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The Great God Pan and Other Weird Tales
Dubbed the greatest horror story in English by Stephen King, The Great God Pan is an eerie and otherworldly mystery about a diabolical operation and its terrifying repercussions. After rescuing a young woman from the streets of London, Dr. Raymond uses her as a test subject for brain surgery aimed at lifting the veil of reality, to see the supernatural and the great god Pan. The operation is a disaster and leaves the subject lobotomized. Years later, London becomes afflicted with a strange series of male suicides connected to a beautiful but sinister woman named Helen. Just who is she, and what is her connection to Dr. Raymonds failed experiment? First published in 1890, The Great God Pan influenced many writers of the genre, including the unrivalled master H.P. Lovecraft. It makes perfect listening for a dark and rainy evening.
The collection also includes: The White People, The Green Book, The Inmost Light, The Novel of the Black Seal, The Novel of the White Powder, The Red Hand, The Shining Pyramid and A Fragment of Life.
The collection also includes: The White People, The Green Book, The Inmost Light, The Novel of the Black Seal, The Novel of the White Powder, The Red Hand, The Shining Pyramid and A Fragment of Life.
389 pages, Audiobook
First published January 1, 2018
11 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Machen
1,121 books1,012 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 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 24, 2018
Machen is rightly seen as an influential grand-daddy of horror, famously influencing H.P. Lovecraft, who went on to influence generations of authors himself. Writing on the cusp of the 19th to 20th century, Machen is a model of Victorian values, such as:
- Painfully reserved affection between the sexes
- Confidence that our Modern Age, or at least the White Christian English parts of it, is far more civilized than any other pitiable races/cultures/religions
- Solution of the mystery being elucidated condescendingly by a paternalistic rich guy
- Women being basically owned by the men in their lives, and being grateful because those men (sometimes) aren't murderous creeps
- The burgeoning dissatisfaction with science and Enlightenment thinking
I find this last one interesting, because while some folks sought respite in the loving arms of hokum like spiritualism or religious fundamentalism, Machen took a road slightly less traveled. He went apeshit for The Faerie Realm.
Most of the stories at least touch on faeries, and in many, the entire revelation of the story is an unveiling of their wily handiwork.
A Fragment of Life is interesting in particular, because the first half is entirely mired in the everyday tedium of a young couple's life. We spend an absurd amount of time watching them go back and forth about buying furniture and appliances, which makes the eventual reveal of the supernatural a welcome change. First, their kooky aunt arrives with sordid tales of her husband's affair, followed by the reveal of her cult affiliation, and then her husband (the alleged philanderer) shows up and explains that "Bitch be cray," so they institutionalize her. Because... you know... The Patriarchy. And after that zany aside, we discover... Surprise! The protagonist has been descended from the Faerie the whole time!
...
I think. Honestly, it could have been more metaphorical and dealing with his spiritual awakening, but after reading several other works that had Legit Faerie Bizness, it was hard to take it that way.
I enjoyed the collection, and if you're a fan of classic weird fiction, it's definitely worth seeking out. Most of the stories were eerie and interesting, and had moments of surprising humor at times.
A few of them even had the same pair of upper-class twits seeking out and solving the supernatural mysteries, which made me wish Machen had gone further with the theme. It would have ended up a charming Jeeves & Wooster meets Cosmic Horror series.
Come to think of it, I think that's still something this world needs.
- Painfully reserved affection between the sexes
- Confidence that our Modern Age, or at least the White Christian English parts of it, is far more civilized than any other pitiable races/cultures/religions
- Solution of the mystery being elucidated condescendingly by a paternalistic rich guy
- Women being basically owned by the men in their lives, and being grateful because those men (sometimes) aren't murderous creeps
- The burgeoning dissatisfaction with science and Enlightenment thinking
I find this last one interesting, because while some folks sought respite in the loving arms of hokum like spiritualism or religious fundamentalism, Machen took a road slightly less traveled. He went apeshit for The Faerie Realm.
