How a great horror tale grew from the ruins at a Roman temple site

Philip Dewey discovers the work of a Welsh writer whose work went on to inspire Oscar-winning films and still sends a chill up the spines of readers today

- Philip Dewey discovers the work of a Welsh writer whose work went on to inspire Oscar-winning films and still sends a chill up the spines of readers today

A WELSH writer whose stories were championed by Oscar Wilde and HP Lovecraft was described by author Stephen King as producing "one of the best horror stories ever written".

Arthur Machen was born in Caerleon in 1863, in what was then Monmouthshire, and grew up in the small village of Llanddewi Fach, at The Rectory where his father served as a Church of England clergyman. He took his inspiration for his most famous story The Great God Pan from his childhood visits to the ruined Roman temple at Caerwent.

The story went on to become his first major success but it caused controversy due to its perceived sexual undertones and its relation to the aesthetic and decadent movements which were prevalent in literary circles at the time.

Machen himself became interested in the occult and paganism, and he went on to join the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society and "magical order", following the death of his first wife.