The Great God Pan
What is now the first chapter of the novella was published in 1890 in a magazine called "The Whirlwind", while what is now the third chapter of the book was published in the same magazine the following year as a standalone short story called "The City of Resurrections". Machen only viewed the two works as connected after they were finished. Once he decided the two stories were connected, Machen wrote the rest of "The Great God Pan" in a single evening save for its final chapter. Machen did not think of an ending for the tale for months, and in that time believed that the novella would remain unfinished forever. The last chapter was completed in June 1891. Machen sent the novella to the publisher Blackwood, who rejected it, deeming it a clever story that "shrink[s]...from the central idea." It was accepted by John Lane and published in 1894. When published as a book, "The Great God Pan" was accompanied by another Machen tale called "The Inmost Light" which also features a mad scientist and elements of science fiction. The book's cover was illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley.
The Great God Pan
According to film historians Keith McDonald and Roger Clark, Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro's portrayal of the faun in his 2006 dark fantasy film "Pan's Labyrinth" was inspired by the "ambivalent and possibly dangerous" portrayals of Pan in late Victorian and early Edwardian novels, including Machen's "The Great God Pan" and "Pan's Garden" (1912) by Algernon Blackwood. Del Toro deliberately chose to imitate the darker, more sinister fauns of Machen and Blackwood rather than the "sweetly domesticated figure" of Mr. Tumnus from C. S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (1950). The original title of the film in Spanish is "El Laberinto del Fauno" ("The Labyrinth of the Faun"), but the English title "Pan's Labyrinth" emphasizes the connection between del Toro's film and the body of late nineteenth-century writings about Pan, including "The Great God Pan".