Indescribable horrors are hinted at but never described except in their effects on various unfortunates who come in contact with a woman corrupted by an ambitious and unscrupulous doctor's experiment.

Horror in the Mind of the Beholder
Review of the Public Domain Kindle eBook edition (May 16, 2012) excerpted from the John Lane hardcover original (1894*).

The greatest horror tales I ever read is a tie between “The Great God Pan,” by Arthur Machen (novella) and "The Ceremonies," by T.E.D. Klein. - tweeted by Stephen King on February 9, 2024.

While doing research for my review of Stephen King's Holly (2023), I chanced upon the above statement in between the constant stream of King's anti-Trump tweets. Having read neither of the books mentioned, I immediately grabbed a free public domain copy of The Great God Pan. Klein's The Ceremonies (1984) with a rare used paperback listed at $102.55 Cdn. 😮 will have to wait its turn.

You shouldn't expect anything very explicit from this Victorian novella. It primarily consists of the conversations or the recorded letters of various paranormal investigators, doctors, scholars and such. The title villain and its progeny are never directly encountered but are constantly spoken about. The horror of it all is the extent to which your imagination will take you.

The greatest horror for me was actually in the first chapter where a diabolical experiment is performed on a hapless young woman in order for her to "see" into the other world. This "operation" consists of a method which pre-figures lobotomies (which weren't invented until 1935) by 45 years! The resulting spawn is unleashed upon the world until steps are taken to eradicate it.

See title page at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Title_page--The_great_...
Title page from the John Lane 1894 edition with an illustration by Aubrey Beardsley. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

Footnote
* Goodreads shows 1890 as the year of first publication, but that was only an early version of Chapter 1 which appeared in The Whirlwind magazine. The full novella was not published until 1894 when it was paired with Machen's short story The Inmost Light.

Trivia and Link
The Great God Pan is in the Public Domain and can be read at various online sources such as Project Gutenberg. The Public Domain Kindle eBook is available free at Amazon. ( )

Strange, influential story. You would need to be focused to read this to not miss anything. Stephen King called it as one of the greatest horror stories in English. Has some sexual scenes that must have been very surprising to readers back when this book came out in 1890. I liked it. ( )

A couple of times does that thing where it builds up and then when you think it's going to finally describe something, just cuts out. It's pretty pathetic, although I know a lot of people are cool with that sort of thing. To me it kind of blew the atmosphere. Which is a shame because it IS a very good atmosphere and it's pretty suspenseful. Even with that, though, it was enjoyable and I thought the ending was pretty alright considering it was of that style. Despite myself I was kept in suspense and if you don't mind anti-climaxes like that you'll enjoy this quite a bit I think. Good stuff slightly marred by a bit of poor writing. ( )

Really good, thoroughly enjoyed the various unfoldings ( )