The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

This is an interesting novella, written in 1894, with the first chapter initially written as a standalone short story in a magazine, followed by what would later be the third chapter, with the pieces being linked together and expanded into a full novella in one furious writing session.

The book opens with a classic mad scientist performing experimental brain surgery on a young woman with the intention of opening her mind to experience the hitherto unseen dimensions of the spirit world, something he calls ‘seeing the great god Pan’. Of course, the experiment has ghastly unforeseen consequences.

The story picks up with an account of a young orphan girl, sent to live in a small Welsh town by relatives and the disturbing nature of her activities. The final strand concerns a rash of unexplained suicides of well to do gentlemen in London, being linked by a mysterious woman with a scandalous reputation. All of the elements of the story are bought together in the end towards a shocking conclusion.

Unusually for the time, this story contains allusions to the occult and sexual behaviour, which although not explicitly set out are pretty obvious. This led to the book being criticised for being degenerate and horrific, especially for the final section which verges on what we would now describe as body horror. However, it’s clear to see the influence that this book has had on authors from HP Lovecraft to Stephen King and it is very much worth reading now.

It’s available from Project Gutenberg and also as a two part reading by Jim Moon from the Hypnogoria podcast here: Part 1 Part 2