Ancient Sorceries and Other Chilling Tales

by Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Blackwood was a writer of great distinction - his stories were not so much ghost stories as psychic adventures, his characters standing on the brink of alternative, sometimes frightening worlds.
Mysterious and unsettling, Blackwood's stories have the capacity to invoke genuine fear in the reader. Collected here are six of his best, confirming Algernon Blackwood as one of the modern masters of supernatural fiction.

This book contains the following stories:
The Wendigo
The Insanity of Jones
The Land of Green Ginger
The Willows
The Man Who Lives Backwards
Ancient Sorceries

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Classics, Gothic

232 pages, Hardcover

First published July 30, 2001

About the author

Algernon 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.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The three masters of the long, atmospheric tale of metaphysical terror—Machen, Blackwood, Lovecraft—are all accomplished literary magicians. Each can conjure an unsettling narrative from a spell of descriptive details rooted in a place, but each of them also possesses distinctive virtues. Machen is the superior artisan and the most elegant stylist, Lovecraft is the the greatest world-builder and the most terrifying, but Blackwood surpasses them both in his esoteric credibility and the power with which he evokes a supernatural presence through subtle descriptions of nature in solitary, uncultivated spaces.

Unlike the other two, Blackwood was a committed occultist, a world traveller and an outdoorsman, and he drew on this wide-range of experience in the creation of his fiction. He, like Machen, was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but unlike Machen--whose active participation in the socierty was brief--Blackwood continued in membership for at least ten years. His “John Silence” stories in particular—named for Blackwood's occult detective—are thoroughly believable in the details of their theurgic practices and in the conviction with which those practices are described and applied. It is clear that Blackwood took his magic seriously.

Nicknamed “Pan” by his close associates, Blackwood was an inveterate camper who loved the silence of the desert, the marshes, and the woods. Nature spoke to him in isolated places, filling him with the ecstasy that his theosophic Buddhist theology had prepared him to receive. His pantheism taught him that all of nature—and each one of us—is part of a great whole—but his experience of the outdoors also taught him that each numinous encounter with the spirit of nature is marked by the indelible characteristics of a particular, distinctive place.

It is this susceptibility to nature and the particularities of place that make Blackwood's fiction extraordinary, and S. T. Joshi—the editor of this substantial, well annotated anthology—has chosen his examples wisely. The three shortest stories of the nine—one sixth of the anthology—are effective although undistinguished, but the other six—each of near novella length—are classics that should delight all patient lovers of the genre.

Be warned, though: these stories move at a leisurely—some might say a glacial—pace. Nature is a woman who is known to take her time, and Blackwood puts his prose at the service of Nature so that the unique presence at the heart of each place may be revealed. He is interested in nuanced effects, and each genius loci is subtly distinguished from the others, whether its home be a marshy island on the Danube (“The Willows”), a French country village (“Ancient Sorceries”), the Canadian Woods (“The Wendigo”), an Alpine village (“The Glamour of the Snow”), the “New Forest” in Hampshire, England (“The Man Whom the Trees Loved”), or the Egyptian desert near Memphis (“Sand”).

If you are reading them for the first time, I envy you. These are six chilling, atmospheric, memorable tales.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

The titular story is very odd. In a frame narrative, a rather timid middle-aged bachelor relates to John Silence "the psychic doctor" (presumably a recurring character, as he is not developed at all here and his presence adds nothing to the story) how he once spontaneously got off an unpleasantly crowded train in a small French village. As he gets his bag he half-understands something a French passenger tells him about the town, "because of sleep and because of the cats". The town does have an oddly soporific air and he finds himself staying day after day. He feels the inhabitants are watching him, but not in a threatening way... This story has a unique and fascinating feel to. I wish Blackwood could have figured out where to go with it instead of copping out with seductive girl, witch Sabbath, Satan.

"Episode in a Lodging House" was pretty solid and I think probably more original at the time of publication than it reads now, because there have since been a lot of variations on this formula.

I had read Blackwood's most famous story "The Willows" before, but I swear this version was longer and included more overtly scary stuff. Or I am losing my mind, kind of like the characters...

"The Man Whom the Trees Loved" also features threatening trees! But more general forestation rather than a specific clump of evil trees. And more ambivalence, especially with the wife and her religious views. But seriously, Algie, you used on one page danger(ous) six times and dread three times, and nothing was even going on. Please edit.

"The Man Who Found Out" was an unexpectedly horrifying shorter story about elderly doctor/religion writer whose lifelong hope for divine revelation is gratified by the receipt of some soul-crushing Secret of the Universe. He loses all hope and joy in life and withers away into death while those who care for him can do nothing.

"The Insanity of Jones" is sort of like going postal, only very slow and more focused. People, try not to develop an OCD fixation on a disliked coworker and start imagining that they hate you and are persecuting you throughout every reincarnation of your soul. They probably aren't. Probably.

"Glamour of the Snow" is one of the weaker stories. I don't think Blackwood feels as strongly about winter hills as he does about some other landscapes, and mysterious beautiful women are always temptresses leading men to doom. The author has even done this trope better himself.

There are nice descriptions of travel and wanderlust in "Sand". It's probably a fine story, but I think I've read these too close together so that they are suffering from their similarities. It did have one of the more humorous passages in the collection:
None of the devices were too obviously used, but at length Henriot picked up so many forgotten articles, and heard so many significant phrases casually let fall, that he began to feel like the villain in a machine-made play, where the hero forever drops clues his enemy is intended to discover.
Introduction followed inevitably.
...He did not ask for Henriot's name; he had already taken the trouble to find it out.
Also, now I have a strange urge to try "Do you happen to have a compass I can borrow?" as a pick-up line.