Most of the stories at least touch on faeries, and in many, the entire revelation of the story is an unveiling of their wily handiwork.
A Fragment of Life is interesting in particular, because the first half is entirely mired in the everyday tedium of a young couple's life. We spend an absurd amount of time watching them go back and forth about buying furniture and appliances, which makes the eventual reveal of the supernatural a welcome change. First, their kooky aunt arrives with sordid tales of her husband's affair, followed by the reveal of her cult affiliation, and then her husband (the alleged philanderer) shows up and explains that "Bitch be cray," so they institutionalize her. Because... you know... The Patriarchy. And after that zany aside, we discover... Surprise! The protagonist has been descended from the Faerie the whole time!
...
I think. Honestly, it could have been more metaphorical and dealing with his spiritual awakening, but after reading several other works that had Legit Faerie Bizness, it was hard to take it that way.
I enjoyed the collection, and if you're a fan of classic weird fiction, it's definitely worth seeking out. Most of the stories were eerie and interesting, and had moments of surprising humor at times.
A few of them even had the same pair of upper-class twits seeking out and solving the supernatural mysteries, which made me wish Machen had gone further with the theme. It would have ended up a charming Jeeves & Wooster meets Cosmic Horror series.
Come to think of it, I think that's still something this world needs.
July 6, 2020
Really enjoyed the majority of the stories and Machen's prose, but the very last story 'A Fragment of a Life,' was a most wretched Purgatory that I thought I might never escape from. A novella many believe Machen intended as a much larger work, and eventually abandoned by him, it drolls on and on and ends abruptly. While the prose is still very good, it's ultimately rather pointless. Do listen to all the earlier stories, but skip the very last one. Or you'll end up with a rather sour aftertaste that ruins what is otherwise a delectable literary meal.
July 28, 2025
3.5 stars. This is a collection of short, horror stories written by Welsh author Arthur Machen in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The stories are somewhat in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories, and Machen’s writing later inspired H.P. Lovecraft.
For many modern horror fans these short stories probably contain too much gabbing and not enough stabbing. So if you are hoping for anything gory, look elsewhere.
But if you are into slow building suspense and creepy atmosphere then you might enjoy these bad boys. The stories often end without fully showing you the monster/horror. That was sometimes disappointing for me.
But old Machen may have had the right idea because as soon as you see the monster or find out the solution to a mystery in a story then it automatically becomes much less interesting. H.P. Lovecraft took a lot of inspiration from Machen, but he decided to show the monsters and horrors in his stories.
I wouldn’t universally recommend Arthur Machen, but for people who like old, creepy (but not too scary) British writing, then this might work for you.
For many modern horror fans these short stories probably contain too much gabbing and not enough stabbing. So if you are hoping for anything gory, look elsewhere.
But if you are into slow building suspense and creepy atmosphere then you might enjoy these bad boys. The stories often end without fully showing you the monster/horror. That was sometimes disappointing for me.
But old Machen may have had the right idea because as soon as you see the monster or find out the solution to a mystery in a story then it automatically becomes much less interesting. H.P. Lovecraft took a lot of inspiration from Machen, but he decided to show the monsters and horrors in his stories.
I wouldn’t universally recommend Arthur Machen, but for people who like old, creepy (but not too scary) British writing, then this might work for you.
November 19, 2018
A collection of horror stories written by Arthur Machen ranging from good-to-mediocre which I have reviewed below:
The White People
There are books which show you the supernatural with grotesque images/depictions and then there are ones which hint at them, tease it endlessly, before giving the readers a small glimpse to the myriad fantasy world of supernatural. Arthur Machen has succeeded quite succinctly in the second, which is quite remarkable for its era.
The Inmost Light
A rather creepy and chilling short story featuring Machen's occult investigator Dyson. This time we have Dyson looking into the mysterious murder of the wife of a respected doctor in London and what he finds there is nothing short of revealing the inmost light of her soul!
