The Whisperers and Other Stories - Algernon Blackwood

The Whisperers and Other Stories: A Lifetime of the Supernatural by Algernon Blackwood, edited by Mike Ashley / ISBN 9780712354264 / an attractive 320-page hardback published by the British Library / light wear to binding from inbound shipping

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'Back from the shouting floor and ceiling came the chorus of images that stormed and clamoured for expression. Jones lay still and listened; he let them come. There was nothing else to do.'

Algernon Blackwood was one of the most influential writers of twentieth-century weird and supernatural fiction. He once told a correspondent that every story he wrote was based on either a personal experience or that of someone he knew, and thus the vast collection of short stories and novels published in his lifetime can be seen to form a kind of autobiography.

In this collection of his most atmospheric and uneasy tales, Mike Ashley provides the facts of Blackwood’s life which inspired each story – including experiences as an intelligence agent in the First World War and adventures in New York – to tell the parallel tale of the author’s lifelong experience of the supernatural.