An experiment into the sources of the human brain through the mind of a young woman has gone horribly wrong. She has seen the great god Pan and will die giving birth to a daughter. Twenty years later fêted society hostess, Helen Vaughan, becomes the source of much fevered speculation. Many men are infatuated with her beauty, but great beauty has a price, sometimes you have to pay with the only thing you have left. The Great God Pan was a sensation when first published and marked the start of Arthur Machen’s ongoing influence on modern fantasy and horror. Machen’s dark imaginings of the reality behind ancient beliefs feature again in the acclaimed, mesmerising short story ‘The White People’ and the curious tale, ‘The Shining Pyramid’, also in this volume.