Three Supernatural Classics: "The Willows," "The Wendigo" and "The Listener"

by Algernon Blackwood

"He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere," pronounced H. P. Lovecraft of Algernon Blackwood. The preeminent British supernaturalist of the 20th century, Blackwood combined elements of philosophy and modern psychology to introduce a new sophistication to the genre. This volume showcases his best and most haunting short stories.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Supernatural, Fiction, Classics, Ghosts, Ghost Stories

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2008

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

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Willows

I guess we've met different deciduous shrubs, Algernon. Or maybe they they just don't like YOU.


Wendigo

Sure, city boy, follow the morose stranger down a river and camp days from anyone. What could possibly go wrong?

The vastness of the unmapped wilderness is pretty frightening. By comparison, the Wendigo not so much.


The Listener

Creepy house is pretty creepy, actually.

And whatever happened to that weird brat with the broken toy?


I read these in reverse order and am glad, because I wasn't very taken by "The Willows" and might have quit if I had read it first. "The Listener" was my favorite.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see now why Algernon Blackwood is regarded as one of the masters of the horror fiction genre. The first two stories in Three Supernatural Classics, namely, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo," all deal with a horror that is deliberately not described in full. When it makes itself known, it is less by visual and auditory clues than by sounds or scents or general feelings of dread. In "The Willows," there is a paucity of details about the horror, except for some well described phenomena, such as the continuing shrinkage of the island, the sabotage of the travelers' canoes, and strange funnel-shaped indentations. In "The Wendigo," what happens to the French Canadian guide Défago is totally bizarre. At the end of the story, the participants muse about their experience:

Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive. Something that had survived somehow the advance of humanity had emerged terrifically, betraying a scale of life still monstrous and immature. He [Simmons the divinity student] envisaged it rather as a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic and uncouth, still oppressed the hearts of men; when the forces of nature were still untamed, the Powers that may have haunted a primeval universe not yet withdrawn. o this day he thinks of what he termed years later in a sermon "savage and formidable Potencies lurking behind the souls of men, not evil perhaps, yet instinctively hostile to humanity as it exists."

Similarly, in "The Willows," the narrator notes "There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for disorder, disintegration, destruction, our destruction.... We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."

It is that "straying out of a safe line somewhere" that makes for the horror in these two great stories. The third story in the book, "The Listener," is more along the lines of a haunted house story and not at all up to the mark compared to the two longer stories.

If you want some good scary Halloween reading, this book will just about do it for you.

[Lorelei · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like these better than anything by Lovecraft, who I believe was influenced by Blackwood. The last story's end is a bit weak, in part because of the changes over time. Still very well written.

[Garrett Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a whole review for this earlier today, about 80-85% written out, and then goodreads decided that THEN would be a good time to crash and for it to be all gone.
So basically what I was GOING TO say was that I got the closest version to what I read as I could find on here, the only difference being that the one I read also included The Empty House. Also, I didn’t read The Willows because I just read it last December.

Not gonna try to re-write my whole review for each story like I had earlier but basically:

The empty house 7.5/10
Fun and creepy, but pretty surface level and doesn’t really do much new w the haunted house genre.

The listener 8/10
Definitely the creepiest of the ones I read (not as much as the willows though). It maintained a great claustrophobic atmosphere throughout, my only complaint is the ending. I kinda predicted it, and it was a little bit of an anticlimax.

**Kinda light spoilers**
The Wendigo 5/10
Bummed because from source material alone this could’ve been my favorite of the collection, and maybe one of my favorite novellas period, but it didn’t come close to reaching its potential. It tried to do the thing where they hint at the monster here and there, and what it’s like, but don’t actually reveal it. The thing is, you have to actually reveal the monster at the end for the payoff, so, at least I, was left very disappointed w the ending. I will say that it had a killer last line though.
I will also say, I read a physical copy of this last September (give or take) and HATED it. I thought it was so dull. However, I then LISTENED to the audiobook of The Willows and loved it a few months later, so thought I’d give this another chance for listening instead of reading. Better, but still didn’t love, hence the rating.

[Marcus Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere," pronounced H. P. Lovecraft of Algernon Blackwood, and having read the three stories here I couldn’t agree more.

An idyllic camping trip along the Danube goes horribly wrong in "The Willows," as supplies start to disappear, trees begin to move, and a hole inexplicably forms in the bottom of the canoe. The dark terror of "The Wendigo" unfolds in the remote Canadian wilderness, where a hunting party encounters a creature from Algonquin myth. "The Listener," a ghost yarn set in a rundown house in London, recounts a struggling writer's dawning realization of the chilling connection between his headaches, a mysterious sound of footsteps, and the sensation of being watched while he sleeps.

All three of these stories feature high levels of sustained suspense and offer readers a refined supernatural experience, bringing an air of sophistication to a genre formerly dominated by traditional ghost stories.

[Tom Britz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was highly impressed with how well these stories held up. Algernon Blackwood was a turn of the century writer of horror/dark fantasy. He built up the suspense and the atmosphere in each of the three pieces.

The Willows is a tale of two canoeists touring the Danube River. They are forced due to a storm and flooding river to camp on a small island of willow bushes, where they have an unwanted meeting with an elemental spirit.

The Wendigo pits four men on a moose hunting expedition into the wilds of northern Canada and their own separate beliefs against a so-called myth of the North woods.

The Listener is a straight up ghost story of a writer forced by income to procure an apartment on the cheap and its consequences.

Mr. Blackwood is deservedly famous because of his writings, he was the early 1900's version of Stephen King. This will not be the last of his writings that I will read. He also has a psychic detective series, The John Silence stories, that I want to check out.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you kinda forget to update on GR.
Nice collection, I'll definitely come back for more of Blackwood's works when I have more freetime.

[Nomadman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first two tales in this three-story collection are rightfully lauded as high watermarks of weird fiction. The opening story, The Willows, is renowned for being HP Lovecraft's favourite weird tale. It is a remarkable piece of fiction, subtle, awesome and eerie in equal measures, and almost hypnotic in the spell it weaves over your senses. The Wendigo, while lacking the chilling alienness of the former story, still contains some hugely potent moments, though it's let down by an anticlimactic ending.

The last story in the collection, The Listener, is less successful. Ostensibly a straightforward ghost story, it uses the familiar technique of successive diary entries to carry it along. Blackwood builds the tension pretty well, but there's no denying that confined to the civilized environment of a London boarding house, his writing noticeably drops in imaginative sweep, and in places becomes rather stilted.

The Wendigo and the Willows are five star stories, but considering that there are other longer collections that contain the above tales and more, it doesn't really make monetary sense to get this unless you want a handy copy to take with you, perhaps on a hiking or boating trip to some remote region...

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important to note that these tales were first published more than a century ago. They are written in a "Victorian" English style that some may find wordy and drawn out. The stories have an eerie, supernatural atmosphere but I didn't find any of them particularly frightening.

[Ned · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is something to be said for three ghost stories that are each over one hundred years old.

[TE · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is definitely NOT one you want to read alone in a creepy, dark place! To me, the most unsettling supernatural fiction is that which sparks your imagination. The psychological effects of something *unknown* is often far more terrifying. This isn't a terribly long and detailed review, but it's also a fairly short book, and I don't want to simply re-hash the plots of the three stories contained herein. This volume features three of his most-well-known stories, "The Willows," considered one of the finest supernatural stories in the English language, "The Wendigo," a tale from Native American Algonquin myth, and a more traditional "ghost story," "The Listener," a proper English ghost tale about a young writer who moves into a haunted apartment.

I've been reading a fair bit of "Gothic" horror and suspense recently, including the likes of M.R. James (my favorite, I think), H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood, who had his own share of personal tragedy, which shaped his writings. There is definitely a bit of personal history in each of his stories: from a young age, he became fascinated with the supernatural and traditional tales of other cultures, Eastern philosophy and spiritualism, somewhat to the chagrin of his rather conservative-Christian, Calvinist parents and family. He met with several personal failures, in business and in other ventures, which involved a stint in New York City, but he returned to London later in life, where he enjoyed a much more fruitful and successful literary career.

His method is to build and then maintain the suspense and anxiety of readers, as I stated previously, by leaving much to the imagination. In a word, his stories are simply "unsettling," reminiscent of popular horror writers in the modern day, such as Stephen King, who manages to make the urbane and familiar terrifying, when things are revealed to be not what they seem. In a similar manner, Blackwood turns everyday events, such as a supposed-relaxing camping trip and a hunting party, into terrifying odysseys where the characters are fortunate to escape with their lives. I look forward to reading many more of his stories, and to other readers, these three fairly short yarns were a great introduction into his fairly ample body of work.

[Ann Sloan · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://readingtothemax.wordpress.com/ All Books Considered

Algernon Henry Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. His two best known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo".

H. P. Lovecraft considered “The Willows” (1907) to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. In his treatise Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote "Here art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a single strained passage or a single false note." "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror. Said by some, including H. P. Lovecraft, to be one of Blackwood's best stories, and thus one of the best ghost stories in English. The precise nature of the mysterious entities in "The Willows" is unclear, and they appear at times malevolent and treacherous, and at times simply mystical, almost divine. These forces are also often contrasted with the fantastic natural beauty of the locale. In sum the story suggests that the landscape is an intersection, a point of contact with a "fourth dimension" — "on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows."

“The Wendigo” (1910) is set in the Canadian wilderness. A hunting party separates to track moose, and one member is abducted by the Wendigo. Robert Aickman, a supernatural fiction writer associated with August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft, regarded this as "one of the (possibly) six great masterpieces in the field".

The wendigo is a creature appearing in the legends of the Algonquian people. It is thought of as a malevolent cannibalistic spirit that could possess humans or a monster that humans could physically transform into. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk, and the legend appears to have emphasized this practice to be a taboo.

“The Wendigo” is a story of the unknown, not only the stories and rumors of something in the wilderness, but the apprehension in going into unexplored territory and living off the land and by one’s wits. This is a classic monster tale that asks the question, “Who or what is the monster here?” “The Wendigo” gives us a look at the unknown and brings with it both fear and wonder, which many times both go hand in hand.

Like my personal favorite, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, classic horror stories build the suspense by simply not showing the monster and by contrasting the fantastic with the mundane. The Wendigo has character development, a vast setting, and an unsettling chill of something watching you at every turn.

Blackwood’s novella is a masterful buildup of mood and atmosphere that provides a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic and merciless, oppressed the hearts of men, when the forces of nature were still untamed, the old Powers that may haunted a still primeval universe.

Interestingly, off topic, Theodore Roosevelt published a brief tale titled "The Wendigo," It appeared in The Wilderness Hunter, his ninth book, published in 1893, just eight years before he became president. It relates a “goblin story,” supposedly told to the narrator by a “grizzled, weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman.”

The concept of wilderness as the shadow of civilization is certainly old as American literature, when the Europeans encountered seemingly endless woods and unknown animals, spirits, and peoples, but forests have their own particular significance within Blackwood’s fiction, not least because Blackwood’s concept of a tree entailed an alarming degree of consciousness, or presumably unworldly wisdom. “The Willows” and “The Man Whom the Trees Loved” (1912) portray men at the mercy of trees.

"The Man Whom the Trees Loved" is not in this collection. It is the eco-horror story to end all eco-horror stories. Again, the supernaturalism is indirect, but also because it's a thoughtful meditation on changing notions of spirituality at the turn of the 20th century, on the threshold of the Victorian era's final collapse in the trenches of World War I. It contrasts conventional Christianity against animistic mysticism, and provides an examination of fin-de-siècle spiritual ennui that in some ways is reminiscent of the work of Arthur Machen. Very highly recommended. It can be found in
- at Project Gutenberg
- at BlackMask/Munsey's (multiple formats)
- at HorrorMasters (PDF, not printable)

“The Listener” is a more traditional ghost story . It feels like a chilling fireside story whispered at midnight, but told in exceptional prose and told with a keen intensity that Blackwood injected into the best of his pure horror tales.

The story is told in the form of the diary of a nameless writer who rents a room in an old house in London. He reports strange nightly activities in his house, the sense of someone unseen listening outside his door, whispering strange phrases in his ear while he sleeps, bizarre thoughts recorded into his diary, a maid who refuses to talk about what once happened in the upstairs rooms, the vanishing figure on the staircase with indescribable features, and the slowly increasing sensation of some horrible illness creeping over him. The diary entries show a deterioration and paranoia about everything in the house. On the other hand, the author tells us he has a history of mental illness in his family, and he suffer from sleepwalking. Is the narrator reliable? We learn that a man occupied the upper floor had committed suicide; he was a leper and had lost his extremities. The question of the narrator’s perception constantly haunts it, making the inconclusive and abrupt ending appropriate.

These are three excellent examples of Algernon Blackwood’s works. I look forward to reading many more. For all things Algernon, this is a very thorough website: http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/blac...

[Mark Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two brief comments, and maybe not very original ones. First, I can't agree that "The Willows" is the masterpiece here. "The Wendigo" is more complex, and has a plot. "The Willows", by comparison, is repetitive and less credible. Second, I don't know why Lovecraft is the more famous writer. Most of the Lovecraft I've read suffers from the deficits I stated above.

[Luke Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mileage varied with the others, but THE WILLOWS is as fine a horror story as I've ever read. Total masterpiece.

[Pfloogs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, the .5 is earned solely by “The Wendigo” story.

[Thee_ron_clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Supernatural Classics is just that; a collection of three of Algernon Blackwood's most popular works. In my time of enjoying the Lovecraft mythos works, Blackwood is referred to time and time again. Although his work did not necessarily fit the mythos, he was an inspiration to H.P. Lovecraft. August Derleth also used Blackwood's Wendigo as one of the key elements in his version of the mythos.

With this being said, I simply had to check out some of Blackwood's work.

The Willows is the story of two adventuring men on a journey down a turbulent river who choose the wrong island to camp on.

The Wendigo is the story of a Canadian moose hunt that turns into a time of terror for the hunters and their guides.

The Listener is more of a traditional horror story than the other two and revolves around a man finding strange occurances within the apartment he is renting.

All of the stories feature excellent building of tension. Perhaps the third stories is not as well done as the others in this sense, but the build up still exists. It might be that The Listener is written in diary form and the others are not that makes the difference. It may be that Blackwood should have kept to the story telling formula used in the other works.

Regardless, I enjoyed all three stories. Although somewhat dated at times, each of them would still work in a modern setting.

Fans of horror should not skip out on Algernon Blackwood's work. I will definitely be seeking more of it.

[Aileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and second stories in this collection have ensured I never find myself alone near trees late at night. In The Willows, two travellers are canoeing down the Danube and find themselves on a deserted stretch during a bad storm, the river is rising fast and they need shelter for the night. Suffice to say, the willow strewn isle they make camp on is not the ideal place to have chosen. The Wendigo is set in the Canadian wilderness, hunters are searching for moose and one of their guides is frigtened of the mythical wendigo, with good reason. The final story The Listener, is a ghost story. A man finds cheap lodgings in a strange house hidden away in the centre of London, he thinks he is the only paying guest in the house, but something is not right.

I found the final story a bit of a let down after two cracking atmospheric tales where the suspense built up nicely and the menace dripped off every page. Great stories for their age though and highly recommended.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very strange little book. The style and quality of the writing seemed to vary wildly throughout. The Willows didn't impress me as much as I'd hoped; some beautiful, descriptive writing, but not particularly engaging (or scary, for that matter).

The Wendigo started badly - 'racist' doesn't even begin to describe it - but did actually find its legs and was probably the creepiest of the three stories.

Whilst other reviewers don't seem to have taken to The Listener, I thought it was an impressive ghost story, albeit with a somewhat hurried ending. There was so much more the author could have done here - there's a novel here for sure - but it's almost as though he lost interest, which is a real shame.

This collection will be of interest to fans of the genre, but to newcomers I would recommend the stories of LTC Rolt or Robert Aickman instead.

[Tim Petersik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard good things about Algernon Blackwood, but had never read him until this trio of novelas came along. First two, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo" are genuinely creepy, both about men camping in outposts of nature, where strange forces still prevail. On the other hand, "The Listener" is a fairly pedestrian ghost story, although it his its hair-raising moments too. I'd definitely recommend the book, if only for the first two stories.

[Vincenzo Corvello · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it! After having read E.A.Poe about twenty years ago I've always been disappointed with horror short stories. These three stories however are definetly at Poe's level. "The willows", in particular, is a little masterpiece. Anybody who likes the supernatural genre should read it!

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-chosen set of three of Blackwood's best-known stories. It is a good read for a winsome autumn night. Probably not too much in here will by "scary" for today's reader, but Blackwood's masterful setting of mood makes this a memorable book.

[Daniel Etherington · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated - especially the Wendigo, with its period racism and bizarre attempt to render "Canadian" idiomatically - but still potent. Both The Willows and The Listener are extremely atmospheric and evocative, though the latter's payoff feels a bit lame.

[Bridget Gould · Rating 4 out of 5]

THANKS FOR RUINING MY LIFE, PENNY NICKELS! Now I'm scared of shrubs and trees!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to see why he was such an influence on HP Lovecraft, some excellent supernatural suspense moments in each story. But also worth noting he's not a patch on HP at his best.