'See!...The woods are alive! Already the Great Ones are there and the dance will soon begin!
The salve is here! Anoint yourself and come!' One of the greatest writers of the strange and
weird Algernon Blackwood evolved from a teller of ghost stories to a pioneering master of such
emergent fictional modes as cosmic horror and nature Gothic. In tales whose settings range from
the eerie North Woods of Canada to the mysterious sands of the Egyptian desert Blackwood blurs
the boundaries between human and nonhuman living and dead beckoning the reader into strange
borderlands where alien forces lurk waiting for the chance to break through into our world.
This new selection of Blackwood's shorter fiction constitutes the most comprehensive critical
edition of his work to date. Included here are such undisputed classics as 'The Wendigo' 'The
Willows' and 'Ancient Sorceries' as well as two superbly unsettling novellas 'The Man Whom
the Trees Loved' and 'A Descent into Egypt' and ten other stories short and long drawn from
collections spanning Blackwood's long writing career. Aaron Worth's introduction and notes
situate these tales in the context of Blackwood's own upbringing in an evangelical Victorian
household as well as in relation to such topics as late-imperial British history and the
emergence of modern ecological thought. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's
Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each
affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text
plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities
helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study and much more.
