Here, for your reading pleasure, we have collected two of Algernon Blackwood’s best-known weird short stories: “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” Given that Blackwood was British, we have retained nearly all of the British spellings throughout. We have, however, updated several hyphenated words to reflect their modern usage, either dropping the hyphen entirely to form a single word or returning them to two separate words.

Additionally, we have added our customary footnotes where we felt they were needed. “The Willows” is a bit front-heavy with notes as Blackwood establishes geography, but they quickly thin out as the story progresses.

As a Foreword, we have included Grace Isabel Colbron’s 1915 essay Algernon Blackwood: An Appreciation, which we believe helps place his work into the proper context and perspective, especially if you are a first-time reader of Blackwood’s work. Work we believe feels surprisingly modern given that it’s over a century old! That said, has anyone else noticed that most authors that were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Blackwood, Conan Doyle, Machen, Rohmer, Stoker, Yeats, et al.) all wielded the English language in such a way that it feels fresh and modern no matter what decade — or century — it’s read? Weird, indeed.

Check out Blackwood’s thoughts concerning his craft here: Writers on Writing: Algernon Blackwood

And check out where the RadioTimes featured The Willows + The Wendigo!

“Algernon Blackwood, the greatest of them all.” — Peter Penzoldt, The Supernatural in Fiction

“The suspense of ‘The Willows’ is hard to match anywhere.” —E.F. Bleiler

“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 Books

“Blackwood is incomparable, and if I were asked to name the most terrifying ghost story ever written my answer would be ‘The Wendigo.’” —L.T.C. Rolt

“Mr. Blackwood writes with a master’s art.” —The New York Times

“Algernon Blackwood has been little advertised, except by readers who have come under the spell of his unique literary personality. For sheer naked concentrated horror, unexplained and unexplainable, such tales as ‘The Wendigo’ and ‘The Willows’ may be said to lead among the stories of the supernatural.” —Grace Isabel Colbron, Algernon Blackwood: An Appreciation

“One of the most original writers in the line that descends from Edgar Allen Poe.” —Time

“. . . some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age. Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood’s genius there can be no dispute . . . he is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere. Foremost of all must be reckoned ‘The Willows.’ Here art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a single strained passage or a single false note. Another amazingly potent tale is ‘The Wendigo’ . . . a marked triumph in craftsmanship.” —H.P. Lovecraft

The Willows + The Wendigo