A sensation when first published in 1894, this frightening story involves
evil scientists and the women that become monsters at their hands. An
experiment into the sources of the human brain through the mind of a young
woman has gone horribly wrong—she has witnessed the God Pan and will die
giving birth to a daughter, Helen Vaughan. Twenty years later Helen becomes
the source of much fevered speculation when she is feted as a society
hostess of great charm. Many men are infatuated with her beauty, but great
beauty has a price. Linking horror with prurient sexuality, this classic of
horror sheds light on late Victorian misogyny and the public’s interest in
theories of evolutionary degeneration.