The Raven Post

Biography

Algernon Henry Blackwood was born March 14, 1869 and died December 10, 1951. He was a journalist, author, and broadcasting narrator and is known as one of the most prolific and influential writers of supernatural fiction in the English language.

Blackwood was born in modern-day southeast London and attended Wellington College in Berkshire, England. Throughout his life, Blackwood expressed an interest in occultism and eastern philosophies, particularly Buddhism, which contrasted starkly with his English father’s strict western religiosity. Perhaps as a result of this interest, he helped found the Toronto Theosophical Society in the early 1890s. In the early twentieth century, he also joined the London-based Ghost Club.

Prior to his literary career, Blackwood experimented with a number of disparate professions, such as hotel manager, reporter, and bartender. He also harbored a lifelong interest in the outdoors, which later became evident in what is perhaps his best-known story, 1907’s “The Willows.” He intermittently wrote for a number of periodicals throughout his adult life but didn’t begin writing supernatural fiction until his late thirties. Through this endeavor he found significant success, and by the time of his death in 1951, he had written over a dozen novels, as well as several plays and countless short stories.

Below is a selection of Blackwood’s most notable short fiction. Read on at your own discretion—and please, enjoy.

Short Stories by Algernon Blackwood

A Case of Eavesdropping (1906)
The Empty House (1906)
A Haunted Island (1906)
Keeping His Promise (1906)
Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp (1906)
Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House (1906)
A Suspicious Gift (1906)
The Wood of the Dead (1906)
The Insanity of Jones (1907)
The Listener (1907)
May Day Eve (1907)
Miss Slumbubble—and Claustrophobia (1907)
Case II: Ancient Sorceries (1908)
Case V: Camp of the Dog (1908)
The Kit-Bag (1908)
Case IV: Secret Worship (1908)
A Victim of Higher Space (1908)
The Singular Death of Morton (1910)
Clairvoyance (1912)
Ancient Lights (1912)
The Attic (1912)
The Golden Fly (1912)
The Messenger (1912)
The Transfer (1912)
A Bit of Wood (1914)
Dream Trespass (1914)
Entrance and Exit (1914)
The House of the Past (1914)
If the Cap Fits— (1914)
The Impulse (1914)
The Invitation (1914)
Let Not the Sun— (1914)
The Occupant of the Room (1914)
Pines (1914)
The Prayer (1914)
Running Wolf (1914)
The Terror of the Twins (1914)
The Touch of Pan (1914)
Wayfarers (1914)
The Whisperers (1914)
By Water (1917)
Carlton’s Drive (1917)
A Desert Episode (1917)
An Egyptian Hornet (1917)
H.S.H. (1917)
Initiation (1917)
The Other Wing (1917)
Old Clothes (1917)
The Tryst (1917)
Alexander Alexander (1919)
The Call (1921)
Confession (1921)
First Hate (1921)
Egyptian Sorcery (1921)
The Lane That Ran East and West (1921)
The Man Who Found Out (1921)
“Vengeance is Mine” (1921)
The Wolves of God (1921)
The Olive (1922)
Malahide and Forden (1924)
S.O.S. (1924)
The Man Who Played Upon the Leaf (1925)
The Dance of Death (1927)