The Great God Pan

by Arthur Machen

Overview

The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write The Great God Pan by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine The Whirlwind in 1890. Machen later extended The Great God Pan and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of unearthly transformations before dying and she is revealed to be a supernatural entity.

On publication, it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its implied sexual content, and the novella hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Beginning in the 1920s, Machen's work was critically re-evaluated and The Great God Pan has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Literary critics have noted the influence of other nineteenth-century authors on The Great God Pan and offered differing opinions on whether or not it can be considered an example of Gothic fiction or science fiction. The novella has influenced the work of horror writers such as Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, and has been adapted for the stage twice.

A pair of parodies of Pan were published in 1895 - Arthur Rickett's "A Yellow Creeper" and Arthur Sykes's "The Great Pan-Demon". Both suggest that Machen is an author of "limited imagination," with the latter depicting him as a mad scientist unleashing degenerate literature on an unsuspecting public. The Great God Pan was brought to the stage in 2008 by the WildClaw Theatre Company in Chicago. It was adapted and directed by WildClaw artistic director Charley Sherman. The novella Helen's Story (2013) by Rosanne Rabinowitz retells the story of The Great God Pan from Helen Vaughan's point of view. Helen's Story was written from a feminist perspective and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. The Great God Pan was adapted into a chamber opera by composer Ross Crean. Unusually for a composer, Crean wrote the opera's libretto himself. A recording of the work was released in 2017. The production saw its world premiere by Chicago Fringe Opera in 2018. According to the Chicago Tribune's John von Rhein, Chicago Fringe Opera's staging of The Great God Pan portrays Helen Vaughan as both a symbol of gender equality and an evil femme fatale. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644398913
Publisher:	Indoeuropeanpublishing.com
Publication date:	01/02/2023
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	766,069
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.21(d)

About the Author

Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh mystic and author. Born Arthur Llewellyn Jones, he was raised in Monmouthshire in a prominent family of clergymen. He developed an early interest in alchemy and other occult matters, and obtained a classical education at Hereford Cathedral School. He moved to London, where he failed to gain admittance to medical school and soon focused on his literary interests. Working as a tutor, he wrote in the evening and published his first poem, “Eleusinia,” in 1881. A novel, The Anatomy of Tobacco (1884), soon followed, launching his career as a professional writer. Machen made a name for himself as a frequent contributor to London literary magazines and achieved his first major success with the 1894 novella The Great God Pan. Following his wife’s death from cancer in 1899, he briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and began conducting research on Celtic Christianity, the legend of the Holy Grail, and the stories of King Arthur. In 1922, after a decade of working as a journalist for the Evening News, he published The Secret Glory—a story of the Grail—to popular and critical acclaim. This marked the highpoint of his career as a pioneering author of fantasy, horror, and supernatural fiction whose work has been admired and praised by William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Stephen King.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter four

THE HUMAN

The midday heat bakes the earth and makes me yawn. Eternity is long; gods have a lot of empty time.

But then my eyes pop open, for a girlish voice zigzags about my ears.

The voice lilts closer.

I push up onto an elbow and look around.

A human child comes through the grasses. The gnarled olive branches filter the sun to silver. Shadow hides her face as she stoops to pick red and yellow and black anemones.

I scamper behind a thick tree trunk. Is she alone? How can that be? A girl child of her tender age shouldn't go unattended. Artemis, my most beloved aunt, protects maidens, especially when they romp in forests and meadows. Nevertheless, the girl's parents are neglectful to let her stray alone.

This Part of Arcadia is sparsely populated. The only road runs from Argos, in the northeast, to ugly Sparta, in the central south. The difference between the two is like the difference between the sun and the moon. Which is she a child of?

I don't care for human adults, who scream when they see me.

But I like human children. I've watched them play, almost like goat kids. Nowhere near as nimble, though. On my two legs I can never run as fast as goats or climb with as much agility. But I can best any human at both.

I peek out from around the tree. The child talks to a flower.

