🌊 Algernon Blackwood

“Laureate of the Occult”

"The ‘Holy Man’ of Supernatural Fiction (Scott, 2022)"

Short Works, 1889 - 1927

Works Reources Gallery

Titles: 252 Complete: 221 Incomplete: 0 Not Producible: 31

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Description

Algernon Blackwood was a prolific, popular, and influential writer, often associated with “weird fiction,” but whose work spans an array of genre, subject, form, and audience.

“The Willows,” his best known work and Lovecraft’s favorite supernatural tale, narrates a pilgrimage by two men across central Europe⁠—a journey Tolkien’s readers will recognize as Frodoesque. Both Lovecraft and Tolkien acknowledged Blackwood’s influence and this influence is unmistakable any time Tolkien as author finds himself among ancient trees, climbing a mountain, or afloat on a river. For Lovecraft, it is Blackwood who transforms the “higher space” of Einstein’s annus mirabilis into a perilous firmament to be filled with cosmic horrors and it is Blackwood who first writes the eldritch text that is to become Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. But, while Blackwood was an explorer of the macabre corners of “ghostland;” he was captivated by the beauty of nature, believed in “traveling light,” and never confined himself anywhere.

It had been one of Blackwood’s life goals to become a “holy man.” He lived itinerant, unwed, and wrote only because he “could not keep it back.” His words were published in books, magazines, journals, newspapers; presented on stage; and broadcast on radio and television. Writing for any reader, he was published by The Country Gentleman, Lady’s Realm, and⁠—⁠for children⁠—⁠in The Merry Go Round. He wrote for both The Methodist Magazine and The Occult Review. One of his lesser-read stories was printed exclusively by The Burrowa News of New South Wales, in Austalia.

Even Blackwood lost count of what he had published, so that no definitive bibliography exists. Though the present collection is not exhaustive⁠—doubtless some works are lost to time⁠—it is the most extensive of its kind. The fiction includes 16 novellas, a 3-act play, 145 short stories, 5 poems, and 3 songs. Supplementing this are 53 non-fiction works. Most provide background to the fiction stories and some are stories themselves.

While there is no “Blackwood Universe” in the modern sense; themes, characters, and settings are often shared. When Blackwood writes, the categories of fiction, non-fiction, and autobiography become indistinct, some works difficult to place. Of the works in this collection, twenty-one were published for children, but again the distinction is often arbitrary.

In the end, it is all Blackwood.