Product Description
Four Weird Tales is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Algernon Blackwood is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Algernon Blackwood then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Product Description
The Damned is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Algernon Blackwood is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Algernon Blackwood then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Watch Out What You Think
Blackwood explores the concept that the afterlife for each person is what they believe it will be.This book deals with the rising horror faced by the widow of a fanatically religious man who has twisted the christian religion to psychologically abuse and enslave his wife.Although the man has died, his belief structure lingers.

The book is not an attack on God, but it is an open attack on the ways in which religion and the concept of God is often twisted by individuals to achieve power.If you think of the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Nazis, Jim Jones, Charles Manson and the other modern cults, and the September 11th bombings you realize that this is a struggle happening all over the world every day.

As you read of this one women's struggle and think that it is just one of many homes in which the struggle is ongoing, one cannot help but feel the chills.

why not horror?
again AB creates the greatest setting. a house where strange things happen. giving strange impressions. great descriptions. great descriptions of feelings. but in the end it turns out not to be horror at all. good plot. awful ending. AB seem never to have realized that a horror story should have a horror ending ... Read more

Product Description
"Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories" is a collection of supernatural stories by one of the greatest writers of such stories to have ever lived, Algernon Blackwood. This collection contains the title story, "Ancient Sorceries", which is the tale of a tourist who becomes enchanted by a strange French town and the ancient secrets that are hidden there. Also included in this collection is one of Blackwood's most celebrated stories, "The Willows", the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, as well as the following seven tales: "Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House", "The Insanity of Jones", "The Man Who Found Out", "The Wendigo", "The Glamour of the Snow", "The Man Whom the Trees Loved, and Sand". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

An Early Master of the Supernatural Tale
The weird stories of Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) are supernatural in the truest sense. They testify to an awareness that the natural world is greater and more powerful than the puny destiny of man. Blackwood the nature-mystic holds the certitude that there are deeper forces at work in the universe, of which man is ignorant and before which he is helpless. These forces are not malignant per se, but are rather of such immensity of power and so mysterious in their purpose that before them man is but an insignificant microbe. The horror in Blackwood is the realization that modern man is insignificant to the degree that nature hardly deigns to perceive him, or perceives him only as a slight impediment in the fabric of the cosmos. Blackwood writes of a terrifying nature spirit or elemental ("The Wendigo") that haunts the great northern forests of North America, of the Danube willows which threaten to engulf two stranded campers on a island crumbling in flood ("The Willows"), and of the innate animalistic instincts of the atavistic soul ("Ancient Sorceries", which loosely inspired the film "Cat People"). Anyone with an interest in tales of the strange and uncanny ought to be acquainted with the stories of Algernon Blackwood.

The Penguin Classics edition of Blackwood contains four fewer stories than the Dover publication misleadingly named The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, but does contain a useful introduction by S.T. Joshi, who has also compiled editions of the works of Lovecraft, Machen, and Lord Dunsany.

A fine collection of weird and horrific tales
Having started reading Algernon Blackwood with the Dover-edition of his "Best Ghost Tales of..." I knew that there would be some overlapping between the books. This is indeed the case, and included in this book are the excellent tales that really hit home with me; "The Willows", "The Wendigo", "The Glamour of the Snow" and "The Man Whom the Trees Loved". All of the tales deals in encounters between an omnipotent nature, and what it contains, against spiritual man. "The Willows" details a canoe-trip in the swamps of Eastern-Europe, along the banks of the Donau, where the campers have quite an encounter with powerful forces. Decidedly one of my favourite horror-tales, right up there along several H. P. Lovecraft tales. Not for nothing that H. P. Lovecraft named this tale the greatest weird tale in existence.

The other tales are also often very good, but they just lack a certain something in various ways. "Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House", "The Insanity of Jones", "Ancient Sorceries", "The Man Who Found Out" and the final one "Sand". All of these are great, but "The Man Who Found Out" was not my type of tale. That being said, Blackwood has a very annoying habit of letting you know that the tale ends "happily" right in the middle of the action, which really destroys the tale in my opinion. If I wanted to read some unrealistic tale where I know the end before I start, I'd watch "James Bond" or some other rubbish.

Included is also explanatory notes to the tales by renowned Weird literature scholar, S. T. Joshi, and in addition a very fine introduction and bibliography to Blackwood written by the very same scholar. The printing and paper is much better than the Dover-book, so that could be another good reason to buy it. He's no Lovecraft, but some of the tales are excellent nonetheless.

Recommended.

Cumulative and Subtle Supernatural Terror
Algernon Blackwood's stories are beautifully crafted, allusive, understated and often rather quiet in tone: their subtle and lasting impact upon the imagination resides in the eerie ability Blackwood possessed to evoke certain rare interactions with remote spheres of primaeval power long anteceding modern man and his circumscribed world of reassuring rationalism: AB's narratives reveal the domain of vast elemental beings and ancient presences haunting the outer spaces of woods and the wilderness of untamed nature and lurking behind the veil of appearances, emerging betimes from behind the facades of seeming normality, often to ensorcel and lure certain susceptible humans from this world into an unknown existence in secret realms of immense mystery. AB's tales, truly connoisseur-fare for the lover of supernatural terror, almost all concern the contact, whether intentional or inadvertent, with that which lies beyond the liminal borders of the mundane, pressing invisibly in upon us but unsuspected by the greater mass of humanity. 'The Willows' is unsurpassed in the genre, a genuinely unsettling story involving unseen alien potencies which threaten two men camping on aremote river island in Middle Europe. Likewise 'The Wendigo' reveals the fearful reality which underlies Indian folklore and dwells far beyond the familiar places of humankind, in the virgin forests of Canada. 'The Man Who The Trees Loved' is an exceedingly strange account of the secret arboreal world and its claim over a human souland 'Ancient Sorceries' is possibly the best tale of Witchcraft i have ever read, capturing the furtive and oblique feline atmosphere of the hidden life which a sleepy French town conceals beneath it's deceptive surface. I should have liked to have seen some other old favourites included such as that wondrous story 'The Trod', the quiet and fog-bound lycanthropic horror of 'The Empty Sleeve', 'The Glamour of the Snow', 'The Doll', 'The Touch of Pan' and 'The Man Who Was Milligan' and the mysterious poetic conjurations of 'The House of the Past' and 'The South Wind'. I fell under the spell of these wonderful tales when i read AB's 'Tales of the Uncanny & Supernatural'in childhood around 1973. Their appeal has not diminished with the passing of the years but only grown stronger. AB's tales of spiritual terror will lead one into a truly disquieting ambience of the supernatural which will endure in your imagination for long years afterwards.

