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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
For readers who love atmospheric horror, wartime fiction, and ideas that linger after the last page, with unexplained deaths, rural mysteries, and threats from nature itself.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Strange deaths shake a quiet countryside
- Fear breeds theories and wartime suspicion
- Nature itself seems to turn against us
- What the tale is about and how it works
Who’s who
- The narratorAn observer who gathers the reports and tries to make sense of the deaths as their pattern slowly grows clear.
- The villagers and farmersCountry people who live close to the land and feel the dread first, as their routines and trust in nature are broken.
- The local doctorA man of science who looks for a rational cause and meets facts that his training cannot easily explain.
- The police and officialsAuthorities who investigate the deaths, fear enemy action, and struggle to say what they know to a frightened public.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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The Terror
by Arthur Machen · 1917
Unexplained deaths disturb rural Wales as wartime suspicion turns toward a threat from nature itself.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Terror is a short novel by Arthur Machen, a Welsh writer of weird and visionary fiction. It appeared in 1917, in the third year of the First World War, and it is set in that war's shadow.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Strange deaths shake a quiet countryside
The story opens in a Britain worn down by war. News from the front fills the papers, and the rural parts of Wales seem a safe distance from it all. Then reports begin to spread of deaths that make no sense. People are found dead in lonely places, and the circumstances do not fit any known cause.
The tale is built from accounts, rumours and attempts to piece them together. Machen gives the feel of a community learning, bit by bit, that something is wrong. At first each case is treated as a separate tragedy. Only slowly does the idea grow that the cases are linked.
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What is The Terror by Arthur Machen about?
It is a short novel about unexplained deaths in rural Wales during the First World War. People search for causes, from enemy plots to disease, while a stranger explanation involving nature and human behaviour slowly emerges.
When was The Terror written?
Machen wrote it during the First World War, and it appeared in 1917. The war shapes the whole story, both its setting and its fears, though the main action takes place far from the battlefront.
Is The Terror a horror story or a mystery?
It is both. It builds like a mystery, with reports and theories, but its aim is dread. Machen relies on suggestion and atmosphere rather than gore, which places it among the classics of weird fiction.
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.
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