The Great God Pan

Lore & Background

Arthur Machen was inspired to write The Great God Pan by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. The first chapter was published in the newspaper The Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen later extended it into a book alongside another story, 'The Inmost Light', in 1894. The novella begins with Dr. Raymond performing brain surgery on his ward Mary to let her see the supernatural world, which she calls 'seeing the great god Pan'. She becomes a hopeless idiot after the operation. Twenty-three years later, a series of mysterious happenings and deaths surround a woman named Helen Vaughan, who is later revealed to be Mary's child, conceived after Mary saw the god Pan.

Reader's Guide

The Great God Pan was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its implied sexual content, and it hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Beginning in the 1920s, Machen's work was critically re-evaluated, and the novella has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Literary critics have noted the influence of other nineteenth-century authors on the work and offered differing opinions on whether it can be considered an example of Gothic fiction or science fiction. The novella influenced horror writers such as Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, and has been adapted for the stage twice. The story has been classified as Decadent literature, featuring occultism, paganism, non-mainstream eroticism, and the femme fatale.

Did You Know?

• The first chapter of The Great God Pan was published in the newspaper The Whirlwind in 1890.
• The novella was originally rejected by publisher Blackwood, who deemed it a clever story that shrank from the central idea.