The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack. Algernon Blackwood

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      COPYRIGHT INFO

      The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack is copyright © 2013 by Wildside Press LLC. All rights reserved. Cover art © Elena Schweitzer / Fotolia. For more information, contact the publisher.

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      “Skeleton Lake” originally appeared in The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906).

      “Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House” originally appeared in he Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906).

      “A Suspicious Gift” originally appeared in The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906).

      “The Empty House” originally appeared in The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906).

      “The Listener” originally appeared in The Listener and Other Stories (1907).

      “May Day Eve” originally appeared in The Listener and Other Stories (1907).

      “Carlton’s Drive” originally appeared in The Lost Valley and Other Stories (1910).

      “If the Cap Fits—” originally appeared in The Westminster Gazette, Feb. 23, 1914.

      “The Man Who Played Upon the Leaf” originally appeared in Country Life, June 1910.

      “Old Clothes” originally appeared in The Lost Valley and Other Stories (1910).

      “The Eccentricity of Simon Parnacute” originally appeared in The Lost Valley and Other Stories (1910).

      “The Golden Fly” originally appeared in The Eye-Witness, December 29, 1911.

      “Transfer” originally appeared in Pan’s Garden, A Volume of Nature Stories (1912).

      “Attic” originally appeared in The Westminster Gazette, April 20, 1912.

      “The Glamour of the Snow” originally appeared in Pall Mall Magazine, December 1911.

      “Sand” originally appeared in Pan’s Garden, A Volume of Nature Stories (1912).

      “H.S.H.” originally appeared in H.S.H., February 1913

      “A Desert Episode” originally appeared in Country Life, Oct. 1, 1914.

      “By Water” originally appeared in The Westminster Gazette, April 19, 1914.

      “The Goblin’s Collection” originally appeared in The Westminster Gazette, May 10, 1912.

      “A Bit of Wood” originally appeared in Morning Post, April 29, 1914.

      “An Egyptian Hornet” originally appeared in Reedy’s Mirror, March 1915.

      “Cain’s Atonement” originally appeared in Land and Water, Nov. 20, 1915.

      “The Other Wing” originally appeared in McBride’s, Nov. 1915.

      “The Dance of Death” originally appeared in The Listener and Other Stories (1907).

      “The Garden of Survival” originally appeared in 1918.

      “A Case of Eavesdropping” originally appeared in Pall Mall Magazine (November 1906).

      “Clairvoyance” originally appeared in The Eyewitness, (July, 1912).

      A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

      This is our second Algernon Blackwood volume, and if you are starting this one before reading The First Algernon Blackwood Megapack, it won’t make a bit of difference, because they both contain great (but unrelated) short stories and can be read in any order. Some of Blackwood’s best work is in the first volume, so I hope you will pack that one up, too.

      MEET ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

      Algernon 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. 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.”

      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, working as a dairy farmer in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, bartender, model, journalist for the New York Times, private secretary, businessman, and violin teacher.

      Throughout his adult life, he was 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. To satisfy his interest in the supernatural, he joined the Ghost Club. He never married; according to his friends he was a loner but also cheerful company.

      Jack Sullivan points out that “Blackwood’s life parallels his work more neatly than perhaps that of any other ghost story writer. Like his lonely but fundamentally optimistic protagonists, he was a combination of mystic and outdoorsman; when he wasn’t steeping himself in occultism, including Rosicrucianism and Buddhism, he was likely to be skiing or mountain climbing.” Blackwood was a member of one of the factions of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as was his contemporary Arthur Machen.

      His two best known stories are probably “The Willows” and “The Wendigo,” which lead off this collection. He would also often write stories for newspapers at short notice, with the result that he was uncertain exactly how many short stories he had written and there is no sure total. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. One good examples is the novel the Centaur. In correspondence with Peter Penzoldt, Blackwood wrote:

      My fundamental interest, I suppose, is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty. So many of my stories, therefore, deal with extension of consciousness; speculative and imaginative treatment of possibilities outside our normal range of consciousness.… Also, all that happens in our universe is natural; under Law; but an extension of our so limited normal consciousness can reveal new, extraordinary powers etc., and the word “supernatural” seems the best word for treating these in fiction. I believe it possible for our consciousness to change and grow, and that with this change we may become aware of a new universe. A “change” in consciousness, in its type, I mean, is something more than a mere extension of what we already possess and know.

      —John Betancourt

      Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidepress.com

      ABOUT THE MEGAPACK SERIES

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