The Great God Pan, The White People, and Other Stories

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By Arthur Machen

Publisher Description

“The Great God Pan, The White People, and Other Stories” is a collection of nineteen short stories and novellas by Arthur Machen. The Welsh author, journalist, actor, and mystic, was well-known for his early influential horror and supernatural fantasy tales published in the late 19th and early 20th century. Included in this collection are some of his most enduring and famous works, such as the novella “The Great God Pan”, first published in 1890. Considered one of the best horror stories in English literature, the tale of Helen Vaughn and the mystery and violence that surrounded her life was met with much controversy and acclaim when it first appeared for its taboo subject matter and suggestive imagery. Also included are such classics as “The Bowmen”, his 1914 tale of ghosts helping British soldiers at the Battle of Mons that was widely believed by many at the time to be a true story of otherworldly intervention. Machen’s imaginative and spell-binding tales continue to entertain and inspire generations of readers and writers who enjoy well-crafted tales of suspense and supernatural fantasy. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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2 Reviews

3.5

Sisteray

Created about 2 years ago

“I have such mixed feelings about Machen. The guy can undoubtedly write, and is clearly a HUGE influence on weird and speculative fiction. I've described him as a charming gasbag before, and I just can't come up with a better description of his approach since then. Chaosium did a fine job collecting his work, but I can't help but feel that all his best pieces were front loaded into their The Three Imposters and Other Stories collection. I feel that there are good and, in a historical sense, important stories in this collection. But, for my tastes, it mostly doesn't stack up to the first in the series. I can only imagine the dregs that ended up in that third set. With this release, the work becomes far less focused on plot. I think he was so infatuated describing landscapes that he just fully leaned into people just walking around checking nature, cities, or supernatural environments. That or using conversations to unload his philosophy on the natural way of things. Pieces like Ornaments in Jade, while having a couple generally cool vignettes, for the most part is a collection of writing experiments, with people doing nothing more that describing what they see when wandering aimlessly. Ceremony and Torture are the exceptions to the rest, and benefited by having an actual point other than just to be pretty. But mind you the work is indeed pretty. The big stand out for me in this set is The Red Hand, it has a slow burn set-up. Lots of classic exposition and pontification, some wandering, but then it has a solid delivery. The Happy Children is also really short but actually has an interest in delivering an ending. Other pieces like The Great Return, The Coming of the Terror are unfolding concept pieces. And while I thought that they were well written, I also felt like he was more interested in slowly stoking the fire than he was in making the reveal all that worthwhile. The big duds were the self-indulgent self-referential Out of the Earth and the interminably boring novella The Fragments of Life which after 50 of 75 pages I just couldn't bear to continue. The latter was an exploration mundane minutia, which done well like Baker's Mezzanine, can be endearing. But he was intentionally setting the stage with a character dragged down by the day-to-day and it bought-in heavily. So the story is lists of ovens and how they are going to redecorate, how doorknobs work, going to and from shops, ad infinitum. I think the biggest take away is that he created the Weird War Story genre with The Angels of Mons (and in some ways with The Coming of the Terror). The stories themselves were ok, but as a historical artifact they are cool. I left the big story for last, The White People. Honestly, even though it's yet another "person just wandering around" story, it's really well executed and totally intriguing. Unfortunately, the great part of the story is buried beneath the bookended frame work that is saturated with characters holding forth their claptrap under the guise of having a conversation. While the set-up is eye-rollingly obnoxious with a character just espousing Machen's weirdo metaphysical mumbo jumbo, the meat of the story is totally worth the effort. I can't help feeling that Laird Barron just read and reread the story within this story. On whole, when it's good it's great, but it's a lot of work to find the great bits.”

Annalee Hodges

Created over 5 years ago