The Novel of the Black Seal
"Weird" is a one-word summary I could give for this short story. Machen's "Little People" have been rather highly influential to H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, among others in depicting their own "weird" supernatural worlds. The tale of the "Little People" in Machen's stories, rests on the protagonist trying to explain away fables and folktales as distorted truths. Its these distorted truths bring out the idea that amongst the real and tangible lies the supernatural. In this case, the implication that "fairies" were actually an aboriginal race in Britain.
The Novel of the White Powder
Bizarre and ludicrous is what this story turns out in the end. What we have here is a white powder, having sat on the medicine shelf for years at a pharmacist stop, and upon subjected to fluctuating temperatures over the years has turned naturally into something called the vinum sabbati . This ancient formula was apparently used centuries ago to release the inner demon within a human and a black gooey, evil mass is what remains of our protagonist! Needless to say, that the whole temperature fluctuation and chemist's intimate knowledge of centuries old, obscure formula for demonic release is ludicrous, to say the least.
The Red Hand
Machen continues with his "little people" being a separate, lost, mystical race of humans from a bygone era as a cause of all human misery. And here we have a murder mystery thrown in with a rather shoddy, hand-waving resolution at the end.
The Shining Pyramid
Machen's occult investigator, Dyson appears in this horror-mystery story, wherein a young girl disappears and strange markings are discovered in a nearby house. What he and his friend discover is that an ancient evil, Machen's beloved creation - "little-people", have made this remote, hilly countryside as one of their lairs in form of a Shining Pyramid.
The White People
There are books which show you the supernatural with grotesque images/depictions and then there are ones which hint at them, tease it endlessly, before giving the readers a small glimpse to the myriad fantasy world of supernatural. Arthur Machen has succeeded quite succinctly in the second, which is quite remarkable for its era.
The Inmost Light
A rather creepy and chilling short story featuring Machen's occult investigator Dyson. This time we have Dyson looking into the mysterious murder of the wife of a respected doctor in London and what he finds there is nothing short of revealing the inmost light of her soul!
The Novel of the Black Seal
"Weird" is a one-word summary I could give for this short story. Machen's "Little People" have been rather highly influential to H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, among others in depicting their own "weird" supernatural worlds. The tale of the "Little People" in Machen's stories, rests on the protagonist trying to explain away fables and folktales as distorted truths. Its these distorted truths bring out the idea that amongst the real and tangible lies the supernatural. In this case, the implication that "fairies" were actually an aboriginal race in Britain.
The Novel of the White Powder
Bizarre and ludicrous is what this story turns out in the end. What we have here is a white powder, having sat on the medicine shelf for years at a pharmacist stop, and upon subjected to fluctuating temperatures over the years has turned naturally into something called the vinum sabbati . This ancient formula was apparently used centuries ago to release the inner demon within a human and a black gooey, evil mass is what remains of our protagonist! Needless to say, that the whole temperature fluctuation and chemist's intimate knowledge of centuries old, obscure formula for demonic release is ludicrous, to say the least.
The Red Hand
Machen continues with his "little people" being a separate, lost, mystical race of humans from a bygone era as a cause of all human misery. And here we have a murder mystery thrown in with a rather shoddy, hand-waving resolution at the end.
The Shining Pyramid
Machen's occult investigator, Dyson appears in this horror-mystery story, wherein a young girl disappears and strange markings are discovered in a nearby house. What he and his friend discover is that an ancient evil, Machen's beloved creation - "little-people", have made this remote, hilly countryside as one of their lairs in form of a Shining Pyramid.
July 12, 2025
Machen, king of real proper scary fairies.
August 7, 2025
Some of these tales are really engaging and others are slow. The stories explore science, materialism, and the sacred in horror stories. The author was born in the 1800s and engages in fantastical horror stories.
