What do you think?
A Little Black Book of Bedevilment
The 7th Book in the Past Masters of Horror Series (IV)
Algernon Blackwood was born at the end of the eighteen-sixties to a normal English family of conventional Christian tenets. Exposure to Buddhism at an early age changed his belief system and he began looking toward the elements for spiritual enlightenment. He turned his hand to writing as a young man, working as a journalist and an author of fiction. His short fiction was popular and it often dealt in the realm of the weird tale. Much of it concerned supernatural forces in nature, as in his most celebrated and reprinted short stories, “The Wendigo” and “The Willows”.
Here then are seven tales from the fertile imagination of Algernon Blackwood. These stories demonstrate his uncanny ability to draw dread and terror from the natural world that surrounds us all.
Algernon Blackwood was born at the end of the eighteen-sixties to a normal English family of conventional Christian tenets. Exposure to Buddhism at an early age changed his belief system and he began looking toward the elements for spiritual enlightenment. He turned his hand to writing as a young man, working as a journalist and an author of fiction. His short fiction was popular and it often dealt in the realm of the weird tale. Much of it concerned supernatural forces in nature, as in his most celebrated and reprinted short stories, “The Wendigo” and “The Willows”.
Here then are seven tales from the fertile imagination of Algernon Blackwood. These stories demonstrate his uncanny ability to draw dread and terror from the natural world that surrounds us all.
- GenresHorror
153 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2022
About the author
Algernon Blackwood
1,506 books1,273 followersAlgernon Henry Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 7, 2023
Blackwood, Algernon - Little Black Book Of Bedevilment
A rare, frustrating book from a reliable press.
Mistakes abound, I suspect, owing to an ill-chosen editor, one Matt Sieber, of whom I have no knowledge.
One might predict that a collection of bedeviled stories would highlight Satan, Lucifer, black rites, conjuring, etc … Wrong. Most of the stories run along a more spiritualistic vein. Characters have, not so much an encounter with the Divine, but rather an epiphany of sorts, or a revelation of oneself.
Despite “bedevil” in the title, there is nothing of that sort here. Perhaps the editor misunderstood the concept, or was unfamiliar with previous installments of Borderlands Press “Little” series. Possibly, among Blackwood’s hundreds of works, he simply could not find any darkly occult yarns.
Another problem, more grievous, is that the editor did not bother to proofread his selections.
The first two stories are riddled with mistakes. Indeed, the second tale, “Valley Of The Beasts”, has more errors than a blind Little League team. To verify, I pulled out my 1962 Spring Books edition of Tales Of The Uncanny And Supernatural and compared. No mistakes in that edition.
BP publishers, the Monteleone family, are good people with a strong line of titles. They made a mistake with this volume by entrusting it to someone who was not up to the task.
A rare, frustrating book from a reliable press.
Mistakes abound, I suspect, owing to an ill-chosen editor, one Matt Sieber, of whom I have no knowledge.
One might predict that a collection of bedeviled stories would highlight Satan, Lucifer, black rites, conjuring, etc … Wrong. Most of the stories run along a more spiritualistic vein. Characters have, not so much an encounter with the Divine, but rather an epiphany of sorts, or a revelation of oneself.
Despite “bedevil” in the title, there is nothing of that sort here. Perhaps the editor misunderstood the concept, or was unfamiliar with previous installments of Borderlands Press “Little” series. Possibly, among Blackwood’s hundreds of works, he simply could not find any darkly occult yarns.
Another problem, more grievous, is that the editor did not bother to proofread his selections.
The first two stories are riddled with mistakes. Indeed, the second tale, “Valley Of The Beasts”, has more errors than a blind Little League team. To verify, I pulled out my 1962 Spring Books edition of Tales Of The Uncanny And Supernatural and compared. No mistakes in that edition.
BP publishers, the Monteleone family, are good people with a strong line of titles. They made a mistake with this volume by entrusting it to someone who was not up to the task.
March 27, 2024
A collection of short stories from horror master Blackwood, mostly dealing with the outdoors in some form or another. The writing itself was always a pleasure to read, verbose and richly descriptive.
July 28, 2026
not a real great collection of short stories. Most were quite boring and not scary or creepy at all. The first 2 the editing was horrible with multiple errors on every page.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews