The Great God Pan
"The Great God Pan" implied sexuality caused a scandal upon its original release and hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Reviewing the novella for the magazine "Literary News", Richard Henry Stoddard criticised the story as "too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind". The art critic Harry Quilter's review of the book, titled "The Gospel of Intensity", and published in "The Contemporary Review" in June 1895, was even more harsh. Quilter declared: "The Great God Pan' is, I have no hesitation in saying, a perfectly abominable story, in which the author has spared no endeavor to suggest loathsomeness and horror which he describes as beyond the reach of words." Quilter warned that Machen's books were a dangerous threat to the entire British public and that they would destroy readers' sanities and senses of morality. Quilter went on to attack the story's publisher, John Lane, as well as Machen himself: "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?" Quilter added that works of fiction like Machen's should be unanimously condemned by literary critics and newspapers: "If the Press was so disposed it could stamp out such art and fiction in a few months: And that disposition must be acquired, must even be enforced." He was particularly harsh in his denunciation of sexual ambiguity and polymorphous androgyny in the book. He expressed revulsion at Machen's description of Helen's sex changing immediately before her death and concluded his review with a comment of distaste regarding the "nasty little naked figure of dubious sex and humanity with which Mr. Aubrey Beardsley has prefaced the story". A positive appraisal of the novella came from Oscar Wilde, who called it "un succès fou."
Anton Pann
In 1843, Pann established a printing press inside the Olteni Church, which published works by several authors of his day, as well as a long series of almanacs. He later confessed that this enterprise had drained his economies, and that he had relied on support from various benefactors. Upon Neofit's request, he also began the translation of various religious texts. Pann's comprehensive and innovative textbook for music, "Bazul teoretic şi practic al muzicii bisericeşti" ("The Theoretical and Practical Basis of Church music or the Melodic Grammar"), was officially endorsed by the Metropolitan and taught at the seminary after 1845 and became a template for similar works; in addition, his printing shop sold cheap copies of popular novels, such as the "Alexander Romance", the "Book of 1001 Nights", the "Book of Til Owl-Mirror", and the "Story of Genevieve of Brabant". In March 1847, Anton Pann authored an account of the Great Fire of Bucharest. During the latter disaster, his printing shop was heavily damaged, and he was only able to salvage the presses. He resumed his activities only in 1849, when he moved the business to a house owned by Catinca Pann on Taurului Street.