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By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories showcases nine incomparable stories from master conjuror Algernon Blackwood. Evoking the uncanny spiritual forces of Nature, Blackwood's writings all tread the nebulous borderland between fantasy, awe, wonder, and horror. Here Blackwood displays his best and most disturbing work-including "The Willows," which Lovecraft singled out as "the single finest weird tale in literature"; "The Wendigo"; "The Insanity of Jones"; and "Sand."

"If a ghost is seen, what is it interests me less than than what sees it?" Thus Algernon Blackwood describes his fascination with human beings' ability to sense invisible powers and stirrings in the universe, a fascination he developed most famously in his stories about mystical, ineffable encounters with nature. This collection, selected by renowned scholar of the supernatural, E. F. Bleiler, is an excellent sample of Blackwood's work, including 12 of his best ghost stories and a crime story as well. Blackwood is acknowledged today as the author who made the ghost story into a respectable literary form.

Contents:

• v - Introduction (The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood) - (1973) - essay by Everett F. Bleiler [as by E. F. Bleiler]
• xii - Introduction (The Tales of Algernon Blackwood) - (1938) - essay by Algernon Blackwood
• 1 - The Willows - (1907) - novella by Algernon Blackwood
• 53 - Secret Worship - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
• 88 - Ancient Sorceries - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
• 137 - The Glamour of the Snow - (1911) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
• 158 - The Wendigo - (1910) - novella by Algernon Blackwood
• 208 - The Other Wing - (1915) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 228 - The Transfer - (1911) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 240 - Ancient Lights - (1914) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 247 - The Listener - (1907) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
• 276 - The Empty House - [Jim Shorthouse] - (1906) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 293 - Accessory Before the Fact - (1914) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 300 - Keeping His Promise - (1906) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• 316 - Max Hensig - (1945) - shortfiction by Algernon Blackwood (variant of Max Hensig -- Bacteriologist and Murderer 1907)

Jimbo follows the interesting tale of a young boy who suffers a serious accident, and is transported into the astral world between worlds, where he experiences a frightful out of body experience that forces him to literally fight for his life against the personification of his own fear.

From one of the greatest and most prolific authors of 20th century weird fiction come four of the very best strange stories ever told.

In "The Willows," two men become stranded on an island in the Danube delta, only to find that they might be in the domain of some greater power from beyond the limits of human experience.

"The Wendigo" features a hunting party in Ontario who begin to fear that they are being stalked by an entity thought to be confined to legend.

In "The Man Whom the Trees Loved," a couple is driven apart as the husband is enthralled by the possessive and jealous spirits dwelling in the nearby forest.

And lastly, in conversation with the occult detective and physician Dr. John Silence, a traveler relates his nightmarish visit to a strange town in Northern France, and the maddening secret from his past revealed by its inhabitants, in "Ancient Stories."

Contents:

• v - Introduction (The Complete John Silence Stories) - essay by S. T. Joshi
• 1 - A Psychical Invasion - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
• 44 - Ancient Sorceries - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette
• 84 - The Nemesis of Fire - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
• 144 - Secret Worship - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette
• 172 - The Camp of the Dog - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
• 230 - A Victim of Higher Space - [John Silence] - (1914) - novelette

Contents:

• 3 - The Doll - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
• 75 - The Trod - novelette by Algernon Blackwood

The Willows is a novella by Algernon Blackwood. It originally appeared in the collection The Listener and Other Stories (1907).

In 1776, the rebellion of the American colonies against British rule was crushed. Now, in 1777-the year of the hangman-George Washington is awaiting execution, Benjamin Franklin's banned rebel newspaper, Liberty Tree, has gone underground, and young ne'er-do-well Creighton Brown, a fifteen-year-old Brit, has just arrived in the colonies. Having been shipped off against his will, with nothing but a distance for English authorities, Creighton befriends Franklin, and lands a job with his print shop. But the English general expects the spoiled yet loyal Creighton to spy on Franklin. As battles unfold and falsehoods are exposed, Creighton must decide where his loyalties lie... a choice that could determine the fate of a nation.

As the daughter of spiritualists, Mara's childhood was filled with séances and scam mediums. Now she's ready to start over with her fiancé, Neil, far away from the superstitions she's learned to loathe...but her past isn't willing to let her go so easily.

And neither is Blackwood House.

When Mara and Neil purchased the derelict property, they were warned that ever since the murder of its original owner, things have changed. Strange shadows stalk the halls. Doors creak open by themselves. Voices whisper in the night. And watchful eyes follow her every move. But Mara's convinced she can't possibly be in danger. She doesn't believe in ghost stories, and she didn't buy a haunted house--it's just not possible.

Because ghosts aren't real... are they?

In post-World War I England, a young woman inherits a mysterious library and must untangle its powerful secrets...

With the stroke of a pen, twenty-three-year-old Ivy Radcliffe becomes Lady Hayworth, owner of a sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors. Ivy has never heard of Blackwood Abbey, or of the ancient bloodline from which she's descended. With nothing to keep her in London since losing her brother in the Great War, she warily makes her way to her new home.

The abbey is foreboding, the servants reserved and suspicious. But there is a treasure waiting behind locked doors: a magnificent library. Despite cryptic warnings from the staff, Ivy feels irresistibly drawn to its dusty shelves, where familiar works mingle with strange, esoteric texts. And she senses something else in the library too, a presence that seems to have a will of its own.

Rumors swirl in the village about the abbey's previous owners, about ghosts and curses, and an enigmatic manuscript at the center of it all. And as events grow more sinister, it will be up to Ivy to uncover the library's mysteries in order to reclaim her own story - before it vanishes forever.

The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, though those who've held on have little memory of when that was. Myer, the county's aged, sardonic lawman, still thinks it can prove itself - when confronted by a strange family of drifters, the sheriff believes that the people of Red Bluff can be accepting, rational, even good.

The opposite is true: this is a landscape of fear and ghosts - of regret and violence - transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding a terrible secret deeper still.

Colburn, a junkyard sculptor who's returned to Red Bluff, knows this pain all too well, though he too is willing to hope for more when he meets and falls in love with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods -- and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.

In a dense star cluster, the solar winds blow fiercely. The star sailing ship HMSS Daring is running at full sheet with a letter of marque allowing them to capture enemy vessels involved in illegal trading. Sailing under a false flag to protect the ship and its mission, Daring's crew must gather intelligence that will lead them to the pirates' base.

Posing as traders, Daring's dashing second-in-command Liam Blackwood and brilliant quartermaster Amelia Virtue infiltrate shady civilian merchant networks, believing one will lead them to their quarry.

But their mission is threatened from within their own ranks when Daring's enigmatic captain makes a series of questionable choices, and rumblings of discontent start bubbling up from below decks, putting the crew on edge and destroying morale. On top of it all, Liam and Amelia must grapple with their growing feelings for each other.

Facing danger from unexpected quarters that could steer the expedition off course, Blackwood and Virtue must identify the real enemy threat and discover the truth about their commander--and their mission--before Daring falls prey to the very pirates she's meant to be tracking.

Exuberant after scoring a major victory against enemy pirates, the star sailing ship HMSS Daring eagerly embarks on its new mission. Until the pirate network is dismantled and its mysterious leader Dark Star brought to justice, the safety of the empire remains in jeopardy.

Supported by the ship's misfit crew, Subcommander Liam Blackwood and Quartermaster Amelia Virtue go undercover, following leads that take them deep into the pirate network. Yet the closer they get to its center and the elusive Dark Star, the clearer it becomes that all is not what it seems.

Pirates aren't the only danger the duo face. Empowered by imperial decree, an old enemy is murdering noble families and taking their property--an enemy that has a personal grudge against Daring and her crew. And now he is on his way across the galaxy to exact revenge.

Caught between ruthless pirates, a vengeful enemy, and their own increasingly intense feelings, Liam and Amelia must use all their cunning, charm, and daring to get out this alive.

Odessa Hardwicke's life is derailed when she's forced to turn her gun on her partner, Walt Leppo, a decorated FBI agent who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer. The shooting, justified by self-defense, shakes the young FBI agent to her core. Devastated, Odessa is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what most troubles Odessa isn't the tragedy itself -- it's the shadowy presence she thought she saw fleeing the deceased agent's body after his death.

Questioning her future with the FBI and her sanity, Hardwicke accepts a low-level assignment to clear out the belongings of a retired agent in the New York office. What she finds there will put her on the trail of a mysterious figure named Hugo Blackwood, a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity's best and only defense against unspeakable evil.

From the authors who brought you The Strain Trilogy comes a strange, terrifying, and darkly wondrous world of suspense, mystery, and literary horror. The Hollow Ones is a chilling, spell-binding tale, a hauntingly original new fable from Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Chuck Hogan featuring their most fascinating character yet.

Cliffhanger!

Something was decidedly rotten in Orlando, deduced Harry Challenge, as his former flame Princess Alicia flung him unceremoniously from the royal palace. An evil plot was afoot!

And it was Harry to the rescue...

Aided by a masteful magician, a dandy playboy, and rich Americans... Abetted by a pretty reporter after the story, and the hero... Assaulted by a bloodthirsty baron, a bloodless doctor, a blood-sucking beauty, and a windup werewolf... Could Harry's dauntless daring and silver bullets save the princess?

JIMBO

"We dance with phantoms and with shadows play..." Jimbo is a very imaginative boy, and together with his brothers and sisters, they make up a lot of games around an old building on their father's property that they call The Empty House, their object of "dreadful delight." Then the Colonel hires a new governess. Miss Lake is much too level-headed to believe any of the children's stories about the Empty House. She knows that it's all nonsense. But in order to "knock the nonsense" out of young Jimbo's head, she makes up a story about the Inmate of the House, a very bad creature indeed. Instead of bringing Jimbo to his senses, the story fills him with a real sense of dread. He becomes convinced that something evil lurks within The Empty House. And, of course, he is right for Fright itself lives within, ready to reach out and snatch young Jimbo into his clutches!

THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL

Paul Waters returns to England after having lived for the past twenty years in the Canadian wilderness. Unused to adult company, emotionally he feels little more than a boy inside. When he moves in with his widowed sister Margaret and her three children, he tries hard to keep this inner child hidden. But Nixie, Toby and Jonah figure him out right away, and introduce him to their imaginative games. These are no mere hide-and-seeks, but "aventures" that take them all to another realm, the land beyond the Crack, where all the lost and disgarded things can be found--a land of beauty and mystery. And it is here that Paul truly comes alive, finally coming to understand himself, and all that truly matters in life.

JULIUS LEVALLON

When John Mason first meets Julius LeVallon at school, he feels an immediate connection. They had known each other before not in this lifetime, but many lifetimes before. LeVallon introduces his young friend to a much larger world, the world of feeling-with, of communing with the Forces of Nature, even directing them. As Mason is pulled into LeVallon's peculiar world, he discovers that not only had they known each other before, but they had to correct a mistake they had made with another in the days of pre-history, when they had loosed an elemental on the world. The forbidden experiment needs to be recreated to set things right. After college, Mason loses track of LeVallon. But destiny must be fulfilled, and many years later Mason is contacted by his old friend with portentous news he has found the other! It is time to set things right.

THE BRIGHT MESSENGER

Edward Fillery and Paul Devonham have a new patient at their Spiritual Clinique, a young man raised in the Juru mountains by an eccentric mentor. He seems to be suffering from a split personality. One part of him manifests as a simple country lad by the name of Julian LeVallon, but there is another force within him that Dr. Fillery quickly names "N.H." and seeks to develop. Dr. Devonham, on the other hand, is convinced that "N.H." is the unhealthy side, that LeVallon is the true personality and must be encouraged to become the dominant one. But the young man is more than he seems, for he is not entirely human. And when "N.H." does take control, no one is prepared for the results. Everyone is changed by the bright messenger.

Ten Minute Stories / Day and Night Stories "The author plunges with boldness, yet with consistent invention, into the realm of the fantastic." The Outlook Ten Minute Stories, originally published in 1914, and Day and Night Stories, from 1917, offer two superlative story collections of ghost stories, strange nature tales, weird events and dark fantasies from one of the greatest writers of supernatural fiction in the 20th century.

These pieces are shorter than Algernon Blackwood usually produced, little thoughts or episodes which he often scribbled in his notebook high up in the mountains and then typed up later that day, and sold to newspapers back in England, as Mike Ashley points out in his informative introduction. Some of these stories are humorous slices-of-life, matter-of-fact stories borne out from Blackwood s love of human observation. Many of the Day and Night Stories were written during World War I, and are more reflective than his earlier tales. Most have at least a tinge of the mystic to them. A bonus story, The Farmhouse on the Hill, appears in book format for the first time, an early story that originally appeared in an Australian newspaper in 1907.

These are stories that capture the shifting qualities of perception as daylight gradually fades into dusk, and the curtain of dreams is pulled gently across our vision short stories of day... into night.

The first two short story collections from Algernon Blackwood, originally published in 1906 and 1907, filled with hauntings, strange nature tales, weird crimes and dark fantasy from one of the greatest writers of supernatural fiction in the 20th century. Includes a new introduction by Storm Constantine, who calls Blackwood one of the most influential supernatural writers of his time.

A collection of supernatural stories and various essays collected by Blackwood biographer Mike Ashley, many of which have never been published in book format before. Includes a complete bibliography of the author's works.

Two early novels by this monumental writer of supernatural fiction. "[The Centaur] was to be the favorite among [Blackwood's] novels, because it best represented all that he was trying to achieve... It is unlike any other work in the field of supernatural or mystical fiction." --Mike Ashley, Starlight Man.

THE LOST VALLEY

Algernon Blackwood spent the first half of 1909 traveling around Switzerland. When he returned to England, he produced around twenty stories, most of which formed the basis for his next collection, The Lost Valley, published by Eveleigh Nash in June, 1910. Here are supernatural nature mysteries, ghost stories and visions galore--tales of loss and redemption, and the horror of the unknown--taking the reader from the stark terror of "The Wendigo" and "Old Clothes" to the light of hope in "Carlton's Drive" and the spiritual finale, "The Eccentricity of Simon Parnacute."

THE WOLVES OF GOD

By 1920, Blackwood had recovered from the depression of the First World War, and began writing again with a renewed zest, inspired to some degree by his explorer friend, Wilfrid Wilson, to whom he gave co-credit for the 1921 collection, The Wolves of God, though all the stories were by Blackwood. Many of these tales are wilderness stories, like the title story, "Running Wolf," "First Hate" and "The Valley of the Beasts." But The Wolves of God also features some fine supernatural romances like "The Call" and "The Lane That Ran East and West;" ghostly retribution in "The Decoy;" mystery and murder in "Confession;" and the strange call of the past in "The Tarn of Sacrifice." These are strange stories of retribution and mystical intervention, of horror and hope--of the magic and mystery of life. In all, twenty-four stories by the master supernatural writer of the 20th century--Algernon Blackwood!

Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, Goblin, a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can't escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself.

As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn?s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds.