The Great God Pan (Library of Wales)

A sensation when first published in 1894, this frightening story involves evil scientists and the women that become monsters at their hands. An experiment into the sources of the human brain through the mind of a young woman has gone horribly wrong—she has witnessed the God Pan and will die giving birth to a daughter, Helen Vaughan. Twenty years later Helen becomes the source of much fevered speculation when she is feted as a society hostess of great charm. Many men are infatuated with her beauty, but great beauty has a price. Linking horror with prurient sexuality, this classic of horror sheds light on late Victorian misogyny and the public’s interest in theories of evolutionary degeneration.

Arthur Conan Doyle

"Machen is a genius . . . but I don’t take him to bed with me."

Jerome K. Jerome, author, Three Men in a Boat

"For ability to create an atmosphere of nameless terror I can think of no author living or dead who comes near to him."

Jorge Luis Borges

"Arthur Machen’s stories . . .  are inspired by a genuine emotion. He hardly ever wrote merely to frighten others; he did so because he knew he lived in an alien world."

About the Author

Arthur Machen was an influential horror, supernatural, and fantasy writer whose works included The Green Round, Hill of Dreams, and The Three Impostors.

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