Some Good, some not
I can't say that Algernon Blackwood is my favorite eerie writer.I prefer Lovecraft's neo-gnosticism to Blackwood's pagan naturalism.To each his own, I guess.Clearly, I am biased in favor of the former type of story over the latter, although there were many good stories.
So, with the standard disclaimers out of the way:

"An Episode in a Lodging House" - very Lovecraftian feel, including mystic text for doing Terrible Things (publication date 1906 predates HPL)

"The Willows" - can't say that I got into the spirit of this one.It reminded me of pleasant camping trips and hikes, not anything awe- or terror- inspiring.Other people seem to like it though.

"The Insanity of Jones" - an interesting story about karma and supposed justice.I was curious to see whether the central character would choose vengeance or mercy.

"Ancient Sorceries" - this lengthy story about witchcraft and a town's dark history was a good read.I found the love interest to be creepy and added to the atmosphere.

"The Wendigo" - this was my favorite.The Wendigo was what I thought The Willows should have been.The isolation, the dark, unexplored corners of the North, the terrifying abduction, all came together to be really eerie.

"The Man whom the Trees Loved" - if pagans wrote evangelistic tracts, they would be this.I felt that the writer was trying to proselytize more than write a good story.It took up a large portion of the book as well.Caveat emptor...

"Sand" - good use of suspense, realms beyond knowing.This story and the Lodging House really show the source of many of Lovecraft's ideas (who was the inspiration for many other writers such as Robert Bloch and Stephen King, who influence us today).

The scariest of ghost story writers
Algernon Blackwood really is the most frightening to me of all horror story writers. He has a way of capturing mood and setting that outdoes any of his many followers (among whom H. P. Lovecraft was proudly one of the most preeminent). The three most famous stories in this book--the title story, "The Wendigo," and, above all, "The Willows"--emblematize his skill. The title story is set in an ancient French town where the townspeople seem to have a peculiar habit of transforming into something else, and authentically captures the creepiness of medieval towns at night. Even more frightening is "The Wendigo": set in the North Woods, it realizes whatever fears you've ever had walking alone in the snowy woods. "The Willows" was Lovecraft's nomination for the finest horror story ever written, and it clearly may have inspired THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Two canoesmen traversing through the Middle European forests find themselves stranded on an island by unknown forces that won't let them leave. Part of the pleasure of Blackwood is that he never overdoes it: he has a marvelous light touch, and reads quite crisply at the level of the sentence. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / Horror; Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary; Fiction / Fantasy / Epic; Fiction / Horror; Sports ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Edition, and for Free!
As a recent purchaser of a Kindle, I naturally wanted some content, but felt somewhat bewhildered by the vast range of pricing--from free to relatively expensive--for what appeared to be identical works.In order to test the "free" works, I decided to download Algernon Blackwood's short novel, "The Willows," fully cognizant of the old adage that one gets what one pays for.

Well, the edition here is superb.No misspellings or misplaced punctuation that I saw; the only flaws were a handful of missing paragraph indentations, and they did not interfere with the flow of the story.I heartily commend those who took the time to transcribe this story for their excellent work.

As for the story itself, it remains a very unnerving read.Like Lovecraft, Blackwood spends most of the time building up a near palpable atmosphere of dread, with only a few fitful sightings to give shape to that dread."The Willows" remains one of his best tales, and this edition is highly recommended.

Different Edition, Different Publisher
The review by Nick Estes is for a different edition from another publisher, not the Copper Penny Press edition, ISBN 978-0615182414, released in February 2008.

who will read this edition?
This is only the only story in a very slim edition, accompanied with outrageously gargantuan chapter numbers and first-letter-of-sentence characters at the beginning of every chapter. The typesetting is quite ugly, but the story is classic and holds the attention. One can find the story elsewhere: in the Penguin Classics and Dover editions with other fine Algernon oddities. This book is overpriced, as is the The Wendigo, by the same publisher. For its price, you should have more to read, in a better layout. ... Read more

Product Description
"Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood" is a collection of supernatural stories by one of the greatest writers of such stories to have ever lived. This collection contains the story, "Ancient Sorceries", which is the tale of a tourist who becomes enchanted by a strange French town and the ancient secrets that are hidden there. Also included in this collection is one of Blackwood's most celebrated stories, "The Willows", the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, as well as the following eleven tales: "Secret Worship", "The Glamour of the Snow", "The Wendigo", "The Other Wing", "The Transfer", "Ancient Lights", "The Listener", "The Empty House", "Accessory Before the Fact", "Keeping His Promise", and "Max Hensig".Amazon.com Review
"If a ghost is seen, what is it interests me less thanthan what sees it?" Thus Algernon Blackwood describes hisfascination with human beings' ability to sense invisible powers andstirrings in the universe, a fascination he developed most famously inhis stories about mystical, ineffable encounters with nature. Thiscollection, selected by renowned scholar of the supernatural,E. F. Bleiler, is an excellent sample of Blackwood's work, including12 of his best ghost stories and a crime story as well. Blackwood isacknowledged today as the author who made the ghost story into arespectable literary form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

A Great WriterWho Should be Rediscovered
I've been reading Algenon Blackwood for over thirty years.He is the master of the supernatural short story, and again and again he transcends the genre, creating enduring literature.At itsbest, Blackwood's prose is as clean and flexible and beautiful as that of Charles Dickens. It may seem dated to some but to me it has a timeless clarity and strength. I cannot resist underlining words and phrases when I read Blackwood, and he has certainly influenced my development at a writer.A profound moral sense informs everything Blackwood writes, and much ink has been spilled on the subject of his love of Nature, and his spiritual explorations and values.His work is deep, thoughtful, and ultimately uplifting as well as enjoyable.The finest of his stories are sublimely entertaining and can be quite scary.For me, "Ancient Sorceries" and "Secret Worship" are two of the most unforgettable.I long to see these two stories made into motion pictures, especially "Ancient Mysteries."This story is so subtle, so psychologically deep and so atmospheric as to be rather like a dark seductive spell.Oh, what a glorious film it would make in the hands of Ridley Scott or Joe Wright.I highly recommend this collection andall other collections of Blackwood's writings. May a new generation discover him and cherish him.May his work experience a Renaissance in popularity and influence.Blackwood is worth a full blown personal obsession.I hold him in the highest regard along with two others writers of the supernatural, Sheridan LeFanu and M.R. James.(Please note that Amazon has a lot of Blackwood available on Kindle.)

Most Enjoyable upon Recollection than Reading
_Best Stories of Algernon Blackwood_ reflects its age in the diction, slang and verbosity of Blackwood's writing, though he lives up to his reputation as one of the best supernatural storytellers of his time.Blackwood's ability to create an enthralling scene where the horrific elements slowly emerge, revealing the ghastly designs of some other-worldly power working stealthily on the narrator's mundane world, can be captivating. His stories clearly show his influence on fellow author H.P. Lovecraft's style of impending cosmic doom; "Secret Worship", where a visitor to a secluded town discovers and seeks to escape the townspeople's eldritch secrets, recalls Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth." "The Willows," which Lovecraft thought to be the single best piece of weird fiction ever written, is one of the most enthralling stories in the collection. In it, a pair of explorers stays the night in a wild, overgrown patch of land on the borders of more than just a raging river.

My favorites include "The Glamour of the Snow", where a mysterious girl beguiles the narrator through a winter landscape; "The Empty House," in which a man and his aunt investigate a local dwelling with a horrific background; and "The Listener", written in epistolary form, describing a writer's slowly increasing realization that his lodging is haunted.Other stories included in the collection are "The Wendigo", "Ancient Sorceries", "The Other Wing", "The Transfer", "Ancient Lights", "Accessory Before the Fact", "Keeping His Promise" and "Max Hensig."

The reason I didn't find the stories more engaging was due to Blackwood's tendency towards excess verbiage, which even the editor, E.F. Bleiler, acknowledges in his introduction.Blackwood can take up an entire page or more in describing what other authors convey in a few sentences. In fairness, this style is reflective of late 19th and early 20th century writing, along with the usage of dialects in conversation and the casual sprinkling of pejoratives, but it did take away from my experience; consider that fair warning. I found myself struggling to finish some stories that, upon reflection, became wonderfully entertaining creepy tales - once I mentally summed them up. Reading _Best Stories_ is a lot like having a voluble old relative full of endless stories come over for the holidays ; you treasure your time together as you sit patiently through his entertaining, yet long-winded and slightly inappropriate tales, and, when you're finished having a memorable time together and he makes his farewell, are slightly glad to see him go.

Truly A Blend of Literary Genres
The anthology contains strongly atmospheric, imaginative tales by a writer who is shamefully not better known.Rather than call these tales "ghost stories", I would say they are groundbreaking, genre-blurring masterpieces of science fiction and the supernatural.

What I found innovative in these stories is that the supernatural element is itself a part of the characters.The integration of the supernatural element into the characters allows them to participate on a new level in the stories.Supernatural phenomena are thereby no longer external "scares", and attain a deeper and greater meaning.These are thought-provoking stories, and as you can see from this review, it is hard to describe them without using compounded, hyphenated adjectives.

The stories have unpredictable and engrossing plots.Some of them are long enough to be called novellas.They deal with supernatural forces but I don't know that these forces are ghosts.Certainly they are spiritual, but not ghosts."The Willows" deals with deadly supernatural beings trapped in an island and which utilize willows to manifest themselves."Ancient Sorceries" is the inspiration for the movie "Cat People", but is truly a story about a village of satanic witches."Ancient Lights" is about wicked fairies that waylay a traveler.These descriptions are simplistic and in fact the stories are more interesting than that.All I can say is that everyone should give these a chance.They won't be disappointed.

Slow and spooky
Occasionally, it is nice to buy a book merely on a whim.Prior to reading the Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, I was hardly even familiar with the author, though he was apparently an influential author in the genre.The book was an interesting read, somewhat slow but overall a satisfying experience.

Though he wrote in the 1900s, Blackwood had a definite 19th Century style to his narrative, emphasizing description over action and mood over character.This is evident immediately in the first (and longest) story, The Willows, the tale of two men canoeing down the Danube and getting trapped on a small out-of-the-way island which also seems to serve as a doorway to another, more hostile universe.Secret Worship has a man revisiting his old school only to find dark deeds now going on there.

It is a common story element in Blackwood's stories for characters (almost all middle-aged men; women are relatively uncommon in his tales) to be drawn to isolated places with supernatural secrets (or are they merely imagined figments by madmen?).Beyond the first two stories, this element appears in others like Ancient Sorceries which has a man visiting a town that has some mysterious goings-on after dusk and The Wendigo, which has a hunting party stalked by a legendary monster.

For fans of more modern horror, Blackwood may be a bit of a trial to read as his style is distinctly different from more recent narrative.Nonetheless, there is value in reading him, just as there is with other early horror writers like Poe and Lovecraft.I don't think I'd put Blackwood in the first tier of those authors who fashioned the genre, but he is worth a look if you like supernatural tales.

Some excellent tales, but also marred by some quite mediocre ones
This was my first book by Algernon Blackwood, being the first book in my venture to expand beyond HP Lovecraft, and some of Blackwood's reputation as a master in his genre is certainly warranted. The three tales in the book that really stand out as memorable and excellent, in my opinion, are "The Willows", "The Glamour of the Snow" and "The Wendigo". The first one being so famous that little description is necessary, the second being a very dreamy tale about a love encounter between spiritual man and Nature, and the last one being an intense tale from the wilderness of Canada, where the hunters become the hunted. There are other tales of note here too, of course, but none of them are even close to the calibre of these first mentioned. The mediocre or merely "good" tales included are the following; "Secret Worship", "Ancient Sorceries", "The Other Wing", "Ancient Lights", "The Listener", "Accessory Before the Fact" and "Max Hensig". All of these tales have literary qualities above average, and some of them come quite close to being memorable tales, but all of them are marred in some way by various flaws.

The few tales included that are void of any note are the more standard ghost tales in the book, and admittedly, a subgenre which I'm not so fond of; "The Transfer", "The Empty House" and finally "Keeping His Promise". These tales appear to me dated, and even though they will appeal to many, they were not to my taste.

So all in all a difficult book to rate, since some of the tales are pure genius, like the genuinely scary "The Willows" and "The Wendigo", but which with the addition of lesser tales including the fact that the book is of very poor quality print-wise, with cheap paper and covers that won't last much more than one read, makes me take away a star.

To summarize; decidedly worth its cheap price for the Blackwood-novice, and containing much reading pleasure. ... Read more

Product Description
The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Algernon Blackwood is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Algernon Blackwood then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good scary story
I love scary stories and was happy with this one. I recommend it for a quick read.

Worst packaging ever
I'm not sure if I will even read this monstrosity.When I order a book I expect a professionally printed novel sized thing.This book is standard copy paper size and lo and behold looks like it was badly printed on computer paper.I'm sure its rife with spelling errors too.How disrespectful.DIY is great when it comes to hardcore punk NOT early Twentieth Century genre fiction.The "people" responsible for this should be very very ashamed of themselves.Really, I am simply horrified.

Creepy, but Not Ghostly or Scary
There is about 7-10 stories and I skipped about half of them. I would read the first couple of pages of each and then decide if I wanted to continue or skip ahead. Some of the ones I read had ghost in them and others didn't. They were interesting, but not at all scary. I have read ghost stories that make me look around the room and listen to every noise, but this was just "fun". Since it was free I would get it again, but I wouldn't actually pay for it.

Doesn't Compare To the "Greats" ?
I think you got it backwards. Blackwood was one of the greats that Lovecraft admired, even quoting Blackwood in "The Call of Cthulu".

Lovecraft thought highly of Blackwood, once stating that he wished he could of left his writing legacy with something as great as Blackwood's "Incredible Adventures".

Alas, Blackwood did not return the compliment, claiming that young admirer's work (Lovecraft) lacked "spiritual terror", an element considered quite important in Blackwood's work.

Pretty good for free
These stories are not bad for ghost story fans.The writing is good, but it doesn't compare to the works of some of the greats like Lovecraft and Poe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Worth reading
I discovered Blackwood as an author by his being compared to H.P. Lovecraft. They do NOT have a similar style or even focus for their work IMHO, but that does not mean that if you like the one, you won't the other. Blackwood is more of a spiritualistic even perhaps animistic writer, and his works are not dark like Lovecraft's, but still very much worth reading. He tends to focus more on discovery and understanding, and less on conflict and fear. Good book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Incredible Adventures for wierd fiction readers
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English author noted for the remarkable number of "weird fiction" stories that he wrote.

I sought out this particular collection based upon H. P. Lovecraft's comment that Blackwood was perhaps the greatest weird fiction writer of his day and "Incredible Adventures" as among his finest works.

According to Wikipedia Blackwood was a member of one of the factions of the qabbalistic Orders, the Hermetic Order of the Golden dawn. This accounts for the almost obsessive focus on religious themes and inner spiritual struggles in the stories.

This reader found all the stories interesting up to a point. As an adjunct to reading Lovecraft they were helpful. I must say honestly I am not motivated to read any addition works by this author.

Blackwood certainly has a way with language and an ability to express his ideas. In "The Damned" he describes an intolerant religious figure:"his voice was alternately hard and unctuous; he regarded theatres, ballrooms and race-courses as the vestibule of that brimstone lake of whose geography he was positive as of his great office in the city".

The five stories in this collection were first published in 1914.

The Hippocampus Press trade paperback edition includes a helpful introduction by S. T. Joshi.

BLACKWOOD AT HIS BEST!
I have been working my way through Algernon Blackwood's short stories (including his "John Silence" series), over the last year, and I have become very fond of his style of writing.With Blackwood, the atmosphere and mood of his stories frequently supersedes the plot so, if you're looking for a lot of pyrotechnics and fast-paced action, his writing is probably not for you.However, if you appreciate a true "wordsmith" as much as I do, then you will definitely enjoy the way he weaves a moody, palpably "not-quite right" atmosphere into what might, otherwise, seem like a boring, slow-moving story wherein not much happens.His descriptive prose frequently approaches poetry.

I can see why H.P. Lovecraft thought so highly of Blackwood's work.

I definitely recommend this collection (and other Blackwood stories) to those who appreciate quality writing that unfolds at its own pace over a lot of the "wham-bam" garbage that gives Horror and Dark Fantasy a bad name.

