Algernon Blackwood

Born: 14 March 1869 Shooter's Hill, Kent, England
Died:  10 December 1951 Bishopsteighton, Kent, England
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Weird fiction

was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T. Joshi has stated that "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".

Legacy:

• H. P. Lovecraft included Blackwood as one of the "Modern Masters" in the section of that name in "Supernatural Horror in Literature".
• Authors who have been influenced by Blackwood's work include William Hope Hodgson, George Allan England, H.P. Lovecraft, H. Russell Wakefield, "L. Adams Beck" (Elizabeth Louisa Moresby), Margery Lawrence, Evangeline Walton and Ramsey Campbell.
• The plot of Caitlin R. Kiernan's novel Threshold (2001) is influenced by Blackwood's work. Kiernan has cited Blackwood as an important influence on her writing.
• In The Books in My Life, Henry Miller chose Blackwood's The Bright Messenger as "the most extraordinary novel on psychoanalysis, one that dwarfs the subject."

• Algernon Blackwood appears as a character in the novel The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yance.        

 Works: 



Novels
In sequence of first publication:

• Jimbo: A Fantasy (1909a)
• The Education of Uncle Paul (1909b)
• The Human Chord (1910)
• The Centaur (1911)
• A Prisoner in Fairyland (1913); sequel to The Education of Uncle Paul
• The Extra Day (1915)
• Julius LeVallon (1916a)
• The Wave (1916b)
• The Promise of Air (1918a)
• The Garden of Survival (1918b)
• The Bright Messenger (1921); sequel to Julius LeVallon
• Dudley & Gilderoy: A Nonsense (1929)

Children's novels:

• Sambo and Snitch (1927)
• The Fruit Stoners: Being the Adventures of Maria Among the Fruit Stoners (1934)

Plays

In sequence of first performance:

• The Starlight Express (1915), coauthored with Violet Pearn; incidental music by Edward Elgar; based on Blackwood's 1913 novel A Prisoner in Fairyland
• Karma a reincarnation play in prologue epilogue and three acts (1918), coauthored with Violet Pearn;
• The Crossing (1920a), coauthored with Bertram Forsyth; based on Blackwood's 1913 short story "Transition"
• Through the Crack (1920b), coauthored with Violet Pearn; based on Blackwood's 1909 novel The Education of Uncle Paul and 1915 novel The Extra Day
• White Magic (1921a), coauthored with Bertram Forsyth
• The Halfway House (1921b), coauthored with Elaine Ainley
• Max Hensig (1929), coauthored with Frederick Kinsey Peile; based on Blackwood's 1907 short story "Max Hensig – Bacteriologist and Murderer"

Short fiction collections

In sequence of first publication:

• The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906); original collection
• The Listener and Other Stories (1907); original collection
• John Silence (1908); original collection; reprinted with added preface, 1942
• The Lost Valley and Other Stories (1910); original collection
• Pan's Garden: a Volume of Nature Stories (1912); original collection
• Ten Minute Stories (1914a); original collection
• Incredible Adventures (1914b); original collection
• Day and Night Stories (1917); original collection
• Wolves of God, and Other Fey Stories (1921), honorarily coauthored with Wilfred Wilson; original collection
• Tongues of Fire and Other Sketches (1924); original collection
• Ancient Sorceries and Other Tales (1927a); selections from previous Blackwood collections, and pre-publication abridgment of 1932's planned The Willows and Other Queer Tales
• The Dance of Death and Other Tales (1927b); selections from previous Blackwood collections; reprinted as 1963's The Dance of Death and Other Stories
• Strange Stories (1929); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• Short Stories of To-Day & Yesterday (1930); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• The Willows and Other Queer Tales (1932); selected by G. F. Maine from previous Blackwood collections
• Shocks (1935); original collection
• The Tales of Algernon Blackwood (1938); selections from previous Blackwood collections, with a new preface by Blackwood
• Selected Tales of Algernon Blackwood (1942); selections from previous Blackwood collections (not to be mistaken for the identical title to a 1964 Blackwood collection)
• Selected Short Stories of Algernon Blackwood (1945); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• The Doll and One Other (1946); original collection
• Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural (1949); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• In the Realm of Terror (1957); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• The Dance of Death and Other Stories (1963); reprint of 1927's The Dance of Death and Other Tales
• Selected Tales of Algernon Blackwood (1964); selections from previous Blackwood collections (not to be mistaken for the identical title to a 1942 Blackwood collection)
• Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre (1967); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• Ancient Sorceries and Other Stories (1968); selections from previous Blackwood collections
• Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood (1973), selected and introduced by Everett F. Bleiler; selections from previous Blackwood collections; includes Blackwood's own preface to 1938's The Tales of Algernon Blackwood
• The Best Supernatural Tales of Algernon Blackwood (1973); selected and introduced by Felix Morrow; selections from 1929's Strange Stories
• Tales of Terror and Darkness (1977); puts together Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre and Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural.
• Tales of the Supernatural (1983); selected and introduced by Mike Ashley; selections from previous Blackwood collections
• The Magic Mirror (1989); selected, introduced, and notes by Mike Ashley; original collection
• The Complete John Silence Stories (1997); selected and introduced by S. T. Joshi; reprint of 1908's John Silence (without the preface to the 1942 reprint) and the one remaining John Silence story, "A Victim of Higher Space"
• Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories (2002); selected, introduced, and notes by S. T. Joshi; selections from previous Blackwood collections
• Algernon Blackwood's Canadian Tales of Terror (2004); selected, introduced, with notes by John Robert Colombo; eight stories of special Canadian interest plus information on the author's years in Canada.