Ancient Sorceries

Welcome to the casebook of Dr John Silence, Physician Extraordinary. After a long and severe training – five years he was gone from the face of the earth, travelling who knows where – Silence returned to England as the greatest occult detective of the age. When he takes up an investigation, when he comes to the aid of some poor, frightened soul, you can be sure it will lead to the most strange and terrifying of circumstances: from pagan magic in remote France to battles with ancient Egyptian fire spirits, and from geometry defying alternate dimensions to the most macabre of haunted houses. Some of the first works written by Algernon Blackwood – one of the twentieth century’s greatest ghost story writers – these John Silence tales are a visionary blend of horror, fantasy and science fiction, and remain today as some of pinnacle achievements of Weird Fiction.

Welcome to the casebook of Dr John Silence, Physician Extraordinary. After a long and severe training – five years he was gone from the face of the earth, travelling who knows where – Silence returned to England as the greatest occult detective of the age. When he takes up an investigation, when he comes to the aid of some poor, frightened soul, you can be sure it will lead to the most strange and terrifying of circumstances: from pagan magic in remote France to battles with ancient Egyptian fire spirits, and from geometry defying alternate dimensions to the most macabre of haunted houses. Some of the first works written by Algernon Blackwood – one of the twentieth century’s greatest ghost story writers – these John Silence tales are a visionary blend of horror, fantasy and science fiction, and remain today as some of pinnacle achievements of Weird Fiction.

'Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute' H.P. Lovecraft A British traveller in France stops in a remote French hill town with some very unusual inhabitants and soon finds himself unable to leave; a scholar staying in a lodging house feels himself observed by a malevolent presence; two friends on a canoeing trip spend a night on a lonely willow-covered island in the middle of the Danube, haunted by the strange trees and sinister shapes in the water... Algernon Blackwood is one of Britain's greatest ever proponents of weird and supernatural stories. This collection contains four of his most unnervingly curious tales: 'Ancient Sorceries', 'The Listener', 'The Sea Fit' and 'The Willows'.

'Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute' H.P. Lovecraft A British traveller in France stops in a remote French hill town with some very unusual inhabitants and soon finds himself unable to leave; a scholar staying in a lodging house feels himself observed by a malevolent presence; two friends on a canoeing trip spend a night on a lonely willow-covered island in the middle of the Danube, haunted by the strange trees and sinister shapes in the water... Algernon Blackwood is one of Britain's greatest ever proponents of weird and supernatural stories. This collection contains four of his most unnervingly curious tales: 'Ancient Sorceries', 'The Listener', 'The Sea Fit' and 'The Willows'.