The Great God Pan

Dr. Raymond lives in a quiet house outside London, and he has a theory. He confides to his friend Clarke that a veil hangs between the visible world and whatever lies behind it, and that he knows how to lift it. A small operation on the brain of his young ward Mary, he says, will let her see the god Pan. Clarke agrees to be present for the experiment.

The story then moves into London itself. Suicides pile up without explanation, marriages fall apart, and scandal passes from one drawing room to the next in whispers. Each trail leads back to a single woman, Helen Vaughan, who appears in different places under different names.

The book is weird horror, told through the inquiries of Clarke, Villiers and their circle. They assemble the truth one fragment at a time, so the reader learns it in pieces, as they do, and the structure is part of the unease.

It is short and slow-building. The dread comes from what is hinted at and left unsaid rather than from what is shown. John Lane published it in 1894 with a cover by Aubrey Beardsley, and its first chapter had appeared in 1890 in the periodical The Whirlwind. Victorian critics branded it degenerate, and it has since become a classic of the genre.