This collection also includes "Wendigo," which is good but I read it a year or two back so I won't reread now.

[Lars Jerlach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algernon Blackwood is a master story teller. His word use and sentence structure keeps a calculated pace that assuredly builds up the tension and preternatural unease in his deliberately slow moving, but exceptionally well constructed narratives.

More often than not, the tales are centered around the powerful esoteric forces of nature and written with an obvious sense of admiration and awe. Blackwood treats nature almost reverently as a supernatural being into which other-worldly realm man enters like an ignorant and unwelcome trespasser usually with dire consequences.

Collectively the stories address elements of the occult, the nebulous realm between here and there and the enigmatically complex relationship between man and nature. They brilliantly illustrate Blackwood’s combined love and respect of nature and equally his search for a belief system that seems to be as mysterious and ambiguous as the tales in this collection.

[Ipsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know that moment when your consciousness is slipping and not even your interior language can reach you? Only images are flashing, but you don’t want to catch even one image-insect, squash it and see the pus oozing out of it. You are just ready to drift off into a carnal embrace with your subconscious mind. Your heartbeat slows down, your body turns into a pool of melting crystal. And then your foolish brain jolts you awake, in a desperate attempt to bring you back to the Present -- what if it loses you to the headlessness of the subconscious? This is what Algernon Blackwood’s about. Only your subconscious mind is Nature, and your conscious brain is the modern civilisation.

Nature moves at a glacial pace, as does the psychological fleshing out of the protagonists in this collection. It’s almost as if the very fabric of the universe rears its head every time a human will is held in abeyance. The characters find themselves transfixed, responding to the siren-call of that part inside them that’s still painfully connected to the sublime; ancient powers that lay dormant in their polluted blood.

A pre-ontological inhumanity still breathes in our bowels -- an inhumanity that holds human solipsism as the black vomit abject; that places the not-man at its centre. This inhumanism runs almost like yearning through these stories -- standing out most gloriously in The Wendigo and The Man Whom The Trees Loved.

Another striking thing about Blackwood’s writing is his treatment of the tropes like Evil and Horror. The sublime and the potent antiquity of Nature is not evil in the conventional sense of the word. After all, how can any force be negative in itself? Valorisation is a deeply human process; it’s all a matter of the direction it hits you from. It’s horrifying only because we've Otherised these forces. It’s cruelly indifferent only because our self-important speciesism makes it nauseous. I keep thinking of this line from another story in this book, The Willows:

”...Our only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may save us.

My favourite of the lot was the titular story -- Ancient Sorceries. The creation of imagery in this one almost had an elusive, musical, non-verbal quality to it. Beautiful, considering he used language to bring out all that! His conceptual obsession with the mysterious forces of nature and the inhuman really shines through. However, the stories towards the end of the book, though conceptually strong, lost its usual sheen -- almost as if he had given up on dissecting language and excavating the wondrous prose like in his earlier stories.

Overall, I am glad I finally discovered Algernon Blackwood. I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone; but if you too are tired of the fascist hatred and the colonial infection that Lovecraftian anti-humanism engenders, then Algernon Blackwood is the writer for you.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to my contrary nature, I often read short story collections out of order. Blackwood's Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories was no exception, although in this case I wasn't contradicting the author's wishes but rather the organizing principle of chronology, since this is a posthumous collection and the stories here have been arranged, more or less, from earliest to latest. I read the ninth and final story ("Sand") first, the sixth story ("The Wendigo") second, the seventh story ("The Glamour of the Snow") third, and the eighth story ("The Man Whom the Trees Loved") fourth...and only then turned to the beginning. Now having read the entire collection, it seems to me that stories seven through nine, easily my least favorite, represent the point in his career at which Blackwood abandoned the pretense of trying to entertain, bypassing the effort involved in revision in order to usher the reader toward what's truly important (for Blackwood, anyway), namely a main character's inevitable union/confrontation with nature/the mystical forces underlying the material world, a meeting that's tinged with both eros and thanatos. But Blackwood, or the later Blackwood of stories seven through nine at least, isn't precise or economical enough as a writer to make me feel the beauty and terror of what he's describing. I think it's there, but he doesn't make the effort to excavate it from the sands of dull, repetitive prose, leaving the reader to sift through it all. "Sand" and the seriously weird (unless you're into dendrophilia) and awkwardly-titled "The Man Whom the Trees Loved", for example, the two longest stories here, clock in at about 75 and 60 pages respectively, and they feel even longer- neither of these stories' conclusions offer the resolution of an idea or the sharpening of an ambiguity, or even a surprise, but a mystical feeling that by the time we arrive at it has already been telegraphed and belabored. I can just imagine being Blackwood's roommate, and him telling me over coffee in our spartan kitchen one morning (I picture this taking place in eastern Europe for some reason), steam rising towards his face in the gray early light, about how amazing the occult ritual he performed the night before in the woods or mountains was, but getting so lost in the rapture of the memory that he forgets I wasn't there, forgets in fact that he's speaking to another person...a person who, caffeinated or not, needs a certain artistry worked on him in order to get interested.

Two archetypes appear in almost every one of these stories- there's always a character drawn to that mysterious union/confrontation with nature, and always a skeptical character who denies the existence of anything that can't be rationally understood (inevitably proven wrong). Furthermore, every one of these stories deals with essentially the same theme- that the allure of nature is inseparable from the allure of both love and death. It's a fine theme, but I find it much more fully realized and convincingly expressed in a story like "The Wendigo", which really does feel like a ghost story you'd hear around a campfire, than in "The Glamour of the Snow." And yet the strange thing is that if you read these two stories back-to-back, in accordance with the principle of chronology, you'll see that they are pretty much identical- it's just that, in the former, the wendigo is a big scary dude, and in the latter, nature is personified by a ghostly, seductive woman- but the characters' conflicting emotions of temptation and dread are the same.

Another highlight for me is "The Insanity of Jones", a gratifyingly sinister tale of an office worker, Jones, who (disconcertingly) begins running into a deceased ex-colleague of his in bars and parks and other public places. This deceased ex-colleague convinces Jones that their boss, a tyrant who treats his subordinates almost as badly as Amy Klobuchar is reputed to treat hers, in a previous life tortured him (Jones) to death, and that he (Jones) must now either "deliver justice" or "rise to the heights of a great forgiveness." Unlike a later story in which the somewhat unsurprising surprise ending involves the discovery of two sets of footprints where there might have been expected to be only one, "Jones" implies that this communion with an underlying reality that so many of Blackwood's characters seek out may not be distinguishable from madness. "Ancient Sorceries", the collection's title track and the inspiration for the 1942 film Cat People, is mysterious, fairly perverse and surprisingly erotic, although I found the tension petered out towards the end when, in a few brief pages, everything is revealed (or almost everything), and a sort of paranormally-inclined Sherlock Holmes-type figure, John Silence, who's been listening quietly and smoking his pipe for the past forty pages or so, just as the reader has, pontificates on what it all means. As in the case of "Jones", however, we're left with a tantalizing ambiguity. "The Man Who Found Out", on the other hand, is quite funny (although I guess it depends on your sense of humor), a story about a man who, well, finds out- the secret meaning of life, that is- and becomes so consumed by despair, unable to imagine living for even one more evening with this dreadful knowledge, that he immediately takes measures to ensure he forgets it.

"The Man Who Found Out" also helps me to think about the collection as a whole. "Finding out" in all of these stories results in a kind of madness- you might even say that these (un?)fortunate characters have all "seen the wendigo." Many of the stories could therefore conceivably be read as cautionary tales. You're better off not reading that secret scroll; don't go back to that hotel in the rural French village, just let them keep your luggage, you can always get a new suitcase; don't go camping; and don't worry about what the mysterious lodger in the room directly below yours is chanting at 3 in the morning (no, really- put on your headphones, fall asleep to a podcast or something, but don't investigate).

Here's how I rank the stories, from my favorite to least:

1) The Wendigo
2) The Man Who Found Out
3) The Insanity of Jones
4) Ancient Sorceries
5) The Willows
6) Smith: An Episode in a Lodging House
7) The Glamour of the Snow
8) Sand
9) The Man Whom the Trees Loved

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blackwood is a bit of a tease. His stories have a great buildup through long descriptive expository passages but there's never much of a payoff, just a feeling that something was about to happen - usually in the great outdoors - but it was somehow diverted. Those interested in literate horror stories may enjoy reading these works which influenced many other writers including Lovecraft but many of the stories drown in their own setup.

- Smith: An Episode In A Lodging House - 3/5 - I always feel like somebody's watching me...
- The Willows - 4/5 - There is unrest in the forest, there is trouble with the trees
- The Insanity of Jones - 4/5 - I'm not crazy, you're the one who's crazy, you're driving me crazy
- Ancient Sorceries - 3/5 - Memory, all alone in the moonlight...
- The Man Who Found Out - 2/5 - Now that I found out I know I can cry
- The Wendigo - 3/5 - Take off, it's a beauty way to go
- The Glamour of the Snow - 2/5 - Now I'm snowblind, can't live without you
- The Man Whom the Trees Loved - 3/5 - Come closer and see, see into the trees
- Sand - 3/5 - They do the sand dance don't you know

[Arisawe Hampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blackwood is rightly stacked against those like Dunsany and Lovecraft but I think he had the uncanny ability to somehow make one immersed into the madness— to a greater extent than most weird fiction authors.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

How did it take me so long to discover Algernon Blackwood? I don't know but I'm glad I eventually did. This collection of stories span the early (and apparently the best) years of his literary carrer. As such it serves as a good introduction to his work and gives you an idea of which other collections and/or novels to try next.

Blackwood writes beautifully and is a master at the slow building up of tension and creeping unease. Obviously in awe of nature himself, he conveys this most expertly in his stories to the reader. There are mysterious, powerful, barely comprehendable forces at work in the world that are largely indifferent to humanity that are beneath their notice for the most part. When they are inadvertently tangled with by some hapless individual who has strayed too far into the wilderness they may be lucky to escape with their life...and their sanity!

Ancestral memory and reincarnation is another common theme in Blackwood's stories and is explored to great effect. In fact it seems, in this collection at least, that he cannot put a foot wrong at whatever he turns his hand. He is remarkably consistant and all of these stories are of an excellent standard. It is not often one can say that about a collection of stories and for that reason this is probably the best book I've read this year.

[Jason Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you have to go back 100 years to find something new in horror. One star penalty for the final story, “Sand” being slow, long-winded, and confusing, but the other eight stories are excellent.

