"Accessory Before the Fact" [1914]
A neat little "time slip" story, but mystical rather than science fictional. This tale was filmed as part of the early 1960s British TV series
Tales of Mystery.
"Ancient Lights" [1914]
Another work testifying to Blackwood's fascination with the mystical/supernatural aspects of wilderness, often (as in this case), malefic; this tale could just as well be called "The Man Whom the Trees Hated." Blackwood's nature tales compare interestingly to
Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic "Young Goodman Brown."
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"Ancient Sorceries" [1908]
This tale also was filmed as part of the early 1960s British TV series
Tales of Mystery.
One of the John Silence stories, although here Blackwood's famous psychic detective/physician has a very small role to play. Another work linking cats with witches and the demonic, so don't read if you're a PC pagan....
"An Egyptian Hornet" [1915]
"The Empty House" [1906]
A classic haunted house story, one of Blackwood's better pieces, in my opinion; it's a carefully managed exercise in suspense and terror, with none of the atmospherics that sometimes (as in "The Listener," for example) turn into narrative loose ends.
"The Glamour of the Snow" [1912]
Think of this one as the second half of Blackwood's "The Kit-Bag," what with its Alpine setting and winter sports motif....
"The House of the Past" [1904]
"Keeping His Promise"
A promise kept by a ghostly visitor — Blackwood's treatment of a Gothic-tradition staple.
"The Kit-Bag" [Dec. 1908]
Along with Blackwood's customarily effective use of architectural spaces, this tale pits experience against naiveté and law against justice, and may raise an interesting gender question or two.
"The Listener" [1907]
Like "The Kit-Bag" and "The Empty House" — works written about the same time — this tale effectively demonstrates Blackwood's interest in creating suspense and his use of architectural spaces (rooms & stairways particularly) to do that creating.
"The Man Whom the Trees Loved" [1912]
The eco-horror story to end all eco-horror stories.... Or is it, really? A horror story, that is.... This strikes me as one of Blackwood's best supernaturalist works, perhaps in no small part because the supernaturalism is indirect, but also because it's a wonderful meditation on changing notions of spirituality at the turn of the C20, on the threshold of the Victorian era's final collapse in the trenches of World War I. It pits conventional Christianity against animistic mysticism, and thus provides an examination of Victorian spiritual
ennui that in some ways is reminiscent of the work of
Arthur Machen. Very highly recommended.
"Max Hensig" [1907]
Not a supernaturalist tale at all, this is nonetheless one of Blackwood's finer achievements, "Gothic" in its portrayal of a cold-blooded serial killer pursuing — and toying with — his intended victim. Reminds me, a bit, of
Bernard Capes' "An Eddy on the Floor." This tale also was filmed as part of the early 1960s British TV series
Tales of Mystery.
"The Other Wing" (1917)
As in, the disused wing of the Elizabethan mansion where little Timmy is growing up, a wing inhabited, Tim is certain, by Sleep, her minions Dreams — and Nightmare. While not convinced this story entirely makes sense, I think it's an interesting engagement, nonetheless, with parent/child dynamics (perhaps an autobiographical element?) and with the distance one travels, on one's "inner map of wonder," between childhood and adulthood. See this
brief comment.
"Perspective" [1910?]
"Secret Worship" [1908]
One of the stories featuring John Silence, Blackwood's psychic detective/physician — and devil worship. And particularly interesting since Blackwood himself was sent, for a while, to a monastic school in Germany much like the one featured in this story. Talk about payback....
"The Transfer" [1912]
Another (brief) tale of malefic nature, seasoned with a hint of psychic vampirism.
"A Victim of Higher Space" [1917]
"The Wendigo" [1910]
Another of Blackwood's ghostly wilderness tales. Like so much of Blackwood's short fiction, this story starts off nicely, with a skilful building of suspense (Blackwood's greatest strength, in my humble); it then, characteristically, gets a bit too literal in its rendering of supernatural manifestations, and loses some of its magic. The Wendigo myth has been referenced by Stephen King (in Pet Sematary) and has been featured in a number of films, going back to 1914's The Lure of the Windigo. (A "wendigo," or "windigo," btw, is a cannibalistic monster from Algonquin folklore.) |
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"The Willows" [1907]
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. Personally I prefer "The Empty House," but that's just me.... "The Willows," by the way, forms a very interesting pair w/ another Blackwood tree ghost story, "The Man Whom the Trees Loved." "The Willows" is also one of several wilderness-themed supernaturalist stories by Blackwood; others include "The Wendigo."
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