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Audiobook edition · 4 h 14 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Far from the trenches, people are dying—and the countryside no longer feels safe.
In Arthur Machen’s The Terror, rural Wales lives in the shadow of the First World War. News from the front fills the papers, but another fear takes hold closer to home. Unexplained deaths break the routines of farmers and villagers. The narrator gathers reports, searching for a pattern in events that grow harder to dismiss.
The local doctor seeks a rational cause, while police and officials fear enemy action. Talk of secret weapons and hidden agents offers one answer. Yet the reports suggest something stranger: a threat from the living world itself. As trust in familiar creatures begins to fail, Machen asks how securely humans hold their place in nature.
What you’ll discover
- Dread close to home Watch familiar farms and village routines become sources of unease as unexplained deaths spread.
- A puzzle of reports Follow the narrator’s search for connections as each account deepens the mystery.
- Reason meets the unknown Meet a doctor whose search for causes confronts facts his training cannot easily explain.
- Suspicion in wartime See how fear of the enemy shapes theories about a danger nobody understands.
- Human pride under pressure Explore Machen’s unsettling question about the place people take for granted in the natural world.
Who will love it
Readers who love eerie countryside tales and wartime atmosphere will enjoy this novella. It rewards those who relish mysteries pieced together from witnesses and rumour.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Silence hides a national danger
- Unexplained deaths disturb a quiet county
- Failed theories give rumour a direction
- Animal attacks widen the mystery
- Lewis sees what should be impossible
- Fear builds an underground enemy
- Small clues keep returning
- An ignored warning leads to Treff Loyne
- Fear reaches for a familiar story
Who’s who
- Dr. LewisA sensible country doctor in Porth who tests each theory against what he has seen with his own eyes, including a tree that cannot exist.
- Mr. RemnantA wealthy, bookish man in his fifties who belongs to a club, loves theories and proposes the Z Ray as the cause of the deaths.
- Mr. MerrittLewis's brother-in-law, a nervous Midlands businessman who comes to Porth to escape the dread of Midlingham and finds it waiting.
- SecretanA Chelsea painter lodging at Treff Loyne farm, who writes a dying letter to his friend Dr. Lewis.
- Thomas GriffithThe farmer of Treff Loyne, whose isolated household falls silent, and whose sheepdog tries desperately to bring help.
- Mr. Payne LlewelynAn elderly, careful lawyer of an ancient Welsh family, who is teased by Remnant as a possible secret murderer.
- The narratorAn unnamed writer who collects and weighs the evidence after the Terror, distinguishing firsthand knowledge from stories he has only heard.
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The Terror in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Terror
by Arthur Machen · 1917
In a Welsh county in 1915, deaths with no cause begin, and the whole country is ordered never to speak of them.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“was the first writer of authentically modern horror stories, and his best works must still be reckoned among the finest products of the genre”
In short
What if the greatest secret of the First World War was not a weapon or a plan, but a terror so strange that the government forbade anyone to write, speak or even hint at it? That is the idea behind The Terror, written by Arthur Machen and set in the summer of 1915.
The Terror at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 25 min1 h 55 min fast, 2 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 34,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1917by Arthur Machen
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A secret kept from the whole nation
The narrator begins with a question. After the battles of 1914, the British lines in the West barely moved for almost two years. People blamed a shortage of shells, or of men, or a cautious general. The narrator says these causes were real, yet behind them lay something of far greater weight.
That something was hidden by a ferocious censorship. A secret circular went to newspaper owners, and each could show it only to his editor. No hint of the subject was allowed in print, in talk or in letters.
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Details
- First published
- 1917
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 45 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Machen, Arthur. The Terror. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-terror.
Machen, A. (2026). The terror. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-terror (Original work published 1917)
Machen, Arthur. The Terror. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-terror.
@book{machen2026terror,
author = {Machen, Arthur},
title = {The Terror},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-terror},
note = {First published 1917}
}
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What is The Terror by Arthur Machen about?
It follows a series of unexplained deaths in rural Wales in 1915, while the government forbids anyone to write about them. A country doctor, Dr. Lewis, gathers clues from neighbours, relatives and rumour to find out what is happening.
Is The Terror a true story?
No, it is fiction. Machen wrote it during the First World War and presents it as a report by a narrator who collects scraps of evidence, which gives it the feel of a true account of a hidden crisis.
Who is Mr. Remnant and what is the Z Ray?
Remnant is a well-read club regular in Porth who loves theories. The Z Ray is his idea of a psychic force sent by the Germans that drives people to murder and fills creatures with terror.
The author
Arthur Machen
1863–1947 · Welsh horror and fantasy writer
Arthur Machen was a Welsh writer of supernatural fiction whose work profoundly influenced modern horror, including H. P. Lovecraft. The Great God Pan (1894), his most notorious tale, scandalized Victorian readers and is now regarded as a cornerstone of weird fiction.
“Flatland cannot believe in the cube or the sphere.”
More by Arthur Machen
See all their booksMore like this
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