Horror Blackwood, Algernon: Pan’s Garden (illus). v1. 04 Jan 2022

[GrannyGrump]

Gothic ecology: the natural world and the supernatural world join forces…

“In this book Mr. Blackwood again takes for his theme Nature; and from various points of view treats aspects of Nature — trees, snow, sea, mountains, fire, sand, and so on — in their effect upon different human beings. He seeks to interpret the powers of Nature as expression of life, life similar to our own in kind though lesser in degree. He develops this tenet of his imaginative creed that in all the universe there is nothing dead; life hides even in so-called inanimate things — latent, embryonic perhaps, but still life. Its link with human beings is effected, moreover, through the subconscious portion of men’s minds. Hence his protagonists in these stories usually know that touch of deeper moods which most people dislike because they deem it abnormal. For him, however, it means the awakening of the subconsciousness, and is in the direction, therefore, of an extension of life that need not necessarily involve un-balance.”

(— from first edition publisher Macmillan & Co.)

Probably better classed as dark fantasy, rather than horror, with mysticism woven into the fabric of many of these tales.

A list of the stories:

Spoiler:

The Man Whom the Trees Loved
The South Wind
The Sea Fit
The Attic
The Heath Fire
The Messenger
The Glamour of the Snow
The Return
Sand
The Transfer
Clairvoyance
The Golden Fly
Special Delivery
The Destruction of Smith
The Temptation of the Clay

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One of the foremost British writers of supernatural tales in the twentieth century, Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) wrote stories in which the slow accumulation of telling details produced a foreboding atmosphere of almost unendurable tension. Though he wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, “His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer’s except Dunsany’s.”

Blackwood’s literary renown began in 1908 with the publication of a highly successful collection of stories, John Silence — Physician Extraordinary, featuring a “psychic doctor.” His two best known stories are probably “The Willows” and “The Wendigo”.

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Pan’s Garden, by Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951), was first published in 1912. Chapter head decorations and drawings by W. Graham Robertson (1866–1948). This ebook is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.
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