[Dreadlocksmile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here we have a collection of six short stories by the English writer of ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Algernon Blackwood (1869 – 1951). Blackwood was born in Shooter’s Hill, and after attending the University of Edinburgh, he enjoyed a varied life of farming in Canada, operating a hotel, mining in the Alaskan goldfields, and working as a newspaper reporter in New York City before moving to England and starting to write ghost stories. His tales became very successful, and he went on to write ten books of short stories and appeared on both radio and television to tell them. Blackwood’s passion for nature and the mysterious world around himself captured his imagination, which is reflected within many of his following short stories. H.P. Lovecraft once wrote about Blackwood “He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere”. Never was a truer statement made.
This compilation contains six ghostly and harrowing tales that range in length from “A Case Of Eavesdropping” that is a mere 20 pages long, to the much longer tale “The Nemesis Of Fire” that runs for a total of 98 pages. The stories included are as follows:

The Empty House – written in 1906 (Taken from the book ‘The Empty House’)
Here we have a dark supernatural tale of an evil that has manifested itself into an old house that lies deserted in the middle of a street. A young man named Shorthouse decides to pay his Aunt Julia a weekend visit, which leads to them exploring the empty house in the middle of the night. The house turns out to hold terrible secrets, which torment the two curious onlookers. The story is a simple idea of a haunted house, yet holds an eerie undertone to it that keeps the reader gripped throughout the tale. Blackwood’s use of suspense is fantastic, as he builds upon the mounting tension throughout their experiences within the house. A very creepy and enjoyable read.

A Haunted Island - written in 1906 (Taken from the book ‘The Empty House’)
This next tale is that of a ghost story set in the remote Canadian backwoods. Written from the first person point of view, the story builds from an atmospheric scenario with an underlying tension that spirals to a breath-taking conclusion that will leave you gasping. The plot sees a lone student wishing to take advantage of a desolate island in order to catch up on some much needed revision. During his time there, he encounters some ghostly visions of Indians circling the island in an ancient canoe. As the tension mounts, the harrowing situation builds to a dramatic turn of events as the two Indian figures force their way into the house in which the student is staying. The story is packed with tension from early on, creating this powerful and disturbing tale of the supernatural.

Keeping His Promise – written in 1906 (Taken from the book ‘The Empty House’)
This tale concerns a young man by the name of Marriott who is a fourth year student at Edinburgh University. One night he is cramming for his finals when a friend from a long time ago knocks on the door in a terrible state. His friend is close to starvation, and so Marriot feeds him and sets him to sleep. As his friend sleeps, Marriott discovers that nothing is quite as it seems with the situation. A promise that was made a long time ago seems to have come back to haunt him – literally. This is a very intriguing and well-written short that keeps the reader gripped with the air of supernatural mystery that surrounds it.

A Case of Eavesdropping – written in 1906 (Taken from the book ‘The Empty House’)
This short story uses a classic haunted house situation where the unfortunate character of Jim Shorthouse finds cheap rented accommodation with a large run down building. During a rather restless night he overhears some German voices through the walls and learns of a terrible crime that unfolds. When he finally takes action he soon realizes that all is by no means as they seem. A very simple idea that is tackled well, creating a dark and atmospheric piece of short fiction.

Ancient Sorceries – written in 1908 (Taken from the 1908 book ‘Secret Worship’)
A tourist returning from a trip becomes too enchanted with a strange French town and its people to leave. He is slowly drawn more and more into their realm of secrets and talk of ancient memories. Eerie from the start, this creepy tale deals with the psychological side of horror with paranoia screaming out at you from every page. The story winds towards a weird and haunting conclusion that lingers with you for a long time to come. This is another John Silence story.

The Nemesis of Fire – written in 1908 (Taken from the book ‘John Silence, Physician Extraordinary’)
This final tale is by far the longest in the book. The story is a psychic detective story involving Dr. John Silence and his assistant. Written from the first person point of view of the assistant this creepy and surreal tale involves weird happenings taking place within a large plantation that overlooks the home of a wealthy retired solider. As the story unfolds, we learn of a ancient curse that has been placed on the surrounding area. The characterization within the tale is superb as Blackwood keeps the reader guessing along with the assistant at each bizarre turn of events. The story builds to a massive conclusion where everything is revealed, drawing to an end this impressive collection of haunting stories.

A truly enjoyable read from start to finish, each short story kept me gripped and on the edge of my seat. Well worth picking up!

[Jim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algernon Blackwood's reputation is marred by how outrageously prodigious his daunting oeuvre is, so having an affordable and slim collection of his select best terror and awe stories I can point people to is essential.

This is the perfect starter kit for readers new to his mystical and profound work. 'The Willows', 'The Wendigo', 'Sand', 'The Man Whom the Trees Loved', 'Ancient Sorceries' (the finest of his John Silence occult detective stories) and 'The Glamour of the Snow' are stunning pieces of visionary supernatural fiction.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atmospheric and Poetic but Sometimes Simply Too Long

This collection consists of the following stories: “Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House”, “The Willows”, “The Insanity of Jones”, “Ancient Sorceries”, “The Man Who Found Out”, “The Wendigo”, “The Glamour of the Snow”, “The Man Whom the Trees Loved” and “Sand”, and I would say that it shows Algernon Blackwood at his best – namely in the stories “The Willows”, “Ancient Sorceries” and “The Wendigo” – but also as a narrative organ-grinder toiling away on a repetitive hurdy-gurdy and thus outstaying his welcome – namely in “The Man Whom the Trees Loved” and also a bit in “Sand”.

