Algernon Blackwood

In the train, even before St. John's was passed, a touch of inevitable reaction had set in, and Rogers asked himself why he was going. For a sentimental journey was hardly in his line, it seemed. But no satisfactory answer was forthcoming -- none, at least, that a Board or a Shareholders' Meeting would have considered satisfactory. The old vicar spoke to him strangely. "We've not forgotten you as you've forgotten us," he said. "And the place, though empty now for years, has not forgotten you either, I'll be bound." Rogers brushed it off. Just silliness -- that was all it was. But after St. John's the conductor shouted, "Take your seats! Take your seats! The Starlight Express is off to Fairyland! Show your tickets! Show your tickets!" And then the forgotten mystery of his childhood came back to him. . . .

By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories showcases nine incomparable stories from master conjuror Algernon Blackwood. Evoking the uncanny spiritual forces of Nature, Blackwood's writings all tread the nebulous borderland between fantasy, awe, wonder, and horror. Here Blackwood displays his best and most disturbing work-including "The Willows," which Lovecraft singled out as "the single finest weird tale in literature"; "The Wendigo"; "The Insanity of Jones"; and "Sand." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A woman of snow . . . a midnight caller keeping his promise . . . forests where Nature is deliberate and malefic . . . enchanted houses . . . these are the beings and ideas that flood through this collection of ghost stories by Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951). Altogether thirteen stories, gathered from the entire corpus of Blackwood's work, are included: stories of such sheer power and imagination that it is easy to see why he has been considered the foremost British supernaturalist of the twentieth century. Blackwood's ability to create an atmosphere of unrelieved horror and sustain it to the end of the story is almost unsurpassed. "The Willows" -- which has been called by H. P. Lovecraft the finest supernatural story -- is a typical example of Blackwood's art: slowly and surely Blackwood draws the reader into a world of shadows, nuances, and unearthly terror. Blackwood was also a master at evoking feelings of mysticism and cosmic experience; dealing with such ideas as interpenetrating levels of existence and pantheistic elemental powers, he expanded the content of supernatural literature enormously. But even the more traditional elements of horror stories such as ghosts and haunted houses are handled with such energy and feeling that they rise far above their predecessors. Drawing on serious Oriental thought, modern psychology, and philosophy, Algernon Blackwood introduced a sophistication to the horror story that -- with few exceptions -- it was devoid of before. The results are stories that are not only guaranteed to chill, but stories that have something to say to the intelligent reader.

Algernon Blackwood's spooky stories remain as dark, chilling and readable today as the time they were first published at the beginning of the 20th century. Intertwining the supernatural and unexplained into a series of compelling narratives, the reader is left confused, scared and thrilled by the bizarre occurrences that puzzle, traumatize and terrify his characters. Blackwood's deft use of ambiguous endings leave the reader to interpret what may have happened. The author's stories exerted an enormous influence on H. P. Lovecraft (who himself termed Blackwood a 'master' of the craft of supernatural storytelling) and other horror authors. Together with strange and frightening tales, he was an enthusiastic author of essays and plays. As well as the 'weird' fiction for which he was famed, Blackwood would also write ordinary stories and tales aimed at younger audiences. Algernon Blackwood was well-regarded in life as a master of short and unsettling horror tales, with their quality remaining undimmed with age.