July 30, 2019
Wow I hope the author got over his terrible fear of sex, and the implication that it meant women would ruin him after writing it out in "The Great god Pan." It's genuinely hilarious how blatant it is. Like he probably believed he was writing a metaphysical tale of unnameable, indescribable horror that happens when an old god is summoned (you can really see his influence on Lovecraft). But the summoning is inexplicable, like why did they even do it? And releases into the world a woman who is very beautiful but corrupts every man she encounters. Like jesus, dude, be gay, it's fine, or asexual. You don't have to fuck a fine lady if you're that afraid. And yet it's an enjoyable string of tales as a couple guys, terribly fearful of women, and harboring secret shameful desires to know about dark, unnameable things (in the shape of this old god, definitely not about sex *cough*) both trying to search out the origins of this terrible corrupting woman. It has a pleasingly Gothic supernatural horror going on, and a pleasantly steady and very Victorian prose (as it was written in the 1880s). And it's nicely done in sort of a proto-Twilight Zone way, where the horrors are only alluded to, never described, leaving the reader to imagine their own idea of such awfulness. Indeed the sexual nature of the woman's interactions is also only allusion, though the internet tells me that at the time the book was panned as degenerate and shameful for this vague sexual content. Oscar Wilde was apparently a fan, which doesn't help my reading of it as women being mysteriously terrifying.
The second story "The White People" starts with a ridiculous discussion of the true nature of Sin, thus illustrated by one man with a girl's diary in which she basically tells of experiences with fairies, paganism and perhaps witchcraft, as taught by her nurse old ways passed down among women. Ultimately the girl dies of the poison to her soul, I guess, but it reads very much as young woman destroyed by discovering and owning her own sexual pleasure. The bit about her nurse making her promise to keep it secret then making a little clay "man" and doing secret, mysterious and pleasing things with it is not at all subtle. When she's older the girl makes her own even better "man" and that is the point at which she falls into madness and dies of her poisoned soul. Hmmm.
Despite it not aging well for me, I did like the titular story here, and the girl growing up dabbling in fairies and witchcraft, but the rest of the collection didn't really hold my attention. I skimmed and skipped a lot. I can only take so much of people being afraid of vague, unnamed things that amount only to being afraid of the unknown. And stories in which men corrupt women, and the women then corrupt other men. Presumably by having been inducted into sex then ruining men by being a woman who enjoys sex? And "The White Powder" which is a decent, classic Gothic horror, but also a pretty blatant metaphor for drug addiction, involving and an actual drug and a very changed person. I can see how formative all these stories were to other writers, and generally find them a great replacement for Lovecraft, as these are less fraught and more engaging, particularly with ancient horrors being predominately Old World things in the hills, rather than people of color. Rating overall is for the first two stories in the collection and I'm calling that fair since it's mostly about the titular story anyway.
The audiobook narrator was delightful and perfect, bringing more depth to some of these stories than I might have gotten from just reading them. Very period appropriate, and a lovely reading voice, plus a great way with character.
The second story "The White People" starts with a ridiculous discussion of the true nature of Sin, thus illustrated by one man with a girl's diary in which she basically tells of experiences with fairies, paganism and perhaps witchcraft, as taught by her nurse old ways passed down among women. Ultimately the girl dies of the poison to her soul, I guess, but it reads very much as young woman destroyed by discovering and owning her own sexual pleasure. The bit about her nurse making her promise to keep it secret then making a little clay "man" and doing secret, mysterious and pleasing things with it is not at all subtle. When she's older the girl makes her own even better "man" and that is the point at which she falls into madness and dies of her poisoned soul. Hmmm.
Despite it not aging well for me, I did like the titular story here, and the girl growing up dabbling in fairies and witchcraft, but the rest of the collection didn't really hold my attention. I skimmed and skipped a lot. I can only take so much of people being afraid of vague, unnamed things that amount only to being afraid of the unknown. And stories in which men corrupt women, and the women then corrupt other men. Presumably by having been inducted into sex then ruining men by being a woman who enjoys sex? And "The White Powder" which is a decent, classic Gothic horror, but also a pretty blatant metaphor for drug addiction, involving and an actual drug and a very changed person. I can see how formative all these stories were to other writers, and generally find them a great replacement for Lovecraft, as these are less fraught and more engaging, particularly with ancient horrors being predominately Old World things in the hills, rather than people of color. Rating overall is for the first two stories in the collection and I'm calling that fair since it's mostly about the titular story anyway.
