Rivaled in popularity only by “The Willows” – and the contest is a close one – Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” pairs finely with its older cousin, being a horror story of which follows two campers as they steal away from the distractions of civilization, into a remote hinterland of un-peopled wilderness. Both stories are haunted by an Outer Being – a supernatural force spiteful of mankind, redolent with cosmic power, and only tangentially recognizable through the blind impressions

Blackwood’s most famous ghost story is also one of the most excellent examples of the haunted house genre. It is not a story about ghosts, however; it is a story about fear. Like “The Willows,” “The Empty House” features two adventurers finding themselves locked in a battle for their sanity, desperately employing psychological gambits to maintain their self-control and avoid the madness that runs at them full tilt. Supposedly a relic from Blackwood’s ghost hunting days with t

Most ardent readers of weird fiction will have at one point either read or desired to read “The Willows” or “The Wendigo.” Most ardent readers of ghost stories have stumbled upon “The Empty House” or “Keeping His Promise.” Nearly all students of fin de siècle mysticism will have inspected The Centaur, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, or “Ancient Sorceries.” Even those who value natural adventure stories in the ilk of Stephen Crane, H. Rider Haggard, and Jack London will have roo

Last week we took a good look at seven of Algernon Blackwood’s best ghost stories (while unfortunately leaving out many contenders, so feel free to go back and comment on which stories you would pick!), and this week we look at seven of his best weird tales. In our anthology, The Willows, The Wendigo, and Other Horrors: The Best Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood, I divided his stories into three relatively distinct classes: ghost stories (occur typically

Widely known for his weird fiction, Algernon Blackwood was also a masterful writer of ghost stories – indeed, one of the best practitioners of the genre in the Edwardian Era. His tales are rich in emotion, psychological atmospheres, and spiritual energy, and rival the best entries of M. R. James, Oliver Onions, and Walter de la Mare with their keen approach to the mentality of fear and their luscious prose. While Blackwood’s weird tales are almost exclusively in and inspired

While the weird tale and horror fiction existed in Britain long before the Edwardian Era (fl. 1895 - 1919), this period was certainly the zenith of supernatural fiction in the English-speaking world. Although the Victorians boasted a handful of truly excellent supernaturalists (Le Fanu, Riddell, Oliphant, Edwards, Broughton, etc.), the production of high-octane speculative fiction reached a high watermark during the years between Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and M. R. Ja