Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories [Paperback]

By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime,Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Storiesshowcases 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.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird StoriesIntroduction by S. T. Joshi
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text
Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House
The Willows
The Insanity of Jones
Ancient Sorceries
The Man Who Found Out
The Wendigo
The Glamour of the Snow
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
Sand

Explanatory Notes

Of the quality of Mr Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute; for no one has ever approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity whith which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences.
—H.P. Lovecraft

“To many, including H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Willows’ is the finest story in the canon of supernatural fiction. (…) Blackwood himself is, arguably, the central figure in the British supernatural literature of the twentieth century.”
—Michael Dirda,New York Review of BooksS. T. Joshi