The Terror

Most essential Machen work is from the 1890s, but The Terror is one of his most developed horror tales from his later career. This often waffling novella is meandering and less focused than his dark folk masterpieces The Hill of Dreams, The Great God Pan, Novel of the Black Seal and The White People, but also gleefully manic and quite inspired in parts, developing an atmosphere of magical mystery and dread around the countryside and featuring moments of terror, particularly the harrowing final siege diary, which is worthy of Machen at his best as a horror writer. (Jim Smith)