"the most acutely and intentionally disagreeable book yet seen in English" Westminster Gazette, 1894

“one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language” Stephen King, 2008

Wales' greatest master of the macabre and mystical, Arthur Machen was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon, and grew up to become one of the most influential and original writers of his generation.

The Great God Pan is a tense and atmospheric chiller in which some unspeakable horror - perhaps the offspring of an ancient god - is loose in contemporary (late 19th century) London. One of the most controversial stories of its time, on publication it was denounced as decadent and degenerate, but it has since built a reputation as one of the greatest examples of its genre.

This edition includes a new introduction by the multi award-winning novelist Ramsey Campbell, described by The Oxford Companion to English Literature as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’.

Machen spent a solitary childhood in the Monmouthshire countryside, exploring the Black Mountains, the ancient forest of Wentwood and the Severn Valley. He drew on his childhood among these dark landscapes and long-buried pagan remains, interweaving it with his adult life in bohemian fin-de-siécle London, to create magical and often deeply disturbing tales.

After WWI, he became a star on both sides of the Atlantic, and attracted admirers including H. P. Lovecraft, who described him as one of the four ‘modern masters of the horror story’. His fans today include Stephen King, Clive Barker, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, who have all emphasised their debt to Machen as ‘the forgotten father of weird fiction’ (The Guardian)

‘One of the best horror writers ever… Have you read The Great God Pan? Terrifying.’ Mark E. Smith

‘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