Arthur Machen

The Great God Pan Arthur Machen

The Great God Pan was Arthur Machens first important work. Machen published the initial chapter in The Whirlwind in 1890. In 1893 he submitted the entire novel to another publisher, adding a second work, the story "The Inmost Light." The two appeared together the following year. The Great God Pan is composed of a number of individual narratives that at first seem jumbled but that eventually fit together like pieces of a horrifying jigsaw puzzle. Machen relies on several characters to present these narratives: the egotistical Dr. Raymond, the outwardly conventional but inwardly skeptical Mr. Clarke, the unlucky Charles Herbert, and the hearty Mr. Villiers.