
My edition of the book also includes three other short stories or novellas: The White People, The Inmost Light, and The Shining Pyramid. While lesser-known than the title novella, these works are also worth reading and I think some of them are at least on par with their more famous cousin. They may not have had quite as broad an influence, but some of them might actually be more palatable to modern readers.
July 5, 2023
Κριτική στα Ελληνικά πιο κάτω...
2½/5
All in all this is a so and so read. Some themes are repetitive, while the shock factor in most of the stories is supposed to come from ambigious, circumferential mentions of something horrible, rather than from upfront scenes or real explanations on what happened.
The Great God Pan had some interesting narrative tricks to piece together the whole story, but lots of things are based on coincidence and the main premise is kind of silly.
The White People feels like the author tried to connect all kind of folklore in one story, but ended very long-winded after a while. There are pages after pages without a single paragraph to break the text into more manageable narration and feels like the author throws legend after legend on the reader's face. The frame story is unnecessary too.
The Inmost Light is again based on coincidences and again there is much stuff hinted rather than explained and while the mystery elements has ome potential, the ending is rather dull.
The Shining Pyramid is a somehow more cohesive and complete story that the rest on this book, but not exceptional.
I enjoyed some of the usual tropes in this kind of books, but something on the writting style and the execution of the stories felt off.
2½/5
Έτσι κι έτσι... Ορισμένα θέματα είναι επαναλαμβανόμενα, ενώ ο παράγοντας σοκ στις περισσότερες ιστορίες υποτίθεται ότι προέρχεται από διφορούμενες, πολύ έμμεσες αναφορές για κάτι τρομακτικό, παρά από άμεσες σκηνές φρίκης ή συγκεκριμένες εξηγήσεις για το τι συνέβη.
Μου άρεσαν μερικά από τα συνηθισμένα κλισέ σε αυτού του είδους τα βιβλία, αλλά κάτι στο στυλ γραφής και την εκτέλεση των ιστοριών δεν μου κόλλησε. Και αφήστε στην ησυχία του τον έρμο τον Πάνα τελοσπάντων, τι σας έφταιξε;
2½/5
2½/5
All in all this is a so and so read. Some themes are repetitive, while the shock factor in most of the stories is supposed to come from ambigious, circumferential mentions of something horrible, rather than from upfront scenes or real explanations on what happened.
The Great God Pan had some interesting narrative tricks to piece together the whole story, but lots of things are based on coincidence and the main premise is kind of silly.
The White People feels like the author tried to connect all kind of folklore in one story, but ended very long-winded after a while. There are pages after pages without a single paragraph to break the text into more manageable narration and feels like the author throws legend after legend on the reader's face. The frame story is unnecessary too.
The Inmost Light is again based on coincidences and again there is much stuff hinted rather than explained and while the mystery elements has ome potential, the ending is rather dull.
The Shining Pyramid is a somehow more cohesive and complete story that the rest on this book, but not exceptional.
I enjoyed some of the usual tropes in this kind of books, but something on the writting style and the execution of the stories felt off.
2½/5
Έτσι κι έτσι... Ορισμένα θέματα είναι επαναλαμβανόμενα, ενώ ο παράγοντας σοκ στις περισσότερες ιστορίες υποτίθεται ότι προέρχεται από διφορούμενες, πολύ έμμεσες αναφορές για κάτι τρομακτικό, παρά από άμεσες σκηνές φρίκης ή συγκεκριμένες εξηγήσεις για το τι συνέβη.
Μου άρεσαν μερικά από τα συνηθισμένα κλισέ σε αυτού του είδους τα βιβλία, αλλά κάτι στο στυλ γραφής και την εκτέλεση των ιστοριών δεν μου κόλλησε. Και αφήστε στην ησυχία του τον έρμο τον Πάνα τελοσπάντων, τι σας έφταιξε;
2½/5
April 21, 2025
I gave up on this about 75% through. A collection of four short horror stories that really weren’t horrific. The one star was for the title story, probably the best of the four, but the others consisted of 30-40 odd pages of one long paragraph with little or no dialogue and I kept losing my place and interest. I skim read the rest to get the gist and called it a day.
August 14, 2022
I suppose there’s some reason these stories have inspired future generations of horror writers; I, for one, didn’t see it.
The stories drag on, with a lot of extraneous verbiage. If one word is needed, ten are used. It’s a short book, only 136 pages. It shouldn’t have taken me more than a couple of days to finish (I only give a book about an hour a day.) Instead, it took me five.
Which is really too bad, because the ideas behind the stories are quite good, especially The Great God Pan. But even there, the lack of real resolution was annoying. What was let loose from a little brain surgery? And, not having done it to himself, how could the “surgeon” know exactly what was happening to the patient?
Obviously, much of the book’s success has to do with his readers’ of the time never having been exposed to this type of story. For someone in this time, it’s old hat.
The stories drag on, with a lot of extraneous verbiage. If one word is needed, ten are used. It’s a short book, only 136 pages. It shouldn’t have taken me more than a couple of days to finish (I only give a book about an hour a day.) Instead, it took me five.
Which is really too bad, because the ideas behind the stories are quite good, especially The Great God Pan. But even there, the lack of real resolution was annoying. What was let loose from a little brain surgery? And, not having done it to himself, how could the “surgeon” know exactly what was happening to the patient?
Obviously, much of the book’s success has to do with his readers’ of the time never having been exposed to this type of story. For someone in this time, it’s old hat.
July 25, 2022
The best story is the title novella. It is intricate and mysterious and provides lots of variety that kept me involved and guessing until the end. It ties up nicely and is robust precursor for later weird horror to follow. Referenced by Stephen King and received glowing praise from irredeemable racist H.P. Lovecraft, Machen presents a weird mix of folk horror with the abject unknown and creates some creepy little tales as a result. The second story is the hardest to get through since it consists of only a couple of long, unbroken paragraphs in a country vernacular voice. The third and fourth stories work better, though both feel more like retreads of the kind of story that "The Great God Pan" executes so magnificently.
March 20, 2023
Machen's work is utterly unique when compared to other fantasy and horror authors. His writings are not 'bone-chilling,' but 'soul-chilling.' No one else can approach the metaphysical subtlety that such stories as "The White People" (included in this collection) achieve. Machen's world is one where the ancient demons are still very, very real, and the powers of Satan - long held to be fictional by the educated establishment of freethinkers - are more than potent for those who wish to worship him. His writing style drips with the mystery of Wales. What a genius.
April 12, 2023
This was very weird, because the horror is basically just that satyrs exist, and satyrs aren't intrinsically horrifying to me. So the stories were fine, but the big reveal ended up being very disappointing.
November 27, 2021
Densely written horror stories with long, long, long paragraphs that are decidedly unnerving. The three in this volume are thematically similar. (Hint, don't go into the woods.)
April 26, 2023
while the stories weren’t too interesting, i loved the way they were written. :)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews