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The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mystery Stories
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 25, 1989
About the author
Algernon Blackwood
1,417 books1,210 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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 1, 2017
Algernon Blackwood had a largely forgotten long career, first as a short story writer and later as a novelist, then broadcaster on radio and early BBC TV. At one time, he was far better known for his radio/TV appearances. I came to his work many years ago by reading one of his supernatural short stories, 'The Wendigo', in a collection of ghost stories. Most of his work is not, in fact, traditional ghost story material but falls more into the arena of strange presences in the great outdoors, since he was always a great traveller in what, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were the largely unexplored wild places of Canada and Eastern Europe.
This collection brings together the more obscure writings and broadcasts of his career, stemming from an early short story which did take a traditional haunted house as setting, through to extracts from four novels, and some stories from broadcasts, the criteria being that these are all stories not collected prior to the 1989 publication of this anthology. I won't say much about individual stories, simply because, having made the mistake of passing on my copy elsewhere before writing my review, most of it has left little impression. The only things I have retained is the gist of a propaganda story Blackwood wrote during WWII, which struck me as more suiting WWI because the soldier protagonist is suffering from shell shock, in which the convalescing soldier is visited by a special visitor with a national character , and two of the novel extracts, one where a young boy lives in an alternative world in which he is being taught by his teacher to fly, while he is actually unconscious after a serious accident, and another where the protagonist has a weird unworldly out of body experience while lying on the lawn sunbathing with the children of his hosts - that would have all kinds of dodgy connotations to a modern audience - where they visit the abode of the winds.
The stories have an older style of narrative which comes across as a bit long drawn out, though on occasions beautifully described, and the climaxes occasionally fall flat, so have rated it only 2 star.
This collection brings together the more obscure writings and broadcasts of his career, stemming from an early short story which did take a traditional haunted house as setting, through to extracts from four novels, and some stories from broadcasts, the criteria being that these are all stories not collected prior to the 1989 publication of this anthology. I won't say much about individual stories, simply because, having made the mistake of passing on my copy elsewhere before writing my review, most of it has left little impression. The only things I have retained is the gist of a propaganda story Blackwood wrote during WWII, which struck me as more suiting WWI because the soldier protagonist is suffering from shell shock, in which the convalescing soldier is visited by a special visitor with a national character , and two of the novel extracts, one where a young boy lives in an alternative world in which he is being taught by his teacher to fly, while he is actually unconscious after a serious accident, and another where the protagonist has a weird unworldly out of body experience while lying on the lawn sunbathing with the children of his hosts - that would have all kinds of dodgy connotations to a modern audience - where they visit the abode of the winds.
The stories have an older style of narrative which comes across as a bit long drawn out, though on occasions beautifully described, and the climaxes occasionally fall flat, so have rated it only 2 star.
January 17, 2026
Read only 'the Magic Mirror' story.
September 16, 2024
I have not read all the stories in this book, I only read "The Magic Mirror" short story itself. Sadly, at the time of writing, Goodreads doesn't have an entry just for that one story on its own.
I liked this one, it has an abrupt ending (which was expected) so I wanted a bit more. I wanted to learn more about the mirror itself and how exactly it came to be in the hands of the man that has it in this story.
I liked this one, it has an abrupt ending (which was expected) so I wanted a bit more. I wanted to learn more about the mirror itself and how exactly it came to be in the hands of the man that has it in this story.
January 29, 2022
*Relato El espejo mágico
December 22, 2025
I do love me a traditional supernatural mystery story.
January 10, 2022
I couldn't read this entire book, because I couldn’t get an actual copy. My goal this year was to read all of Blackwood’s works, and I was doing fine up until his later short stories because I was completely unable to get a copy of the last few books of his original works. So, I did the next best thing and sought out other collections which had reprintings of some of the stories I couldn’t get. At some point in the future, I’ll find a copy of the original book and read the stories I couldn’t find elsewhere, but for now, here’s the stories from this I’ve read (and what my rating applies to):
By Proxy - 4
Onanonanon - 4
Roman Remains - 4
The Kit-Bag - 5
The Reformation of St. Jules - 4
The Singular Death of Morton - 4
The Soldier's Visitor - 1
By Proxy - 4
Onanonanon - 4
Roman Remains - 4
The Kit-Bag - 5
The Reformation of St. Jules - 4
The Singular Death of Morton - 4
The Soldier's Visitor - 1
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews