Product Description
General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1915Original Publisher: MacmillanSubjects: Fantasy fiction, EnglishNotes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free.Excerpt: CHAPTER IIIDEATH OF A MERE FACTThere was a man named Jinks. In him was neither fancy, imagination, nor a sign of wonder, and so he -- died.But, though he appears in this chapter, he disappears again so quickly that his being mentioned in a sentence all by himself should not lead any one astray. Jinks made a false entry, as it were. The children crossed him out at once. He became illegible. For the trio had their likes and dislikes; they resented liberties being taken with them. Also, when there was no one to tell them stories, they were quite able to amuse themselves. It was the inactive yet omnipotent Maria who brought about indirectly the obliteration of Mr. Jinks.And it came about as follows:Maria was a podgy child of marked individuality. It was said that she was seven years old, but she declared that eight was the figure, because some uncle or other had explained, " you're in your eighth year." Wandering uncles are troublesome in this kind of way. Every time her age was mentioned she corrected the informant. She had a trick of moving her eyes without moving her head, as though the round face was difficult to turn; but her big blue eyes slipped round without the least trouble, as though oiled. The performance gave her the sly and knowing aspect of a goblin, but she had no objection tothat, for it saved her trouble, and to save herself trouble -- according to nurses, Authorities, and the like -- was her sole object in existence.Yet this seemed a mistaken view of the child. It was not so much that she did not move unnecessar... ... Read more

Product Description
From a master storyteller of supernatural tales come six horror stories that launched the career of "psychic doctor" John Silence. Ghost story fans will delight in "A Psychical Invasion," in which a house is apparently haunted by former tenants; "Ancient Sorceries," which tells of strange experiences in a small French town; as well as"Secret Worship," "The Nemesis of Fire," "The Camp of God," and "A Victim of Higher Space." Edited and with an introduction by occult fiction authority S. T. Joshi.
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Customer Reviews (9)

The Original Occult Detective
John Silence is, if not the first occult detective, certainly one of the best.

Blackwood (better known for 'The Willows' and 'The Wendigo') was a master of the horror genre - praised by Lovecraft, amongst others.

Silence predates the trenchcoat era, but stalked majestically nonetheless. Calm and collected, Silence was just as often a framing device for some of Blackwood's most disconcerting stories (in, for example, 'Ancient Sorceries') as he was the protagonist. Blackwood is a worthwhile read for any horror afficianado, and the John Silence stories are some of his most accessible (more ghosts, less scary plants).

The slow, gothic pace of the stories may be a little ponderous for modern readers, but a visit to the good Doctor Silence is always worth it...

Classic Blackwood
John Silence is unusual in that he barely appears in several of the stories."A Psychical Invasion" is a haunted house tale; "Ancient Sorceries" involves a strange town; "Secret Worship" has a man ignore warnings about his old school and visits; "The Nemesis of Fire" involves mysterious fires at an old estate; "The Camp of the Dog" is a werewolf story; "A Victim of a Higher Space" has a man slipping into other dimensions.The first four are excellent, the werewolf tale too predictable, while the final story is so idiotic it keeps the collection from getting five stars.

A psychical detective
S. T. Joshi, who edited and introduced these short stories by Algernon Blackwood rightfully classifies them as 'weird fiction' rather than ghost stories.Blackwood was a pantheist and amember of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, eventually branching out into Buddhism and Rosicrucianism, and his stories reveal a deep, mystical appreciation of Nature, with a capital 'N.'The author was an avid camper and spent many happy summers in the backwoods of Canada communing with his incomprehensible, dangerous, and beautiful mistress.

Nature serves as his haunted domain in some of the John Silence stories, most notably "The Camp of the Dog," and also in two of his most anthologized stories, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo."

You will need to equip yourself with two reading gears in the John Silence stories (not the author's best work by any means):a leisurely course through his descriptions of nature and the awesome terror of his hauntings; and a fast forward through the mystical, occult blah-blah whereby John Silence tries to explain away the terror and awe.

John Silence serves as both a psychiatrist and an exorcist in these stories, and the hapless, bumbling narrators are always falling about in awe of his occult powers.However, the good physician is a bit schizophrenic about the occult.In this book's first story, "A Psychical Invasion" a potential client tries to explain why she has come to him:

"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism---"

"Oh, please--that dreadful word!" he [Dr. Silence] interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience."

And yet John Silence is always reading minds, performing magical rites, and defending ordinary mortals against the powers of Darkness.

All of these stories will send a chill down your spine, as long as you skip lightly past the mystical, rather pompous blather of the main character:

"A Psychical Invasion"--A young author who takes a mind-expanding drug accidentally puts himself in touch with an ancient evil.John Silence and his cat and his collie spend a night in the author's haunted house on Putney Heath and are attacked by dreadful, occult forces.

"Ancient Sorceries"--A masterful portrait of a shy misogynist who escapes from a noisy trainload of English tourists, only to find himself in a very strange, sleepy little French village.As the narrator is leaving the train, a Frenchman leans out and mutters a half-understood warning that ends in: "á cause du sommeil et á cause des chats."Beware of sleep and cats.Blackwood slowly builds a powerful, eerie atmosphere around the narrator as he tries to decide whether to escape, or to stay forever in the mysterious village.

"The Nemesis of Fire"--This story has some genuinely frightening moments as fire elementals and an ancient Egyptian curse haunt a peaceful, English countryside.Blood is drunk, faces are blasted to ruin, and you'll need to employ your fast-forward gear through quite a few explanatory paragraphs.

"Secret Worship"--As dusk falls in the hills of the Black Forest, a silk merchant revisits the school where he spent his childhood with the Moravian Brothers (just as the author did).Lots of atmosphere and a slow build to a terrifying climax:"And then the room filled and trembled with sounds that...were the failing voices of others who had preceded him in a long series down the years."Blackwood is not very specific in his descriptions of the Other World.His glancing images and sounds leave much to the reader's horrified imagination.

"The Camp of the Dog"--A jolly campout on an island in the Baltic Sea slowly turns terrifying as a mysterious canine dogs the footsteps (sorry) of a young woman.

"A Victim of Higher Space"--A mathematician learns how to peer into the higher dimensions of space-time and is horrified by what he discovers.

Quaint & spooky
I am delighted that Dover has brought back into print these stories by Blackwood.But if you're expecting John Silence to be another Carnacki or Sherlock Holmes you will be disappointed.Dr. Silence is a near mythic one dimensional character who merely serves as the vehicle for resolution in the stories.The stories become increasingly more sophisticated and interesting as the book progresses."A Psychical Invasion" was nearly unreadable for me, dull & plodding, it reminded me of Dion Fortune's lesser efforts at fiction.But I hung in and was amply rewarded by my patience.You will find Blackwood comfortable with the supernatural as a plot device, considering his esoteric interests and membership in AE Waite's reorganized Golden Dawn.Blackwood's greatest gift as a "ghost" story writer was his ability to create landscapes with a naturalists eye for detail and underlying threats to human dominion of the setting.Character development is not his forte.But that is a minor criticism of one of the best writer's of sheer terror of the 20th century.His story "The Willows" must rank among the best short stories ever.Reading these stories in the right setting is a guarantee for some delicious shivers.

john's revelations are dull
i love blackwood at his best. this is not it. one great story, otherwise this detective doesn't work for me. if it only had been more crime-like, i might have liked it. these explanations, investigations, plots, are just not good enough. probably his worst work. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook contains 28 short stories 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.


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
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Customer Reviews (5)

It takes effort on the readers part
This is a wonderful volume of stories -- I had this book orginally back in the late 1960's (and remember picking this up a book store at San Francisco International and it's companion volume a bit later at a local bookstore in Monterey).When reading it you have to kinda brace yourself -- at least modern readers.Blackwood, and many of his generation, wrote in a leisurely style with a deliberately slow buildup.If you can get past that, Algernon Blackwood was part of a generation of authors of the supernatural -- such as Arthur Machen, H.P. Lovecraft -- that were Giants upon whose shoulders Stephen King and authors stood.This a massive tome with so many good stories.For me, "The Doll" (also down as slime tome from Arkham House, with a companion story, "The Trod"), "Running WOlf" (a terrific werewolf story) and "The Man WHom The Trees Loved" (a VERY slow building story but if you can stick with it,monumental tale of man and fauna only comparable to Edmund Hamilton's "Alien Earth".I recently got this, and it's companion volume TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS AND THE MACABRE back.It was like getting back old and dear friends.

For Those Who Like Their Terror with a Touch of Class
Algernon Blackwood was a master of the subtle "ghost" story. Unlike so many of the horror authors today, he knew that the key to true terror was a slow build-up and a subdued menace.These are some of the finest examples of his craft. Tales include The Doll, Running Wolf, The Little Beggar, The Occupant of the Room, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, The Valley of the Beasts, The South Wind, The Man Who Was Milligan, The Trod, The Terror of the Twins, The Deferred Appointment, Accessory Before the Fact, The Glamour of the Snow, The House of the Past, The Decoy, The Tradition, The Touch of Pan, Entrance and Exit, The Pikestaffe Case, The Empty Sleeve, Violence, and The Lost Valley.

Complete Collection of Algernon Blackwood's stories
I understand that this volume contains 2 volumes of previously published stories, and among them are some of his best.No one can deliver a shiver like Blackwood, and his talent for turning familiar, every-day objects into things of horror is unsurpassed in horror fiction.Some people might think these stories would be dated, but a good ghost story just gets better with time.

Quiet terror
I found this at a garage sale.There are 22 stories in this book.This is a nice mix of supernatural, and scary stories that make you uneasy. If you like stories with a subdued menace try to find this book, you'll enjoy it. You will have to take your time, the author slowly builds up the suspense in each tale.

A Pity It's Out of Print
I was given this volume as a gift many years ago and have gladly kept it. It contains some of his best work and best-worked themes: the supernatural in nature represented here by "Running Wolf", "The Valley of the Beasts", and, to an extent, "The Lost Valley". "The Trod" is one of his better stories, "The Doll" quite good. Only "The Wendigo", one of his very best, is missing. The tales, though not stylish, are reasonably well-crafted, reflecting his well-travelled life with their various locales. Let's hope this book will soon be reprinted. ... Read more

Product Description
Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, The Wendigo, and Four Weird Tales, which are: "The Insanity of Jones," The Man Who Found Out,"The Glamour of the Snow," and "Sand," with an afterword by Catherine Mintz. Copper Penny Press books are in an easy to read and easy to read aloud format. ... Read more

Product Description
And, further, he was still haunted with the feeling that other "beings" occupied certain portions of the rambling mansion, and more than once recently he had wakened in the night with an idea, carried over from dreams possibly, that the corridor outside his bedroom was moving and alive with footsteps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing Selection of Stories
A large part of Blackwoods short fiction is tragically out of print.This compilation puts together two previous collections of Blackwoods, Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre, and Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural, both of which stand by themselves as great collections.And wouldn't you know it, both of them are out of print.This particular volume (Tales of Terror and Darkness) is incredibly difficult (at least it was for me) to find.The other two books, which constitute this volume, are far easier to locate through any out of print service.Try Amazon's great out of print service.For information on Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre and Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural see the reviews for those two individual books.It would be redundant to write two reviews for the same book, but before you go to the other sites, let me tell you, and this is without any hyperbole, Stephen King, Peter Straub, etc., etc. are all amateur's compared to Blackwood. ... Read more

Product Description
The best of English supernatural writer Algernon Blackwood in one collection (with active table of contents):

The Centaur
The Damned
The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories
The Extra Day
Four Weird Tales
The Garden of Survival
The Human Chord
The Man Whom The Trees Loved
A Prisoner In Fairyland
The Wendigo ... Read more

Product Description
This reference represents the most complete and detailed examination of Blackwood to date. Preceding the bibliography is a foreword by Ramsey Campbell, an introduction, a user's guide, and a short but detailed biography revealing much new material about Blackwood's life, and a chronology of dates. The bibliography is divided into four parts: works by Blackwood, adaptations of his work by others, works about Blackwood, and source indices. The listing of Blackwood's works begins with books, and then goes on to short and serial fiction, nonfiction (essays and sketches, and book reviews), poetry and songs, plays and dramas, radio manuscripts, and untraced items. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Indispensable guide to the greatest horror writer of all
Connoisseurs of horror fiction, including H. P. Lovecraft,rate Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) as the finest such writer of all.What Arthur Conan Doyle was to mysteries, what Jane Austen was to comedies of manners, Blackwood was to supernatural horror literature -- he set the standard, was unsurpassed in originality, and reads as freshly while surprising and shocking the reader as much now as the day he wrote his remarkable work, leaving the likes of Stephen King, Clive Barker and Anne Rice in the dust.

Sadly, most of Blackwood's large output -- about 10 book-length novels, over 200 short stories and novelettes, and numerous essays, reviews, plays etc. -- are long out of print and can often only be found in large libraries and through used and antiquarian book suppliers.This volume, prepared by preeminent Blackwood scholar Mike Ashley, is an exhaustive listing and description of everything Blackwood ever had published or exists in known manuscript, plus the fullest biography of Blackwood ever written.(Ashley is currently researching for a much longer, book-length biography of Blackwood, but it won't include this extensive bibliographic material.)

Blackwood fans will find this fat volume indispensable for locating and organizing their reading of Blackwood, and newcomers will find this a priceless introduction and guide to the man who defined cosmic fiction.In either case, you'll find yourself turning to this book again and again. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: London : CassellPublication date: 1923Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
Included in this volume of tales of terror are the classic Blackwood stories, "The Lost Valley," "The Wendigo," "Old Clothes," "Perspective," "The Terror of the Twins," "The Man from the 'Gods,'" "The Man Who Played upon the Leaf," "The Price of Wiggins's Orgy," "Carlton's Drive," and "The Eccentricity of Simon Parnacute." ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1916.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
The Centaur
The Damned
The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories
The Extra Day
Four Weird Tales
The Garden of Survival
The Human Chord
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
A Prisoner in Fairyland
Three John Silence Stories
Three More John Silence Stories
The Wendigo
The Willows ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A great writer now available in a new and exciting format.
Algenon Blackwood is one of the undisputed greats of supernatural fiction.His style and vocabulary are rich, fluid, graceful and beautiful.His stories are insightful and unforgettable.It is marvelous that this great writer, whom I've been studying for over thirty years, is now available on Kindle.Some of his stories will scare you, others amuse you, some inspire you.You will hunger for more.And let us hope that there is a lot more to come for Kindle readers.Algenon Blackwood has to be rediscovered, by Hollywood movie makers and by general readers.He's too good to remain a secret. ... Read more

Product Description
General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1917Original Publisher: E.P. DuttonSubjects: Fiction / GeneralFiction / ClassicsFiction / LiteraryLiterary Criticism / GeneralNotes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free.Excerpt: IllTHE WINGS OF HORUSBinovitch had the bird in him somewhere: in his features, certainly, with his piercing eye and hawk-like nose; in his movements, with his quick way of flitting, hopping, darting; in the way he perched on the edge of a chair; in the manner he pecked at his food; in his twittering, high-pitched voice as well; and, above all, in his mind. He skimmed all subjects and picked their heart out neatly, as a bird skims lawn or air to snatch its prey. He had the bird's-eye view of everything. He loved birds and understood them instinctively; could imitate their whistling notes with astonishing accuracy. Their one quality he had not was poise and balance. He was a nervous little man; he was neurasthenic. And he was in Egypt by doctor's orders.Such imaginative, unnecessary ideas he had! Such uncommon beliefs!"The old Egyptians," he said laughingly, yet with a touch of solemn conviction in his manner, "were a great people. Their consciousness was different from ours. The bird idea, for instance, conveyed a sense of deity to them -- of bird deity, that is: they had sacred birds -- hawks, ibis, and so forth -- and worshipped them." And he put his tongue out as though to say with challenge, "Ha, ha!""They also worshipped cats and crocodiles and cows," grinned Palazov. Binovitch seemed to dart across the table at his adversary. His eyes flashed; his nose pecked the air. Almost one could imagine the beating of his angry wings."Because everything alive," he half... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"The Daylight Might Suit You Better To Hear What I Have To Tell..."
Anyone with a name like Algernon Blackwood was born to tell ghost stories, and that's exactly what this writer did in the early 20th century. A master of building suspense and with a deep interest in the threefold relationship between mankind, spiritualism and the naturalistic world, Blackwood wrote hundreds of short stories throughout his writing career and could boast H. P. Lovecraft himself as an enthusiastic fan.