The audiobook narrator was delightful and perfect, bringing more depth to some of these stories than I might have gotten from just reading them. Very period appropriate, and a lovely reading voice, plus a great way with character.
August 11, 2025
“A fragment of life” might be one of my favorite novellas ever. I understand how it may seem meandering and boring for some readers, but I believe the first part of the story should be read almost like a parody of the materialist lifestyle that Machen despised so much. I loved the way fantasy started creeping in and I found the descriptions of London to be really beautiful.
My least favorite had to be “The red hand”, it read like a pale imitation of Arthur Conan Doyle with a truly unsatisfactory ending.
Overall, I think this made me realize that Machen is one of my favorite writers
My least favorite had to be “The red hand”, it read like a pale imitation of Arthur Conan Doyle with a truly unsatisfactory ending.
Overall, I think this made me realize that Machen is one of my favorite writers
October 30, 2023
The title story was great, the rest was kind of meh and repetitive. Not sure how many old white dudes I can listen to tell a story about a weird thing that happened to another old white dude he happened upon one evening after not seeing him for a while, and then the second old white dude has a book that someone else wrote in that he’s going to read to us from, and isn’t that a weird thing that happened?
October 8, 2022
No entirely my cup of (overly-steeped) tea… but you could draw an evolutionary line from this to Straub’s Ghost Story and Simmons’s Carrion Comfort.
December 30, 2024
My interest in this 1894 horror/fantasy classic was because of a tweet from the great Bob Dylan on 10/23/24 - where he called The Great God Pan "...one of my favorite books."
Alas - I didn't take the shine to it that Dylan did - although I do admire its ability to stand the test of time.
Alas - I didn't take the shine to it that Dylan did - although I do admire its ability to stand the test of time.
October 17, 2024
Skip the last piece and you have got yourself a 4-star collection of wonderful stories.
April 22, 2025
one of my favorites
August 12, 2025
Dreamlike and trippy, you can see the influence on Lovecraft. The stories can meander, short on narrative drive and long on meandering atmosphere.
February 6, 2026
All these stories are basically the same but all do a nice job setting up the same ending. Probably best to read one, put the rest away from a few months before reading another.
September 17, 2022
I thought this was wonderful. The prose is lyrical and has a light touch, it manages to convey the prosaic and worldly and the mystical and otherworldly and very often the downright creepy. The narrator is excellent. The only drawback is that given the age of the book you are expected to have an education in the classics and understand Latin. Thus, the 4 stars as my Latin was never great and is now pretty well none existent and as this was an audio book I was unable to take a note and translate the Latin for myself. I may have to get a hard copy just so that I can do this as I rather suspect that I have missed something as a result of my ignorance. If you like the writing style of Conan Doyle and Rider Haggard, I do recommend.
November 24, 2018
I suppose I expected more, as many times I've read "The Great God Pan" is one of the great horror stories of all time. It's not. In nearly every case, I was not drawn into the story.
Good narrator.
Good narrator.
March 22, 2023
Eerie collection of cosmic horror short stories. The first one, The Great God Pan, is pretty phenomenal. The Green Book and the Black Stone ones were also fun, but after a while the stories become very samey and I found myself getting a little bored lmao.
December 30, 2021
A fine audio collection of major tales circa 1890ish to 1910ish.
October 22, 2022
Weird fiction from yesteryear with ties to legend and folklore rather than alien entities. If that's what you're looking for, you're going to have a good time.
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March 8, 2023Really hard to rate this one. The title story is a 5* but there were a couple 1* in there as well.
February 21, 2024
some of the stories are worse than others, but the good ones carry the book. it helps that i'm a sucker for cosmic horror manifesting in fairytales
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews