Tag Archives: Arthur Machen

October 13, 2014 · 6:57 pm

GOTHIC HORROR: THREE MORE NEGLECTED TALES

Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Recently I examined three neglected Gothic horror stories. Here are three more that deserve more attention than they generally receive.

DON'T BELIEVE SOURCES THAT TRY TO PASS THIS OFF AS A TRUE STORY.

DON’T BELIEVE SOURCES THAT TRY TO PASS THIS OFF AS A TRUE STORY.

THE SQUAW HOLLOW SENSATION (1879) – Author unknown. This macabre tale from America should be as well-known as works like The House of the Seven Gables or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Squaw Hollow Sensation deals with an Aztec mummy and was first published in serialized form in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat in 1879.

The story was originally presented as if it actually happened but as it becomes more grisly and fantastic the reader realizes it’s fictional. When gold mining uncovers an Aztec tomb in California an obsessed scientist conducts macabre experiments to try to revive Sethos, one of the entombed mummies. Some things are better left alone, however as we learn in a tale that includes wandering Aztec ghosts, twisted experimentation on the bodies of Sethos’ fellow mummies and a catalogue of atrocities.   Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 12:10 pm

THE GREAT GOD PAN (1890) : HALLOWEEN READING

The Great God Pan

The Great God Pan

Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues! Nearly a century before Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen trilogy and decades before H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and From Beyond there was Arthur Machen’s story The Great God Pan. Originally published in 1890 and then expanded in 1894 this gothic horror tale was so far ahead of its time that it scandalized readers and reviewers of the era. Even though it came along earlier than Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Machen’s great work dealt with such a brand of horror and with such adult themes that movies – silent and then early talkies – wouldn’t dare adapting it for the screen. 

Thus denied the cinematic exposure that made names like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde household words The Great God Pan fell into undeserved obscurity, much like The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers, a work reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.

Like so many of the best horror stories Machen’s tale begins with a mad scientist, in this case Dr Raymond, who invites his friend Mr Clarke to witness him perform an Continue reading →

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October 25, 2012 · 1:00 am

HALLOWEEN READING: THE GREAT GOD PAN (1890)

The Great God Pan

The Great God Pan

Nearly a century before Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen trilogy and decades before H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and From Beyond there was Arthur Machen’s story The Great God Pan. Originally published in 1890 and then expanded by an anonymous author in 1894 this gothic horror tale was so far ahead of its time that it scandalized readers and reviewers of the era. Even though it came along earlier than Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Machen’s great work dealt with such a brand of horror and with such adult themes that movies – silent and then early talkies – wouldn’t dare adapting it for the screen. 

Thus denied the cinematic exposure that made names like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde household words The Great God Pan fell into undeserved obscurity, much like The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers, a work reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.

Like so many of the best horror stories Machen’s tale begins with a mad scientist, in this case Dr Raymond, who invites his friend Mr Clarke to witness him perform an operation that represents the culmination of ten years of work in what Dr Raymond calls Continue reading →

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