AMAZING BOOK IN A TERRIBLY MESSY EDITION
This collection was first released in book form in 1914, and is comprised of three novellas and two short stories. The literary critic and scholar S.T. Joshi has called this book "perhaps the greatest weird collection of all time," and while I do not pretend to be well read enough to concur in that evaluation, I will say that the book is beautifully written...and certainly weird, in Blackwood's best manner. The five pieces in "Incredible Adventures" are almost impossible to categorize. They're not exactly horror or fantasy tales, but they all share one thing in common: In all of them, Algernon Blackwood--lover of Nature (with a capital "N") and ever one to seek for the ultimate reality behind the surfaces of what we seem to know--gives us characters who are bettered for their glimpses behind "reality's" curtain. This is not an easy book to write about, nor are the stories in it by any means light reading. Blackwood was trying to elucidate important points with these tales; to help readers understand their true relation to Nature, and time and space. Sounds like heavy going, I know, but for all lovers of finely crafted albeit unusual tales, this book will be a godsend.
The collection starts off with a bang with one of the novellas, "The Regeneration of Lord Ernie." In this tale, a tutor tries to breathe some much-needed spirit into his young ward by exposing him to a pagan ceremony in the Jura Mountains. But things get a little out of control in this very atmospheric tale. Next up is "The Sacrifice," one of the shorter pieces, in which a mountaineer who has just undergone some severe life setbacks goes climbing. This story is the most symbolic, surrealistic and ambiguous of the bunch. I don't want to ruin the tale for any prospective readers, so just let me say that I have never read a story quite like it. "The Damned" is next up, and it is the longest novella in the collection. At first glance a traditional haunted-house story, the tale is soon revealed to go much deeper than that. As the author tells us repeatedly, "nothing happens" in this tale per se; atmosphere is everything, and nobody conveys atmosphere better than Blackwood (as a reading of his classic tale "The Willows" will surely demonstrate). But it really is remarkable how Blackwood maintains and magnifies this ominous atmosphere over the length of this novella; a really bravura performance. The last of the three long tales, "A Descent Into Egypt," immediately follows. In this tale, a group of men in modern-day Egypt find themselves being helplessly drawn back in time (spiritually, at least) by the glamour of that ancient land. This tale just keeps getting weirder and weirder. It is hallucinatory in the extreme; so much so that it makes me wonder why Blackwood was never championed in the 1960s by the same hippie college kids who took so wholeheartedly to Carlos Castaneda and P.K. Dick. Like Dick, Blackwood was very concerned with the reality that underlies our so-called reality. In this Egyptian tale, the land and time of the ancients is the reality; the present day is only the skin on the surface. This really is some amazing work. The book ends on a lovely note with the short story entitled "Wayfarers." Here, a man awakens after an auto accident and finds himself in bed a full hundred years earlier! It is a tale of eternal love and reincarnation; the type of tale that H. Rider Haggard would probably have loved, and another beautifully written winner. I should add here that these stories are probably best read and savored slowly, both for their exquisite atmospheres as well as for their deeper meanings. There is a lady here at amazon.com who, at the moment, is the #1 reviewer. She claims to be a speed reader who goes through two books a day! Well, I would like to advise her, and anyone else lucky enough to read this collection, to SLOW DOWN! Savor the language that Blackwood commands, and lines such as this one: "The stars turned a shade less brilliant, a softness in them as of human eyes that say farewell." You can't sprint through a botanical garden and expect to appreciate all the wonders therein!
I should also mention that, while I am grateful to Stark House for making this classic, long-out-of-print collection available again, I deplore the sloppiness with which this edition has been put together. I have never read a book with more typographical errors of every description. Besides the run-of-the-mill typos, hyphens and M dashes are routinely intermixed throughout; margins are fouled up; words are omitted from sentences; changes in font size occur; British pound symbols are substituted for the letter "f"; words are repeated; boldface words appear for no reason; accent marks are at times used for apostrophes; and on and on. I myself am a copy editor and proofreader, and find it amazing that this edition was proofed at all. And yet, uncommonly enough, a credit for the proofreader is given at the front of the book!!! If it were me, I would have had my name deleted, out of professional pride! Stark House has a lot of chutzpah charging $17 for this remarkably messy work. Still, the book IS a collection of wonders, and Blackwood's vision doesshine through. But potential readers would be well advised to do themselves a favor and splurge for an older copy! ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Horror; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Have You Seen the Wendigo?
This one takes a bit to really get going, but pay serious attention to the sly hints and subtle precursors that Blackwood seeds among the first 50+ pages' because you'll need them to understand later events in this truly scary story. Living in the northern woods of the Great Empire of Montana, the legend of the Wendigo is pretty well-known, and often told on Indian reservations and dude ranches to scare the "outlanders." This is a legend that originated in north Canada by the Ojibwa tribe and made its way first to the Maine north woods, and on further west. In these modern times, somebody acting crazy is still referred to as having "seen the Wendigo."

Deep, uninhabited forrests still unknown and untouched by the chain saw. Two hunters, their guides, and a legend-come-to-life where they are beyond help; isolated in the total and mysterious depth and eternal silence of the ageless backwoods. Although this story was written in 1910, Stephen King, a dweller of north Maine, cites it as a work that influenced him by its "creepiness." It gets creepier page by page - no guts and gore, but eerie with its strange progression. If you're an outdoorsman/woman, this tale will have you looking not around your shoulder, but over your head in great uneasiness.

Buy this one - or you'll be said to have "seen the Wendigo!"

Thanks for reading,

Vienna
Great Empire of Montana
Rocky Mountain Way Freelance Writing

Different Edition, Different Publisher
The review by Nick Estes is for a different edition from another publisher, not the Copper Penny Press edition, ISBN 978-0-6151-8322-0, released in February 2008.

Do not read before camping
Precisely the story not to sit around the campfire and read aloud, which is what makes it so perfect for just that.This is one of the greatest creepy, lost in the scary woods stories ever written.If there is one drawback, it is that it is too short.It would have been much better served at two to three times its length.It ends, and you just wish there was more.

cheap-looking typeset
A wonderful tale, yet I purchased this hoping it included other Algernon stories as well. Be forwarned: this is only "The Wendigo," and it is typeset as if for the sight-impaired. An esthetically awful choice to accompany the opening of each section with an enormous roman numeral and capital letter ruins the otherwise brilliant story. A modest, well thought "intro" to the nine sections would have made this bearable to look at. The publisher was obviously trying to fill up space.

Best Scary Stories Ever Written
"The Wendigo" is widely regarded as one of Blackwoods best stories and is among the best and scariest stories ever written."A Psychical Invasion", also by Blackwood, comes a close second.Anyone who has ever been out in the woods alone, particularly at night, will instantly be transported to that time and place by "The Wendigo".This one is not to be read before bedtime.All of Blackwood's stories, including the less scary or supernatural ones, are the best in English literature.The writing is exquisitely beautiful yet easy to read, evoking images and moods like nothing else I have ever read.If you've never read Algernon Blackwood, you have missed out on a profound and intense experience.
I can also recommend the recently published biography by Mike Ashley(not sure if I remembered his name right).It is interesting and well-researched. ... Read more

Product Description
Three John Silence Stories is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Algernon Blackwood is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Algernon Blackwood then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well-written, but not that scary
Algernon Blackwood wrote some very good horror stories (The Willows, The Wendigo), but I was a bit disappointed in these. They are well-written, but not terribly frightening. For one thing, the character of Dr. John Silence, the "psychic doctor," is hard to take seriously; you can suspend your disbelief if someone encounters a supernatural event in a story, but to have a character who faces all sorts of supernatural foes in a continuing series of stories -- a 'ghost of the month club'-- just strains credibility.

The first story involves a writer who is possessed by a malevolent ghost as a result of using cannabis(!). The good Dr. Silence exorcises the ghost with the help of his cat and his dog(!). The story is more silly than scary, though his description of some of the effects of cannabis is accurate enough (if I am correctly recalling my misspent youth) so that I wonder if Blackwood ever toked up.

The second story involves a small French village which turns out to be inhabited by were-cats. Some of this has a nice, dreamy, fantastical atmosphere, but again, cats are not very scary.

The third story in this anthology is the best. The fire-elemental who haunts an English country house does produce a few scares, and there is a nasty twist of an ending that elevates this story above the others.

Dr. John Silence
I'm a huge fan of the occult detective genre, or as Blackwood would have it, the psychic doctor. Blackwood's Dr. Silence is somewhat unique in this genra as he really doesn't DO very much, the tale more or less seems to unfold around him. Nonetheless, most of these are Blackwood in his finest form. The second story, Ancient Sorceries, has been published in numerous other collections and is a fine example of Blackwood's interest in pagan sorcery. The last story, The Nemesis of Fire, brings in Blackwood's knowledge of the Golden Dawn and Egyptian mythology and is a pretty rolicking good yarn. The first tale, A Psychical Invasion, is a more mundane house-haunting made much more interesting by the inclusion of a cat and dog into the mix. All in all quite good, a must for Blackwood fans and a great intro for the curious. The Kindle version is free, as is the Gugenheim version.

Anyone reading this should also track down and read Blackwood's great book, The Human Chord. ... Read more

Product Description
Algernon Blackwood was one of the greatest writers of supernatural fiction of the 20th century. He published over 200 stories and a dozen novels, all designed to awaken our consciousness to the wonder, mystery and power of the world. He said all his stories - however strange and exotic - were based on personal experiences or those of close friends. An adventurous traveller, an undercover agent during World War I, and Searcher for the Red Cross, he originated the Starlight Express, was a member of the magical order of the Golden Dawn, and knew most of the literary and artistic establishment of his day from Hilaire Belloc to Arthur Machen, from Sinclair Lewis to H.G. Wells, and from Gracie Fields to Sir Edward Elgar. From an aristocratic and deeply evangelical family, Blackwood rebelled and became a Buddhist. He tried many careers, ending up as a down-and-out sleeping in New York's central park, before returning home, the prodigal son. Then his life really began, investigating haunted houses and helping people with psychic afflictions; he found love, and fame as a writer, and Britain's first television story-teller. ... Read more

Product Description
Three More John Silence Stories; The Wendigo; The Man Whom the Trees Loved; and The Willows ... Read more

Product Description
A classic selection of Blackwood's best stories.
Blackwood's two best known stories are probably The Willows and The Wendigo.The Willows, perhaps his most celebrated story, was influenced heavily by Blackwood's own trips down the Danube River. It tells the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, a place where another dimension impinges on our own. H. P. Lovecraft considered this the finest supernatural tale in English literature. The Wendigo is set in the Canadian wilderness. A hunting party separates to track moose, and one member is abducted by the Wendigo of legend. Robert Aickman regarded this as "one of the (possibly) six great masterpieces in the field". ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook contains thirty-one works by master supernatural storyteller Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951).

Blackwood had a colorful career, working at times in farming, innkeeping, and journalism.He eventually settled down to write, authoring fourteen novels, several plays, and dozens of short stories.This collection contains his (arguably) two best-known short stories, THE WILLOWS and THE WENDIGO.

This ebook is DRM free and includes an active table of contents.

Novels

Jimbo
The Human Chord
The Centaur
The Extra Day


Short Stories

The Insanity of Jones
The Man Who Found Out
The Glamour of the Snow
Sand
May Day Eve
The Damned
The Empty House
A Haunted Island
A Case of Eavesdropping
Keeping His Promise
With Intent to Steal
The Wood of the Dead
Smith: An Episode in A Lodging-House
A Suspicious Gift
The Strange Adventures of A Private Secretary in New York
Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp
The Garden of Survival
The Listener
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
The Olive
The Wendigo
The Willows
A Psychical Invasion
Ancient Sorceries
The Nemesis of Fire
Secret Worship
The Camp of the Dog
A Victim of Higher Space
... Read more

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(THE BOOK THAT 'UNCLE PAUL' WROTE) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I have had enough of being told Kindle books are not available in the UK
Like - virtually no Yeats, no Blackwood.Come on, amazon.These books went out of copyright aeons ago.I'm also severely hacked off with your MP3 downloads policy.You are in a global market.No good pretending otherwise.What you are doing now with these nasty little rules and censorships is royally p***ing off your customers.NB: there are NO Kindle books on amazon.co.uk.None.not even the silly novels by lady novelists.Please, please rectify these anomalies soon and show yourselves to be a properly global business. ... Read more

Product Description
The Man Whom the Trees Loved is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Algernon Blackwood is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Algernon Blackwood then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

love of nature
this is a story about a man with a special form of contact with the woods. that's it, actually. supernatural, not horror. good descriptions. B. is always great at decribing nature and it's lure, and how man is drawn to it. but nothing much happens, and some of the dialogue is unnecessary. (the story is actually a short story) ... Read more

Product Description
Not only one of the twentieth century's most inventive writers of supernatural fiction and author of such masterpieces as The Willows and The Wendigo, Algernon Blackwood was also an indefatigable traveler, an extremely popular storyteller on radio and television (he appeared on the first British television program ever), and a secret agent during the First World War. Added to that, it was Algernon Blackwood, not Andrew Lloyd Webber, who originated the Starlight Express. A Buddhist and theosophist as well as a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Blackwood consorted with mystics and magicians, who knew him as Pan, while those who delighted in his rich storyteller's voice and lively humor affectionately called him Uncle Paul. Some saw him as an ancient child, others as an accomplished athlete. He found time meanwhile to hobnob with the literary establishment--with the likes of Hilaire Belloc, P. G. Wodehouse, Compton Mackenzie, and H. G. Wells--and his work inspired writers as diverse as Henry Miller and Carlos Casteneda. Yet the story of this fascinating, charming, elusive, and enigmatic man's life has never before been told. More than twenty years of research and countless interviews with friends and colleagues of the extraordinary Algernon Blackwood, as well as a close examination of his unpublished papers, stand behind this first full-length biography of a writer who, according to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, delivered a greater number of magisterial shudders than more refined writers in the genre ever attempted. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An Extraordinary Man
In his day, Algernon Blackwood was among the best known writers in the horror field. Today he's less known except to devotees of that genre.

But Blackwood didn't consider himself a horror writer. He said all his stories were based on personal experiences or those of close friends and, though he found the strange in the most ordinary of those experiences, he was most concerned with expanding consciousness for a greater understanding of life and nature.

Blackwood remains a mysterious figure and Mike Ashley has done a marvelous job of finding sources to interpret his life and career, all the more marvelous because the writer left only fragmentary details of his activities and Ashley had to play detective to find his material.

What Ashley unveils is a creative person who was not only an untiring writer (he was still penning stories in his late eighties) but also a world traveler, an undercover agent in World War 1 and a storyteller on radio and TV.

His attitude toward life was that one is never to old to try new things. An admirable attitude.

Ashley's writing is at times pedestrian but his subject makes it worth plugging on.

THE biography of Blackwood
Blackwood's life was indeed extraordinary, and so was the man. When you write about such an incredible character, you can hardly go wrong. This book is, to date, THE standard biography of Algernon Blackwood, one of the greatest supernatural tale writers of all times (trust not me, but the sound judgement of HP Lovecraft!). As one can sense from his writings, Blackwood had a copious first-hand experience of the weird.
" An extraordinary Life" follows AB through his pilgrimages around the world, tries its best to peep into the life of a quite mysterious fellow, and traces some of the sources of his wondrous tales. The last part is perhaps a bit boring, but hei, if you are a Blackwood's aficionado, this is a must.

PS Nobody knows yet the true identity of Dr. Silence: the case is open for further investigations.

Still alive
It was about time. Blackwood, who died just over fifty years ago, was one of the great twentieth-century masters of the weird tale; H P Lovecraft, no less, called his long story "The Willows" possibly the greatest weird tale ever written, and S T Joshi has said that his book Incredible Adventures may be the greatest weird collection. The more one reads of Blackwood, the more one is amazed at his present obscurity - an obscurity which may at last be starting to lift. The product of twenty years' research, including interviews with several people who knew Blackwood personally, this first ever full-length biography is an amazing achievement, particularly in view of Blackwood's cavalier attitude towards personal possessions, including documents. Ashley's extraordinary life of this extraordinary man details eighty-two years encompassing two world wars (during the first of which Blackwood served as a secret agent in Switzerland), innumerable travels round the world, near-starvation and vagrancy in New York, the high society of the 1920s and salvation by burning sausage during the London Blitz. Though clumsily written, the book's narrative is commendably clear; Blackwood was an immensely pleasant and sociable individual who met and befriended a great many people in the course of a long and eventful life, but although I raced through his biography I never once had to check back to find out who was who. Ashley perhaps harps a little too much on the fact that Blackwood originated the term "Starlight Express", but he does so for a better reason than mere topicality - he's trying to emphasise Blackwood's continuing (perhaps growing) relevance to the present. As S T Joshi remarked at the end of his chapter on Blackwood in The Weird Tale, Blackwood is a writer waiting to be discovered. Ashley's book should shorten the wait considerably. ... Read more

Product Description
Algernon Henry Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English writer of tales of the supernatural. In his late thirties, Blackwood started to write horror stories. He was very successful, writing ten books of short stories and appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature, and many of his stories reflect this. Although Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. Good examples are the novels The Centaur (1911), which climaxes with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon (1916) and its sequel The Bright Messenger (1921), which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution in human consciousness. His best stories, such as those collected in the book Incredible Adventures (1914), are masterpieces of atmosphere, construction and suggestion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

What kind of Blackwood fan are you?
Whether you enjoy this work may depend on which Blackwood genre you prefer: ghost story or nature fiction. If you prefer the latter, you may find this book a gem. If not, you may find it lugubrious, as I do.

By Far The Biggest Influence In My Life...Was Nature
Algernon Blackwood, the great British master of the short horror story and member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, published The Centaur to great acclaim in 1911.Unlike the American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, who championed Blackwood's work throughout his lifetime, Blackwood loved, admired, and respected nature: Blackwood was a romantic who enjoyed a mystical faith and philosophy concerning the natural world, a faith which is reflected in almost all of his stories.In his tales, trees and men fall in love with one another, fairies happily guide, misguide, or torment intrusive travelers, and other - dimensional creatures storm earth through gaps in reality or plunge down on hunters from the heavens. Even Blackwood's ghost stories typically suggest some mysterious law connecting the return of the dead with natural but little understood processes.Few writers other than Arthur Machen could portray 'daimonic reality' as well and as believably as Blackwood. But while The Centaur broadly addresses the supernatural, it is in no way a horror tale.

When traveler O'Malley encounters an unusually robust, handsome, and virile man and his equally attractive young son while on a cruise, he becomes strangely enraptured, and is thrilled to learn that the two will be sharing his cabin for the duration of the voyage. O'Malley also notices that when observing the two men from a distance, they seem to oddly amalgamate into one larger being, or, at other times, an immense third presence seems to accompany them. Is it a trick of the light? Is O'Malley a lunatic, hallucinating, or experiencing repressed homosexual desire without realization?Since both father and son rarely speak and communicate largely with their charismatic smiles, pie - eyed O'Malley makes of them what he can and takes them in with his eyes a little more than seems respectable for a presumably heterosexual male: at night, O'Malley goes so far as to pull back the curtains and stare at their undressed bodies while they sleep.In one loaded episode, the father awakens to find O'Malley bending over him and devouring him with his eyes; unperturbed, the father sits up, points to the son, and together they stare at the son's naked chest beautifully rising and falling as the morning light comes up. Since everything suggests that O'Malley is erotically attracted to both men, and the father in some way enamored with his son, their cabin seems more like a blissful, somewhat humid den of unthwarted pedophilia and incest than the place of revelation and miracles Blackwood would like to have the reader believe it is.

Also along for the voyage is the learned Dr. Stahl, who inexplicably has a great understanding of the two strangers and what they threaten.Blackwood allows himself almost a hundred labored and repetitive pages attempting to convey to the reader the secret Dr. Stahl attempts to put into words for O'Malley. The father and the son, as it happens, are not men in the sense that Stahl and O'Malley are men, but are earth spirits, emanations of mother nature, and, as such, two of the last beings of their kind in existence.Blackwood never finds the words to define and describe the two men's metaphysical nature clearly, so Dr. Stahl and O'Malley repeat the same precious discussion over and over, merely approaching it from a slightly different angle each time.

As a struggling, often starving writer, Blackwood was frequently paid by the word, a fact that hasn't been forgotten by his critics. Many of his stories were indeed overwritten, though overwriting was something Blackwood raised almost to an art in many of his short pieces. Unfortunately, his novels, from A Prisoner In Fairyland to The Centaur, were another matter. Had The Centaur been a short story of twenty pages, Blackwood could have conveyed exactly the same information, if, as written, to an equally unconvincing effect.In trying to outline his beliefs about the spiritual aspects of nature, Blackwood abandoned structure entirely and seemed to forget that he was attempting a dramatic narrative. Readers can obtain a much better outline of Blackwood's pantheistic philosophy by reading his short stories than can ever be obtained by reading The Centaur, which is ultimately nothing but a vague, under confident, and winded New Age tract.

Blackwood's short masterpiece, "May Day Eve," concerns a hardheaded traveler's uncomfortable but apparently necessary encounter with the fairies, beautifully expressing everything that The Centaur attempts and fails to say.When the narrator, having suffered his illuminating but disorienting punishment in the wild, finally arrives at the friendly professor's door, the knowing professor shelters him briefly before tempting him with the knowledge that they have several hours of darkness yet to experience the miracles of the fairy world.Armed with the security his companion provides and a sudden new and courageous attitude about the possibilities inherent in reality, the narrator accepts the professor's invitation, and they disappear together into the night.He says, "And as we began to climb the hill together in silence I saw that the stars were clear overhead and that there was no mist, that the trees stood motionless without wind, and that beyond us on the summit of the hills there were lights dancing to and for, appearing and disappearing like the reflections of stars in water." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Genuinely Scary Stories from the Beginning of the 20th Century
Read these three novellas back to back and you'll be looking over your shoulder before you even close the book.Algernon Blackwood is often regarded as one of the premiere writers of supernatural fiction and this book displays three of his very best.The classic "The Willows" finds two men canoing down the Rhine (which itself becomes a character through Blackwood's brilliant descriptive writing of a river that is both lovely and menacing)and camping on a tiny sand island that is covered in willows ... and inhabited by something else.What makes this story so rich and scary is Blackwood's blend of convincing characterisation, possible psychological explanations of all the goings on, and the almost unbearable build-up to the story's end.While "The Wendigo" doesn't hit quite as many nails on the head, it is also an effective story of a hunting party in the little-reached Canadian wilderness that ends with a face-to-face with the supernatural.In some ways, Blackwood has a lot of Jack London in him ... the supernatural is always the primary concern, but these men have to wrestle some nature, too.And so, if you go on and decide to do this book in one sitting (as I did) you come to "The Listener" which probably creeped me out the most (I don't hunt or canoe ...).A man takes an apartment in a bleak part of London and soon finds he's not the only one taking the apartment.This story plays upon every fear you have when you are alone in a house and begin suspecting you are not alone.Blackwood once again begins at a leisurely (but always compelling) pace and build the tension into a satisfying end.Each story by itself is terrific, but when done together in one whirlwind Thanksgiving day sitting ... well, the turkey isn't the only one losing his head. ... Read more