The Horned GodWeird Tales of the Great God Pan
This new collection in the Tales of the Weird series brings together stories from classic horror writers alongside perhaps unexpected writers who were influenced by the cultural fascination with Pan.
…and then the music was so loud, so beautiful that I couldn’t think of anything else. I was completely lost to the music, enveloped by melody which was part of Pan.
In 1894, Arthur Machen’s landmark novella The Great God Pan was published, sparking the sinister resurgence of the pagan goat god. Writers of the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, such as Oscar Wilde, E. M. Forster and Margery Lawrence, took the god’s rebellious influence as inspiration to spin beguiling tales of social norms turned upside down and ancient ecological forces compelling their protagonists to ecstatic heights or bizarre dooms.
Assembling ten tales and six poems – along with Machen’s novella – from the boom years of Pan-centric literature, this new collection revels in themes of queer awakening, transgression against societal bonds and the bewitching power of the wild as it explores a rapturous and culturally significant chapter in the history of weird fiction.
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Michael Wheatley
Michael Wheatley is a practice-based researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, whose work explores weird fiction in the age of climate crisis.
British Library Tales of the Weird
The British Library Tales of the Weird series revives and unearths classic strange fiction from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the form of novels, single-author collections and thematic anthologies, complete with new introductions and fascinating notes by expert editors.
British Library Tales of the Weird consists of seventy-three books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
