A few years back I did an article here about Algernon Blackwood featuring 8 of his stories (“The Empty House”, Keeping His Promise”, “A Case of Eavesdropping”, “The Kit Bag”, “The Whisperer”, “The Other Wing” and “The Valley of the Beasts”). That article can be found at: http://vintagehorror.com/2009/02/algernon-blackwood/. Luckily, there’s plenty more of his tales out there, so this month we’ll look at a few more.
1-“The Wood of the Dead” (1906) – A man traveling through a town encounters a mysterious older gentleman who speaks lyrically of the area. The older man tells him to come to a place he calls “The Wood of the Dead” later that night, and he will teach him something of his purpose for being there. This older man, who has an aura of secret knowledge about him, vanishes when the traveler isn’t looking. When he asks the maid about the mysterious man and his “Wood of the Dead”, she tells him of the strange history attached to both.
2-”A Suspicious Gift” (1906) – A poor, but generous, journalist is visited by a strange man who says he’s been sent to deliver 100 thousand dollars to him from someone who wishes to remain anonymous. This mysterious benefactor says he’s doing so because the benefactor is aware of his great need for it. All is not as it at first appears in this crime oriented story.
3-“Wendigo” (1910) – This novella is a masterpiece of setting and atmosphere. A group goes into a Canadian forest to hunt. The descriptions of the vast wooded wilderness are tremendous, as is the creeping sense of dread that something ominous lays in wait ahead. The trouble starts when the group splits up. A strange odor is the precursor to a force that seeks to overwhelm them. Here is a brief example of Blackwood’s ability to set a scene. “Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in the jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter. White men, with their dull scent, might never have divined them; the fragrance of the wood fire would have concealed from them these almost electrical hints of moss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles away.” A truly eerie story of horror set amongst the vastness of nature.
4-“The Transfer” (1912) – A different take on the vampire tale. A man, who somehow seems to absorb the energy, ideas and prosperity of those around him to his own benefit, comes across a mysterious dead spot of ground. The dead spot is also hungry, and the two forces are drawn into conflict with each other.