Like most great writers, Blackwood's gift was not in what was *in* his stories, but how he *told* them. In all cases, a person (often isolated in an atmospheric environment) gradually becomes aware of strange disturbances which gradually escalate into the unexplainable. In is in the reactions of the protagonists themselves that the real fear is to be derived, as well as the creepy supernatural situation that cannot be neatly explained and wrapped up at the end of the story. All the narrator can do is describe, not explain, and it is in this very sense of "unknowing" that Blackwood excels. I've never had an experience with the supernatural myself, but one thing that sticks out in *other* people's retellings of such things is their careful remembrance of details, and a sense that they had no idea what was really going on. This is what Blackwood captures in his own tales.

The problem with short-story writers is that often their work is split up over several anthologies, resulting in some doubling up when it comes to trying to collect their entire body of work. This collection has a somewhat eclectic mix of tales, (that *don't* include Blackwood's most famous works "The Willows" or "The Wendigo") and it might be a better idea for serious readers to get Complete John Silence Stories and Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood instead. You'll get more stories and less chance of overlapping this way.

As such, "Ancient Sorceries and Other Stories," contain the following tales:

"The Empty House": Jim Shorthouse and his elderly aunt gain possession of the key to a haunted house and propose to spend the night there. They only last a few hours.

"A Haunted Island" is about a solitary man studying for exams on a deserted island, only to feel a strong sense of foreboding whenever he enters his bedroom. Opting to sleep downstairs, he becomes even more perturbed by the sight of two Indians circling the island in their canoe, who seem to want something from the room he's just vacated.

"Keeping his Promise:" Another young student is studying diligently when his work is interrupted by a knock on the door. His old school chum Fields, whom he hasn't seen in years is at the door, completely dry despite the heavy rain outside.

"A Case of Eavesdropping:" Once again Jim Shorthouse experiences (or in this case, overhears) a traumatic event from the past when the inhabitants of the room adjacent to his boarding house begin to argue in German.

These four initial stories make great use of Blackwood's use of architectural space: particularly dark rooms and stairwells; the impossibly mundane that is infused with mystery and confusion. Likewise, don't expect any "clear" answers here, as Blackwood's skill is in keeping things back from the reader, whilst simultaneously drawing them in with his effective use of mood and setting. This may be frustrating for readers who are used to plenty of blood and gore and a neat wrap-up at the end; but that's not what Blackwood is trying to achieve, and not what should be expected here.

The final two stories are John Silence mysteries: the psychic-detective who listens, explains and solves mysteries that have a supernatural bent. In the first "Ancient Sorceries," Silence interviews a repressed forty-something man who impulsively gets off a train in order to stay at a strange village in rural France. Charmed by a beautiful young woman and loosing his sense of time's passage, the man is acutely aware that things are not what they seem in the sleepy community - but what happens when the "curtain" is drawn back and he glimpses the true lives of the inhabitants?

Lastly, the longest story of the collection is "Nemesis of Fire," in which Silence is called to an English farmhouse that seems to be surrounded by a haunted wood and several spontaneous combustions. Instantly realizing the source of the disturbance (but keeping it from the reader for a while longer) Silence sets up an experiment in order to deal with the spirit at large. This story amplifies what is best about Blackwood: his portrayal of the natural world and its primal, dark, dominant relationship over mankind. It's sure to have you eying the shadows and trees in your backyard a little suspiciously.

I've only recently discovered Algernon Blackwood, but am intrigued and rewarded enough by this collection to seek out further works. However, be careful not to get this particular volume mixed up with the similarly titled: Ancient Sorceries and Other WEIRD Stories. It's a completely different collection, and all things considered, the preferable one. ... Read more