The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories – Arthur Machen
The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories (Oxford World’s Classics Hardback Collection) / 389 pages / ISBN 9780198813163
I read the title story — and the novel The Hill of Dreams — two decades ago, but somehow only read “The White People” (it’s in here) more recently and I now understand why some people get obsessive about collecting his work.
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Perhaps no figure better embodies the transition from the Gothic tradition to modern horror than Arthur Machen. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Welsh writer produced a seminal body of tales of occult horror, spiritual and physical corruption, and malignant survivals from the primeval past which horrified and scandalized late Victorian readers. Machen’s “weird fiction” has influenced generations of storytellers, from H. P. Lovecraft to Guillermo Del Toro and it remains no less unsettling today.
This new collection, which includes the complete novel The Three Impostors as well as such celebrated tales as The Great God Pan and The White People, constitutes the most comprehensive critical edition of Machen yet to appear. In addition to the core late Victorian horror classics, a selection of lesser known prose poems and later tales helps to present a fuller picture of the development of Machen’s weird vision. The edition’s introduction and notes contextualize the life and work of this foundational figure in the history of horror.
