Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

I can't help but wonder if the reason Algernon Blackwood lacks the kind of name recognition H.P. Lovecraft has today is due to the difference in where they root their horror. Both were clearly masters of the weird tale, but Lovecraft (when he wasn't cultivating terror based on personal degeneration) located his bleak and cosmic horrors at great distances of either time or space. Blackwood, on the other hand, sees the same impersonal force as something that constantly surrounds us in Nature, which manifests (in this collection, at least) variously in swamps, deserts, forests, and snow-capped mountain ranges. Perhaps, in this era of omnipresent electrical lighting, it's more difficult for people who've never truly been in the dark of a forest to feel a frisson of terror at "The Wendigo." Having never heard ash fall in a fire miles from the nearest town or felt the forest settling about them, they might simply think, "Meh, trees. What's the big deal?" and move on.This is not to underrate the quality of Blackwood's prose - several of the stories contained in this collection are fantastic, though editor S.T. Joshi's choices for what to include do give you the very strong impression that he just wanted to demonstrate how Blackwood's natural terrors looked in every possible environment (it's the only reason I can think for "Sand" showing up here, as it's a complete clunker, and a low-point on which to close out the volume). "The Willows," "The Wendigo," and "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" are all excellent stories, and "The Insanity of Jones" has one of the best opening paragraphs since "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents," though the story as a whole doesn't live up to that initial promise.Perhaps as the whole climate change thing gets out of hand and we're increasingly faced with the reality of an all-powerful, abstract force that doesn't even see us as it sweeps us aside, Blackwood's strand of natural horror will come back into vogue. Until such time as things get truly Roland Emmerich, I suggest reading this one by firelight in the dark outside, and remembering that we never truly conquered Nature - we just managed to dodge it for a while.

I am very glad I came across this book. Blackwood is a terrific storyteller and these shorts are lots of fun to read. They are very unique and mix lots of creepy and fantastic elements together in order to create exciting tales that, frankly, tell better than some modern short fiction stories I have read! What a imaginative author. Great read at a great price.PS- I have several of the Penguin Classics that involve the eerie and fantastic fiction of authors from the past, such as Clarke Ashton Smith and HP Lovecraft. They are all enjoyable. Fun introductions to the authors if you haven't read them before. Some of these authors are the inspiration for the many weird and scary elements and ideologies involved in our various formats of media today.

Considering H. P. Lovecraft said, “Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood’s genius there can be no dispute; for no one has ever approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences,” I was expecting him to be more like Lovecraft. But, funnily enough, Blackwood’s writing is rather accessible (I dare say more that Stoker, even), and some of his stories, albeit strange, are reminiscent of Stephen King’s more original short stories and novellas.“The Willows” is my favorite story in this collection, and clearly an influence on H. P. Lovecraft—but it should go without saying that it’s strange; the terror is in what you don’t know but suspect. “The Wendigo” is the most accessible of the bunch, reminiscent of Dan Simmons’ “The Terror,” but all the stories are solid and vastly different in theme and genre. A special shoutout goes to “The Man Whom the Trees Loved,” which feels like something Bradbury wouldn’t written.I do recommend this collection. But I would read only one novella/short story at a time; I started to get a little overwhelmed toward the end—based on its lengthiness and my antsiness to read other books. That’s why it’s not a perfect 5-Star.

-I was recently directed to an outstanding author, famous for haunting, scary, engrossing stories, whose work I hadn't read before. Algernon Blackwood, is his name, and he was called to my attention by the editor of a White Nationalist web page, who posted "Willows" on his web site as example of excellent White art.After reading the story, I couldn't get it out of my mind, so I searched the web for information, and ultimately bought this book from Amazon. "Willows," is among the stories collected here, and it is better than most; but, as a whole, the entire book is great entertainment.Blackwood, has been compared to Edgar Allen Poe, in his ability to create psychological tension, and palpable unease that creeps up on the reader, and remains awhile. There is great subtlety in the author's presentation of Nature and its relationship to Mankind.There are nine Blackwood stories in this 374 page book, including about twenty five pages of Explanatory Notes, which shed light on the author and the stories. A number of other Blackwood stories are collected in other books, also available at amazon.A good choice for a rainy night of reading, alone, in an isolated location.

Algernon Blackwood’s stories are often classed as horror but his isn’t the horror of the degenerate embodied or the monstrous found in earlier incarnations of Gothic fiction – although there are echoes. Blackwood’s work – or at least his strongest – seems to rely more on what lies beyond the real, something barely comprehended, often only experienced in the form of a nameless dread. And I could see from reading this selection how his brand of ‘weird fiction’ influenced later writers as dissimilar as Tolkien and Lovecraft. Lovecraft, in his famous essay on supernatural horror characterised Blackwood’s work as dealing with, ‘the idea of an unreal world constantly pressing on ours’ Plot is everywhere negligible, and atmosphere reigns untrammelled.’I thought this collection of Blackwood’s stories lived up to Lovecraft’s description particularly in the famous, ‘The Willows’ where two isolated travellers are beset by cosmic forces in the form of strange beings, who may or may not be of this world. In his tale of witchcraft ‘Ancient Sorceries’ – an inspiration for Tourneur’s magnificent ‘Cat People’- Blackwood’s recurring character Dr John Silence acts as a counter to the ‘unreal world’ and the seemingly irrational recollections of Arthur Vezin, but just barely.Blackwood’s stories are also rich in their detailed descriptions and evocation of the natural world, not the pretty countryside of writers like Wordsworth but nature as primal force. A force not to be reckoned with lightly. Stories like ‘The Wendigo’ demonstrated Blackwood’s familiarity with myth and legend, although his Wendigo is more benign than other retellings I’ve encountered. I thought these were quintessential eldritch tales - despite the opening story which was the weakest and most explicitly ‘horror’ story of the group. I was also fascinated with the masculine dimension of Blackwood’s narratives, which were often based on reworkings of Blackwood’s own travels, particularly the portrayal of male friendship: the shifting dynamic between the two travellers in ‘The Willows’ was as fundamental to the story as the entities besieging them. However, I found that my ‘academic’ interest in finally reading Blackwood’s work was stronger than my enjoyment as a reader; the slow pace and repetitive elements of ‘Ancient Sorceries’, for example, tried my patience at times; I think that I’m personally more at home with the pleasures offered by more conventional Gothic horror work like ‘Dracula’ or the mix of the concrete and the eerie in ghost stories by writers like M.R. James.

From the back cover: "In his search to systematize the supernatural, Dr John Silence, Blackwood's psychic detective, confronts anything from the nocturnal cat people of a sleepy French village with a really sinister secret to a reincarnated Egyptian fire-elemental embodied in a bowl of hot blood. Fear becomes a thread drawn so tightly it jangles, but never snaps. But *you* might."Thankfully the book is better-written than the blurb on the cover. This 1974 Penguin edition contains six stories, four taken from Blackwood's first book - his 1906 collection "The empty house and other ghost stories" (The Empty House, A Haunted Island, Keeping His Promise, A Case of Eavesdropping) and two others taken from his 1908 collection "John Silence - Physician extraordinary" (Ancient Sorceries, The Nemesis of Fire).This is a reasonable selection of Blackwood's well-regarded early work, the stand-out story being 'Ancient Sorceries' which is included in many different collections of his work. I must admit I bought this particular edition mainly because of the rather stylish Penguin cover!It can be a bit of a headache trying to collect Blackwood's short stories without getting the most same stories appearing multiple times in different collections. The Penguin volume "The Insanity of Jones" (out of print like this one but available second-hand) would make a great companion to this book as none of the stories overlap. However, for a single-volume collection I would recommend the Dover edition "Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood" instead of this one.As for the writing itself, some of the stories in this volume are fairly traditional supernatural tales, but Blackwood's ability to describe the psychological element of fear adds a lot to the enjoyment of reading them. It's not for nothing that HP Lovecraft singled out Blackwood as one of the "modern masters" of supernatural fiction. The title story is an engaging, enjoyable classic, and gives hints of the more mystical outlook that appears in much of the author's work. I intend to read a lot more of Algernon Blackwood.

I enjoyed this old book and once I got into the old fashioned and charming use of language it added to the atmosphere. These are "ghost" stories of the imagination, as a good ghost story should be. Not a lot of actual meeting doom but the escaping of physical harm while leaving the mind perturbed for ever more.There was a certain sameness to the stories so it was good to pick up and read one story then have a break.Also if one is interested in writing such stories this is a good style to follow. Get back to the chill and away from the overtly gruesome. I recommend it.

Brilliant short stories

Good book, promptly delivered