Thread: Algernon Blackwood

Tweet

Hey - any other fans out there? I started getting into his stuff about a year ago and highly recommend his short stories The Willows and The Empty House

"The Willows" was great and I usually wind up reading it every year...

Make sure you read "The Wendigo". Also read E.F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower". My all time favorite.

Ooh -- thank you for this great thread -- I LOVE reading public domain books on my Ipod and I was just looking for some new ones and hoping someone would recommend some good Halloween ones here! I never read Algernon Blackwood before, so I just downloaded your recommendations . . . I would like to also recommend J.S. LeFanu -- I love all his ghost stories, and there are plenty of them, and his "Carmilla" is a really good vampire story, too! I also just finished reading Dracula by Bram Stoker, and I never knew what a good book that is!! It's definitely worth reading -- And my best friend just recommended that I read Frankenstein, so I've downloaded it, too. Now I've got plenty of reading to keep me busy through the season

Algernon Blackwood is the true master of the atmospheric weird tale. "The Wendigo" is one of my favorite stories. Unsettling, moody, with an absolutely horrific ending with what is shown, and moreso what is suggested. When Defago returns to the camp he's a revenant of himself, having encountered his worst nightmare and survived, permanently scarred and near death. Isolation plays a major role in Blackwood's writing, and he clearly displays that what is unseen can be worse than what is seen in his stories. "The Willows" is another masterpiece, and both stories require re-reads.

I have a few of his books and reommend them all. He influenced much of my own writing.

For Halloween reading, I would recommend "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," "13Horrors of Halloween," "October Dreams," Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree," "Dark Harvest," and some of Al Sarrantonio's Halloween work. Shameless plugs include my own books "Frightful October," "A Halloween Harvest," and my forthcoming Halloween-themed novella "The Watching" from Bad Moon Books. I posted the latter under the "announcements" thread.

Paul.