What do you think?
Rate this book
The Face of the Earth and Other Imaginings
Blackwood biographer Mike Ashley has created a new collection of stories and essays by the master supernaturalist, most of which have never been in book format before. Also included is a definitive bibliography of Blackwood"s writings as well as a new introduction by Ashley. A publishing event for classic horror fans!
222 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2015
22 people want to read
About the author
Algernon Blackwood
1,330 books1,173 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 28, 2016
Blackwood is so marvelously descriptive, imbuing every scene he lives or imagines with vividness and wonder. He makes one envious of the adventures he had, and even the dreadful ones he's imagined.
May 17, 2016
Algernon Blackwood, a man blessed with the perfect name for a horror writer, decided for some reason not to coast on that and produced instead a lot of bloviating essays and some third-rate short stories that read like Shirley Jackson's rejects. Approximately 3/4 of this book is skippable, not least because he torpedoes his most interesting ideas with "it was all a dream!", which is absolutely infuriating.
Of the stories in this book, the eponymous "The Face of the Earth", "Onanonanon", and "The Paper Man" are standouts. The first is atmospheric and creepy—Blackwood knows how to use a landscape to increase suspense. The second employs sound in a way I've never seen before to create a bizarre, ambiguous tone-poem. And the third is like if Borges wrote body horror. (Sadly, the collection does not include his best story, "The Willows".) If you can't find them anywhere else, it's worth picking up The Face of the Earth just for them.
Part of the problem is Blackwood's expansive, detailed sentence structure. When he reigns it in and pares it down, the stories take on nightmarish specificity. When he uses it purposefully, leading the reader through the story like a tour guide in a gallery of horror, it also works. Sadly, most of the stories are written in his default "say as much as possible before every period" mode, which removes momentum and suspense. The stories just slip past like tepid water.
The worst section of the book is the last, where Victorian sentimentality and Blackwood's love of nature collide to form a grey morass of essay. It's piece after piece where he writes about his travels in a way that robs them of interest. He even manages to make Egypt boring. That's quite a feat. This section also includes some grotesquely weepy stories about World War One. Probably they were resonant at the time they were published, but now they're just embarrassing and over-sentimental.
Blackwood is one of the patriarchs of weird literature. He was beloved of Lovecraft, among others, and he laid a lot of groundwork for twentieth-century horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But this collection presents very little of his best work, and an awful lot of his worst. It's for the completist, not the lover of literature.
Of the stories in this book, the eponymous "The Face of the Earth", "Onanonanon", and "The Paper Man" are standouts. The first is atmospheric and creepy—Blackwood knows how to use a landscape to increase suspense. The second employs sound in a way I've never seen before to create a bizarre, ambiguous tone-poem. And the third is like if Borges wrote body horror. (Sadly, the collection does not include his best story, "The Willows".) If you can't find them anywhere else, it's worth picking up The Face of the Earth just for them.
Part of the problem is Blackwood's expansive, detailed sentence structure. When he reigns it in and pares it down, the stories take on nightmarish specificity. When he uses it purposefully, leading the reader through the story like a tour guide in a gallery of horror, it also works. Sadly, most of the stories are written in his default "say as much as possible before every period" mode, which removes momentum and suspense. The stories just slip past like tepid water.
The worst section of the book is the last, where Victorian sentimentality and Blackwood's love of nature collide to form a grey morass of essay. It's piece after piece where he writes about his travels in a way that robs them of interest. He even manages to make Egypt boring. That's quite a feat. This section also includes some grotesquely weepy stories about World War One. Probably they were resonant at the time they were published, but now they're just embarrassing and over-sentimental.
Blackwood is one of the patriarchs of weird literature. He was beloved of Lovecraft, among others, and he laid a lot of groundwork for twentieth-century horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But this collection presents very little of his best work, and an awful lot of his worst. It's for the completist, not the lover of literature.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews