![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 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. After managing to land their canoe for the evening, during the night and into the next day and night, the mysterious, hostile forces emerge in force, including large, dark shapes that seem to trace the consciousness of the two men. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible." - Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Yet last night after a cloudy Fall day of rain and falling temperatures, I sat in my favorite chair reading Algernon Blackwood’s novella, The Willows, and finally understood what a thirteen-pound cat must sometimes feel encountering that lonely, terrifying heart of nature, also known as my backyard. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment-river, sun, wind-and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. Storyteller, mystic, adventurer, and radio and television personality, he is best remembered for his two superlative horror stories, 'The Willows' and 'The Wendigo.' But in his lifetime he wrote over 150 stories, at least a dozen novels, two plays, and quite a few childrens books as well. The Willows is one of Blackwood's best known works and has been influential on a number of later writers. Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) led a rich and varied life. ![]()
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