A compact size high voltage pulse generator with nanosecond rise time has been designed and investigated experimentally. The inductance of a pulse generator can be reduced by fixing the Marx generator and pulse forming network components into a single cylindrical unit. As a result, nanosecond rise time about $8{sim}10[ns]$ and pulse width of several hundred [ns] can be obtained from a modified Marx pulse generator. And parametric studies showed that the rise time of the output pulse was depended little on the change of the load resistance and the charging capacitance while, the pulse width of the output pulse was depended greatly upon the change of the load resistance and the charging capacitance. The theoretical showed the possibility to design the laboratory-size pulse generator very fast rising time and a proper pulse width by minimizing stray inductance and varying resistance and capacitance.