Blackwood, who was an untiring globetrotter, convinced me most in stories like “The Willows” and “The Wendigo”, but also in “The Glamour of the Snow”, where he used his way with words in order to conjure up the immediacy of nature untouched and to hint at the hidden threats to the human mind behind nature’s vastness. The reader senses that Blackwood writes from his own experience in these cases – not that Blackwood’s mental state was to be doubted, but he actually saw many of the places he used as settings for his stories with his own eyes, and then not with those of the hotel-based tourist but with those of the adventurer. Even a rather slow-going and repetitive story like “Sand” starts in an extremely promising way when Blackwood gives us a haunting sentence like

”There is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind”

and when he then describes to us how the protagonist is lured from his London rooms by his itchy feet that are tickled into motion by the wind, we can imagine that Blackwood is writing about himself here. Unfortunately this story, which started in such a propitious way, somehow peters out in its course in the endless plains of Sahara sand and of imagery re-used. The other three nature-related stories (“The Willows”, “The Wendigo” and “The Man Whom the Trees Loved”) I will not deal with here because I already discussed them in separate texts.

Another major story in this collection, in fact the one after which the book is named, is less to do with nature but with the darker impulses of the soul. In “Ancient Sorceries” a man is apparently driven by chance to leave his train and stay in a secluded French town only to find that its inhabitants have a certain feline way about them. To his dismay, he eventually finds out that he is linked to their ilk in some mysterious way and if he wants to escape the danger of being drawn completely into their circle, he has to wrench himself from the seductive attractions of a young woman who embodies age-old vices. It’s, in fact, the old story of virtue vying against temptation but it is remarkably well-told, and it probably inspired the producer Val Lewton to turn the idea into a film, Cat People, with the director Jacques Tourneur on board. This was, in fact, the first of several Lewton-Tourneur projects, in which Tourneur relied on indirect horror to create a haunting atmosphere. While the tight RKO budget might have been one major factor to move Tourneur into that direction, the indirect horror approach yet masterfully conveys the atmosphere that is created by Blackwood’s rich and suggestive prose.

The shorter stories in this collection can be hauntingly poetic like “The Glamour of the Snow” but they can also be rather cemusing [1] as “The Insanity of Jones”, although I may be rather unfair here – but the idea of reincarnation, on which this story centres, always makes me laugh. And not in a friendly way. The first story in this collection, “Smith”, is a very entertaining and uncanny tale of a student, whose neighbour is given to occult incantations – in fact, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a similar story called “Lot No.249” in 1892. Then there is “The Man Who Found Out”, a story about somebody who comes into the possession of divine tablets divulging the secret of life itself, and who is so appalled by it that he decides to spare mankind this inconvenient truth. I quite liked this story since it seems to imply that we don’t need any higher destination to lead meaningful lives – although the people in the story did not take it very well.

Personally, when it comes to horror stories or weird tales, I prefer shorter stories than those that are collected in this volume for the simple reason that this kind of stories should be read at night, when everything around is dark and silent. I would also agree with Edgar Allen Poe that stories that depend on their atmosphere ought to be read in one sitting, and that is why too long a story read in the evening might probably be interrupted by Morpheus’ soft yet powerful whisperings.

[1] which would be a mixture of amusing and bemusing, something that makes you laugh but at the same time strikes you as odd.

[Michael Fierce]

In 1942 when Producer Val Lewton was asked to make a film utilizing the title, Cat People - to be directed by Jacques Tourneur - he originally had ideas to base it on Ancient Sorceries , the title story in this collection.

Collection of six short stories originally published between 1906 and 1908 featuring Blackwood's psychic detective Dr John Silence.

The Empty House
A Haunted Island
Keeping His Promise
A Case of Eavesdropping
Ancient Sorceries
The Nemesis of Fire

[Andrew]

I think I'd read some of these years back, I mean like middle school back, but this was my first large-scale exposure to Algernon Blackwood. Please, go out and read "Sand" and "The Willows" immediately. These are masterworks of weird fiction, and I don't use that word lightly. Just the best, eeriest shit about the unknown and fundamentally unknowable things that lurk in odd corners of the world, seemingly not motivated by malevolence at all, but by an almost incidental drive to fuck shit up. While a lot of these Gothic writers have aged quite badly in the era of the cheap horror flick, Blackwood has held up admirably.

[Samichtime · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked 4 of them and I’m rounding up my rating to a 4. 😎 The wendigo and willows I didn’t reread, but still. Each review is below!

Smith: i dont get it. 3
The willows: great. 4.5
the insanity of jones: i dont get it. 3.5
Ancient stories: 5, great read.
The man who found out: 4. Good but the ending was meh.
The wendigo: decent but racist. 3
The glamour of the snow: 5. A true “tell it at a pub” tale.
The man whom the trees loved: Yawn. Zzzz. 2.5
The sand: Honestly so boring that I skipped to the last few pages, and I don’t regret doing so. 2.


That’s the end of my review.






No seriously, that’s it.








Really. 😎

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A number of pagan horror stories--or rather not pagan but not centered around a Christian, human-centered god. Somerhing great and mystical moves around humanity, while humanity struggles not to be crushed or subsumed. Good luck with that.

I liked all these; The Willows and The Wendigo were already favorites. A nice variation on the story about a town full of cats. The thing is, these aren't just stories about the mystical. They deliver the experience of it, which is quite the achievement.

[Andrew Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algernon Blackwood is one of the authors that many who have dabbled in "weird fiction" may only have heard of, and it seems he is yet to experience a Lovecraft-like resurgence, but after reading these short stories I can't really see why. I think Lovecraft is obviously excellent, but two stories in particular (the most famous examples of his writing, The Willows and The Wendigo ) in this volume had me on the edge of my seat in a way entirely different to anything Howard Phillips ever did.

These examples are both incredibly deep, unsettling examples of how to write in this sub-sub genre. It could of course be argued that both of them are simply "camping horror stories", in which expeditions into the wild become beset by forces beyond the comprehension of man. I don't think I'm exaggerating though when I say that both of them are terrifying. It may not be apparent if you have been a city dweller all of your life, and I can't exactly say I'm a man of the wilderness myself, but anyone with any experience of the wild or travelling will probably be touched in some way by the startling themes of these works. If you wanted to be lazy you could say that a lot of these stories are "about" a certain awesome and terrible aspect of nature (Sand, forest, snow, rivers, trees, the call of the wild). What makes them special though, is the levels of internalisation and psychological fear we have written into the characters, and the minute, intricate details of setting. This is what pushes the stories into another dimension of HORROR!

Many of these stories seems to be rooted in nature, and this extremely well annotated edition confirms that Blackwood was very well travelled, and published travel writing as well as horror. Personally I think that this is the strength of the stories-at the risk of collapsing my pulp fiction street cred, I think Lovecraft is superb but you can often distil the concepts in his stories to "unimaginable horror outside the comprehension of man", and I think Blackwood works in a more subtle and complex way. After all, Blackwood had first hand experience to draw from in hunting trips or river journeys, and unless I am mistaken H.P. Lovecraft didn't personally swap bodies with a member of the Great Race of Yith.

My one criticism would be that sometimes, it becomes a bit too rich with trembling, brooding internal fear. The longer examples of writing here, The Man Who The Trees Loved and Sand just go on too long, and the mood sort of collapses in on itself. I don't mean to make this a Lovecraft vs. Blackwood boxing match (The chin would make too easy a target), but this is something that Lovecraft never really let himself do. He'd normally wind things up right at the end of the story with a sudden realisation of the true horror of what had passed before in italics just when the story called for it, with no meandering. Sand in particular is guilty of too much of just that, sand, and metaphors to do with sand, and hinted at ancient dieties and so on, but it never really delivers. I consider myself to be a very patient reader but the longer works did frustrate me. When the stories are mid-length though, they are truly in a league of their own.

[Dev Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, whoa. This one's going on the "Favorites" shelf with 0 hesitation...it's probably the most enjoyable book I've read in the last 2-3 years. Superb gothic horror told in an incredibly engaging narrative style. "The Willows" is his best-known story (and for good reason, because it slays) but there were quite a few other great ones: "The Insanity of Jones", "The Man Who Found Out", and "The Wendigo" come immediately to mind. The only story I didn't love was the first one, but it was still totally fine. I would recommend this book in a heartbeat to anyone who's a fan of this style of fiction. For me, Blackwood easily surpasses Lovecraft - and I'd put him a half-step above Poe too.

[Sumant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Blackwood while listening to Weird fiction podcast by Claytemple media, and got this from book on my amazon kindle, what can I say I really enjoyed each and every story in the book. What I like about the stories are that we don't have your typical crazy person or something evil haunting in shadows, but sometimes when you are alone in nature, the shadows of trees may send a shiver down your spine, or when you are sitting alone on a bank of river, the only sound you hear in the surrounding is the rustle of trees and water with no human sounds.

These are the kinds of atmosphere which Blackwood utilizes in all of his stories, because nature does have a haunting quality about it, whenever you are alone in forest, you may sometimes feel like never coming out but staying for the night in the woods, but the woods at night are a complete different ball game than the ones in morning, they have different sound and feel about them at night, which may make you afraid.

What I like most about his stories are the gorgeous descriptions of nature he gives us be that a river flowing serenely or the rustle of forest or the sands in the deserts, the prose is such masterful that you are immediately transported to that place and you can imagine the story flowing around you.

I give this book 4/5 stars, highly recommended.

[James Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s very hard to make a book scary, but Blackwood is a master at conveying the magnitude of the fear experienced by the protagonists of his stories.

The easy stand-out in this book is Ancient Sorceries, the story for which this collection is named.

The language used is so emotive; I found myself being drawn further and further in with each word.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Patrick.G.P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algernon Blackwood’s tales are filled with a sense of wonder and awe at the mysticism that is nature, and the elemental forces around us. Coupled with a strong anti-materialistic view, Blackwood treats nature as an almost supernatural being, capable of stirring great emotions of beauty but also of horror and doom. The Willows and the Wendigo were both tales that treat mankind’s venture into nature without respect and reverence as a trespassing into a world where the line between the real and unreal waver and become interchangeable.

The Man Whom the Trees Loved also deals with the reverence of nature, and the almost mystic bond one-man forms with the trees surrounding his cottage in England. This relationship turns to horror and madness for his wife, who struggles to view the world as a safe, recognizable place through her unwavering Christian belief.

The Glamour of the Snow again deals with worshipping nature, almost to the point of madness, as even the soft, silent beauty of the snow can be deadly when one is caught unaware.

The Insanity of Jones was one of the stand out tales for me, as it resembled some of Arthur Machen’s tales, where the protagonist has been blessed by viewing behind the veil of our world and surrenders his mind and soul to an otherworldly realm of beauty.

The other tales in the collection, Ancient Sorceries, Sand, Smith – An Episode in a Lodging House, and The Man Who Found Out deals with occultism, ceremonial magic, and hidden rites and reflects perhaps, Blackwood’s search for a belief system that mirrored his own in some way. All the tales in this collection were excellent, bizarre and well written, as Blackwood’s love for nature and the mysterious permeates the tales and gives them a unique air of being truly otherworldly.

[Mark R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a whole, I enjoyed this book, though some stories much more than others. Blackwood is often noted in a category also containing H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, and for good reason. That's not to say his writing style is overly similar, but all three authors wrote intriguing horror/fantasy stories, often written in the first person, with one wondering individual relating a recent, usually terrifying discovery to his audience.

Blackwood was interested in reincarnation, and that is the subject of a number of the stories in this collection, including "The Insanity of Jones," the best of them, and one of the best short stories I've read.

"The Willows," about a strange and ominous presence on an island, something manifested in the local wildlife, and "The Wendigo," about a North American ghost legend calling out to hunters in Canada, are excellent.

The last two stories, the novella-length "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" and "Sand", I didn't find nearly as engrossing, my interest waning after twenty or so pages. Both of these might have worked better as stories of the same length as the rest. Overall, though, a very good collection, by an important author in the fantasy/horror genre.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Willows is the creepiest shiver-inducing weird story that contains nothing supernatural, only hinting at it through the hallucinatory play of the protaganists' minds as they cower in fear while camping, terrified by the vegetation.

The other stories are great too. Blackwood is one of the greats.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this off some really keen recommendations at Amazon, the majority of which I’m sure were penned by social pariahs living in their folks’ basements, which they’ve befouled with gallons of spilled ginger ale, near-beer, and aqua-lube. And seeing as I bought the book based on their sound praises, I obviously have faith in their judgment; how the hell can you question the literary tastes of faceless, ostracized fiends relentlessly choking their chocobos to ridiculously-proportioned female action figures and skinning their shrivelfigs to blue-haired/purple-eyed anime darlings? You can’t. I consider it folly to disregard someone’s opinion on the flimsy suspicion that they have nocturnal emissions involving Hermione Granger. (This doesn’t always mean that they’re always completely correct in their opinions of what is commendable, I vaguely recall images of 300-nincompoop-long queues shirking responsibility and salivating shamelessly to see a piece of regrettable garbage titled The Phantom Menace on opening night…..good call, clowns.)

Anyway, now for something that might involve Algernon Blackwood or this collection of six of his stories. In almost all of the aforementioned reviews on Amazon, the formidable name of HP Lovecraft is invoked, and this alone piqued my interest. Let me warn any other simpletons so easily swayed: Blackwood does not write like Lovecraft, and while it may be true that HPL was a self-professed acolyte of his predecessor, ‘Woody’, I am personally much fonder of every element of Lovecraft’s writing. If HPL is indebted to Woody as a major influence, the result is something akin to Coldplay opening for U2 and completely blowing them off the stage (I personally don’t like either band, but figured they’d make for a good comparison). Blackwood isn’t without his own influences either; two of the stories within shamelessly emulate Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, without being nearly as good. While this sounds like negative criticism, it’s not supposed to be; there is no shame in falling short of HPL or ACD, this is just my way of alerting other fine readers that they will see a lot of references out there to both of these other fine authors but that Blackwood just isn’t on the same level with either.

The six stories in this volume can be easily broken into two general groups, the first four are simply ‘ghost’ stories (these would be the ones which would be Lovecraftian) and the last two stories are his tales of Dr. John Silence, master of supernatural investigation and detection (naturally, these are the Sherlock Holmes rip-offs, and yes, Conan Doyle does precede Woody by almost 20 years). And since it seems that there are various publishers grouping different Blackwood stories in similarly-titled collections, let me spell out exactly what is within (as I was led to believe that “The Willows” and "The Wendigo” were in this volume).

“The Empty House” – A ghost story in which Jim Shorthouse (who will make a later appearance) and his aunt embark on a familiar quest; to spend the night in a haunted house that many have tried to chill in for the duration of one night and failed. After reading this story, I didn’t have such high hopes for the rest of the book.

“A Haunted Island” – The narrator has a lot of ‘reading/studying’ to do (this is also a recurring theme) and stays behind on a remote island in a Canadian lake after his friends all return to Montreal, in the hopes that the serenity afforded by being isolated from the hustle and bustle of humanity will aide in his concentrated efforts. As the titular island is apparently haunted, this naturally results in being a piss-poor decision by this young scholar.

“Keeping His Promise” – ‘Fourth-Year’ man Marriott also has a lot of reading to do, so he coops himself up in his dorm with the intentions of keeping his presumably hard-partying pals away so that he can study in peace. This peace is shattered when an old friend, looking haggard and world-weary, appears at his door and begins eating the guy out of house and home, chomping away like possessed and not saying a word, looking like a junkie. And then…it gets creeeepy.

“A Case of Eavesdropping” – Jim Shorthouse returns, and this time his tale is being reiterated by someone whom he has spoken to concerning the ‘psychical’ events he always seems to wander into like a bear trap. I assume that this story takes place prior to the tale of the Empty House, as it appears he is over forty by the time the story is being told, but the events occur when he was a young man just having landed his first job. He gets himself a place to live, rooming at some crazy lady’s place, and through the paper-thin partitions he can hear a father and soon conversing and arguing in German in the room next door every few nights sometime around 2AM. This isn’t appreciated, and soon he learns that something dastardly is a-brewing in the adjoining room.

“Ancient Sorceries” – The first of the two Dr. Silence stories. Identical to the Sherlock Holmes stories, they are narrated by Silence’s confidant and lackey, Mr. Hubbard, a man completely lacking in the unusually heightened gifts possessed by the good Doctor. These stories are extremely like the Holmes tales; make no doubt, with the word ‘singular’ appearing on every other page and the way in which the stories unfold with a troubled client coming to Dr. Silence seeking his professional assistance, which he quickly formulates and answer to with his superior skills of psychic reasoning while his sidekick/scribe struggles to wrap his head around the situation. The only difference is that Silence is basically the polar opposite of Holmes in his methods; he states something to the effect that the correct way to go about solving the mysteries he is presented with is to abandon all logic and work off of feelings. In this story, a boringly ordinary and unexceptional little dude named Vezin can’t seem to deal with crowd of people, and while on a train ride through France, being stuck in the train car with a bunch of puds is too much for him to handles, and he gets off the train at a small town and decides to wait for the next one coming by. Bad call, brother, as this town doesn’t offer much but maniacal Pagan shapeshifters with a goal too terrifying to believe!

“The Nemesis of Fire” – I thought this was easily the best story in the book. Hell, this story was actually very good, and probably because it is the most like a Holmes story, whereas Ancient Sorceries is a Dr. Silence story but basically the recounting of a supernatural tale. ‘Nemesis’ has Dr. Silence and his loyal Hubbard going on-site to discover what forces are causing the discomfort of a badass war vet, Colonel Wragge. This dude has inherited a large chunk of land from his deceased brother, and lives on it with his invalid sister, and recently, some inexplicable and weird shit has been going down; the ever-present and suffocating feel of heat pervades the place, fires are breaking out, and the Colonel has to admit that he’s only effective when he can see his enemy and fire a piece of field artillery at it, he’s out of his depths here. Thankfully, he’s been referred to ‘the man’ to handle this situation; Dr. John Silence. And the good Doctor knows that this case is going to get ugly.

So, if you’ve got nothing on your agenda of any significance, and feel like reading something to suit the occasion, this book it is. While publisher House of Stratus claims that Blackwood ‘turned the ghost story into a legitimate and respected literary form’, I have to disagree; I think that they are quite cheesy and uninspiring. His Dr. Silence stories are far more solid, but only because they slavishly adhere to the successful form of Doyle’s earlier contributions

[Elderberrywine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this collection during the Spooky Season, a couple of months back, and it was perfect.

One of the stories, Ancient Sorceries, has been included in many an anthology, and I read it for the first time at about the age of 12. As a life-long cat owner, I heartily approve. The fact that Egyptians considered them deity-adjacent is not at all surprising. But two of the other stories intrigued me greatly. In both cases, there was no being that was the antagonist, but rather certain aspects of Nature itself.

The first, Sand, gives the shifting sands of Egypt, and what they hide, a rather sinister cast. But the second was my favorite. Entitled The Man Whom the Trees Loved, it tells of a married couple who have been stationed throughout the East with the husband working as a forester, who have now retired to their home country of England. They now live near an Old Forest, and although the wife enjoys having Nature about, she can’t help but notice a gradual change in her husband. Gazing out at the forest that borders their property,

And then she thought that curtain had stirred. There was movement somewhere. That obscure dim thing that forever broods behind the visible appearances of trees came nearer to her. She caught her breath and stared about her, listening intently. . . . The trees had turned in her direction. That was it. They saw her.

Let us say the trees are not malignant. Instead, unlike their obvious adoration of her husband, they are supremely indifferent towards the wife. Somehow, that’s worse.

And having read a few books lately on how trees communicate, I totally buy this.

[Nick Klagge]

First note is that Algernon Blackwood is the author of this collection; S.T. Joshi (which GR displays as the author) is the editor and author of the introduction.

I picked this up at a used bookstore a while back and decided to read it this month for spooky season. I only pulled it off the shelf due to the title; I didn't know at the time that Blackwood is known as an important influence on H.P. Lovecraft.

I'm glad to have found it. I felt like I vibed with Blackwood's approach to cosmic horror more than I have with Lovecraft's. Blackwood tends to put the other-ness of Nature front and center, most especially in "The Willows" but also in other stories like "The Wendigo" and "The Man Whom The Trees Loved." "The Willows" is probably my favorite in the collection (and I think Blackwood's most famous); I have definitely been in the wilderness and had that "you don't belong here" feeling.

I didn't think any of the stories were bad, and a few were very good. I liked the way Blackwood foregrounded a strong and mysterious personality in "Sand," and was very engaged by the mystical concept of a "group soul" that is discussed at length in that story. Also loved "The Man Who Found Out" for the simple cosmic horror idea and near perfect execution.

[Estevam (Impish Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its a good collection of stories that encompasses different kinds of horror with the common thread being the supernatural, the majority of the stories are very good and well written though sometimes with too much embellished descriptions that muddle the reading process sometimes making it seem a lot longer than it is.
I would recommend this for those that want to get more acquainted with Mr. Blackwood writing as it has many of his best works as Wendigo and The Willows, also would recommend to those that like atmospheric horror or existencial horror as these stories even when they are centered around a monster is a lot more about how they make the characters feel, for all that this one gets a 4 out 5 stars.

[Kenny Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly loved this collection of stories way more than I expected. Blackwood's form of horror is extremely interesting and has an almost modern sensibility to it. He portrays extremely well the simultaneous awe and terror that come with our experience of nature. He understands, better than any author I've perhaps read, that we are completely at the mercy of forces beyond our control, and they can swallow us at any moment if we are not careful.

My only complaint is that some stories could have been tightened. He is a masterful prose stylist, but you can only take so much psychological reflection on alien powers beyond our comprehension.

[Stela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story with cats (Ancient sorceries) was fascinating but I think I have already read it. The Willows and Wendigo were very interesting too. The last one, Sand, was too long and unconvincing.

Overall, I think I liked Elizabeth Gaskell’s gothic stories better.