She comes closer.

I pull my head out of sight. A long while passes. I scratch my rump against a low broken-off branch. A breeze shakes the narrow leaves, green-silver-green.

What is she doing?

I peek.

She rolls in the grass in full sunlight. Her hair picks up bits of stick and leaves. She's as blissful and free as some sort of cub.

I jump into view.

She gets toher feet, eyes instantly wet and bright, hands out to each side; at the first hint of evil, she'll take flight.

I sit on my haunches, thinking, Stay, child. Stay a while.

She bends at the waist just enough so that her face

comes forward slightly. Her small breasts press against her shift. She's older than I thought. "What are you?"

What, not who. She's taken me for a beast. She's an idiot, after all. The sharp points of my horns could pierce her soft belly like a knife through fresh cheese.

Her full face watches me, open, waiting.

And I see there is nothing dull in her eyes, nor any hint of superiority. Her purity deserves honesty. "A freak," I say.

She withdraws a step, blushing. She thinks I am embarrassed to be as I am. Silly girl. I am the delight of the gods.

"Do you mean me harm?" she asks.

"Never."

"Are you nasty like other hybrids?"

A nasty question. "Which hybrids do you speak of?"

"The centaurs," she says.

"Some centaurs are noble," I say.

"They're known for rape."

I shrug. "No, I'm not nasty."

Her arms lower slowly. She looks over her shoulder, then back at me. Her hands grip at the folds in her shift. And now I can see that she is a rare beauty.

I lift my nose and breathe deep. "You smell of thyme." A smell I favor; thyme honey is the best.

She touches her hair uncertainly and picks out debris. "Everything lives in these grasses."

"It's rash to roll here. You're lucky you aren't stinging from thistles."

"I checked first," she says. "None of these flowers or herbs is poisonous."

I grant her a small smile. "Who taught you so much about plants?"

"I learned on my own. I love the outdoors." She looks over her shoulder again.

"Are you expecting someone?" I ask.

She smiles shyly and shakes her head. "They don't know I took a walk. They forbid midday walks."

She could have said yes. She could have used a cloak of lies to protect herself. "And who are they?"

"My mother and sister and the servants. We stopped because of the heat, and Electra, she's my sister, she cried of thirst. Now they're napping."

"Did you cry?"

"I never cry."

I tilt my head. "You expect me to believe that?"

"Believe it or not, as you wish."

She's saucy. This time I hold in my smile. "I didn't mean to offend. Why would you refuse to cry?"

She hesitates. "Why should I answer you?"

"For the same reason I answer you."

She stands there silent.

I put both hands on my knees and rub my palms in circles. The knots of hair that form come off in clumps.

She picks one up. "Are you ill?"

I almost laugh. "Just molting."

She drops the clump and sucks in air. "Can you keep a secret? "

Why would this girl trust me so fast? I nod.

She looks at me hard. "I'm not my mother's daughter. Or, well, not her blood daughter. My real mother abandoned me at birth. So I have to be extra good to be loved. Before my sister was born, I didn't have to be so careful. But it's different now."

Her matter-of-factness steals my breath. A newborn abandoned by a mother--this is a story I know. Mothers can be cruel. After a moment, I ask in a quiet voice, "Why is this a secret?"

The girl shrugs.

"Do you know your real mother?" I ask.

"No."

I have to ask. "Do you know why she abandoned you?"

"She wasn't married."

"How do you know all this?"

"I overheard the servants, so I asked my mother."

"You asked her outright?"

"And why shouldn't I have?"

Table of Contents

THE EXPERIMENT

MR. CLARKE'S MEMOIRS

THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS

THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET

THE LETTER OF ADVICE

THE SUICIDES

THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO

THE FRAGMENTS

Editorial Reviews

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



"For ability to create an atmosphere of nameless terror I can think of no author living or dead who comes near to him."  —Jerome K. Jerome, author, Three Men in a Boat



"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."  —Jorge Luis Borges

From the Publisher