Arthur Machen · 1894
Arthur Machen was a Welsh writer who spent his early career in London, translating, writing and absorbing the city's occult and literary fringes. The Great God Pan, published in 1894, grew out of his fascination with the old, wild places of his native Gwent and with the idea that the visible world is only a thin veil over something far stranger. On its first appearance it was condemned as morbid and decadent, and its notoriety helped make it a landmark of weird fiction.
The book is a short, shadowy novella told in fragments: an experiment, a gentleman's memoir, scraps of gossip and a series of strange deaths in London society. Machen leaves the worst unsaid, which is why the story still unsettles readers who have read a great deal since.
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Obscura EditionCarmillaJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu