"Of creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few can hope to equal Arthur Machen." — H. P. Lovecraft Arthur Machen (1863–1947), Welsh novelist and essayist, is considered one of the most important and influential writers of his time. While displaying a preoccupation with pagan themes and matters of the occult — an interest he shared with his close friend, the distinguished scholar A. E. Waite — his writing transcends the genre of supernatural horror. Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Paul Bowles and Jorge Luis Borges are just a few of the literary notables who are counted among his admirers. Machen is also a key figure in the development of pulp magazine fiction (e.g., Weird Tales), a line of ancestry that leads directly to today's popular graphic novels. Further, Machen's name often crops up in the writings of theorists and practitioners of psychogeography, a school of thought and literature which explores the hidden links between the landscape and the mind. In "The Great God Pan, " Arthur Machen delivers a tense atmospheric story about a string of mysterious suicides. With its suggestive visions of decadent sexuality, the work scandalized Victorian London. This edition also includes "The White People, " "The Inmost Light, " and "The Shining Pyramid." Taken together, these short stories are considered some of the first works of horror and have inspired generations of subsequent writers and creators.