The Lost Valley. The Wolves of God

by Algernon Blackwood, Simon Clark (Introduction)

THE LOST VALLEY--Algernon Blackwood spent the first half of 1909 traveling around Switzerland. When he returned to England, he produced around twenty stories, most of which formed the basis for his next collection, The Lost Valley, published by Eveleigh Nash in June, 1910. Here are supernatural nature mysteries, ghost stories and visions galore, tales of loss and redemption, and the horror of the unknown taking the reader from the stark terror of "The Wendigo" and "Old Clothes" to the light of hope in "Carlton's Drive" and the spiritual finale, "The Eccentricity of Simon Parnacute".

THE WOLVES OF GOD--By 1920, Blackwood had recovered from the depression of the First World War, and began writing again with a renewed zest, inspired to some degree by his explorer friend, Wilfrid Wilson, to whom he gave co-credit for the 1921 collection, The Wolves of God, though all the stories were by Blackwood. Many of these tales are wilderness stories, like the title story, "Running Wolf," "First Hate" and "The Valley of the Beasts." But The Wolves of God also features some fine supernatural romances like "The Call" and "The Lane That Ran East and West;" ghostly retribution in "The Decoy;" mystery and murder in "Confession;" and the strange call of the past in "The Tarn of Sacrifice." These are strange stories of retribution and mystical intervention, of horror and hope of the magic and mystery of life. In all, twenty-four stories by the master supernatural writer of the 20th century Algernon Blackwood!

Genres: Horror, Fantasy

442 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2006

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.