“The signs are sure; for days they have been passing – close down upon the world. The flocks are scattered. There has been tumult – tumult in the mountains.”

Algernon Blackwood was one of the key early writers of Weird fiction, and one of the formative voices of the genre. He was an acknowledged influence on fellow pioneers of horror and the fantastic like H. P. Lovecraft and J. R. R. Tolkien, through to modern masters of the genre like Caitlin R. Kiernan and Ramsey Campbell. The Unknown: Weird Writings, 1900-1937 is a new anthology of Blackwood’s work, edited by academic of supernatural stories Henry Bartholomew and published by Handheld Press. The Unknown forgoes Blackwood’s three most well-known and regularly reprinted tales, ‘The Willows’ (1907, reprinted in Handheld Press’ previous anthology British Weird, edited by James Machin), ‘The Wendigo’ (1910) and ‘Ancient Sorceries’ (1908, adapted into the classic American horror film Cat People in 1942) in order to give a broader introduction to Blackwood’s writing that will still be of interest to seasoned Blackwood afficionados. Bartholomew has arranged the collection by theme, starting each of the four sections with one of Blackwood’s nonfiction pieces and following it with two of his short stories that draw on similar themes or ideas in a fictional context. The end result is a collection that acts as a great way into Blackwood’s iconic work for newcomers whilst offering new resonances for his seasoned fans.

Bartholomew sets out his stall in his fascinating and in-depth introduction. After describing Blackwood’s historical context, he then goes on to describe the structure of the anthology, having divided it into four themes that recur throughout Blackwood’s work – Canada, Mountain, Reincarnation and Imagination. A piece of nonfiction starts off each section, something particularly interesting to those who know Blackwood for his fiction alone. The pieces tend to be autobiographical, from nature writing as seen in Blackwood’s account of moose hunting in Canada ‘’Mid the Haunts of the Moose’ and ‘The Winter Alps’, to reflective pieces like ‘On Reincarnation’ and ‘The Genesis of Ideas’ in which he frankly discusses his fascination with past lives and offers tantalising insight into his own creative process. The nonfiction pieces are each followed by two stories which explore the same theme through fiction. This allows the reader to see how Blackwood was inspired by things he encountered in his life – particularly the beauty and power of Nature and his interest in the occult – and how he grappled with these ideas across different media. 

Bartholomew’s approach gives the anthology a tight structure, whilst acknowledging the range of Blackwood’s central themes and obsessions. In his nature writing, we see the same awe and fascination with the natural sublime that informs so much of his supernatural fiction, and in his essays we see him playing with ideas he would return to time and again in his fiction. ‘The Genesis of Ideas’ in particular is interesting, as it describes his writing process for the short story ‘By Water’, the story Bartholomew has chosen to follow it in the sequencing, allowing the reader to see the creative process Blackwood describes in action. Bartholomew’s selection of stories is excellent, cherry-picking some of Blackwood’s best stories form across his career. A favourite of mine, ‘The Glamour of the Snow’, in which a young man staying in the winter alps is spirited away by a seductive elemental spirit of the snow, gains much from being pared with Blackwood’s descriptive and evocative nonfiction piece on the alps. ‘Skeleton Lake’ and ‘The Wolves of God’ evoke the bleak beauty of Canada in winter as powerfully as his description of his experiences moose hunting. And ‘The Insanity of Jones’ and ‘The Tarn of Sacrifice’ demonstrate the creative ways in which Blackwood uses occult fascinations like reincarnation in his stories. 

Organising the collection by theme encourages the reader to consider how these themes overlap, and how they extend to other of Blackwood’s works. Uniting all the stories is Blackwood’s fascination with Nature. One of his great strengths as a writer is his ability to evoke natural landscapes in all their majesty and terror, capturing the sheer awe of a landscape, and much of his sense of the supernatural emerges organically from the natural. Blackwood’s characters feel the draw of older religions, a pagan sense of animism in which every tree, rock or stone is imbued with some kind of spirit, and in his stories these forces are ever ready to remind humanity of our relative weakness and insignificance. And so the protagonist of ‘The Sacrifice’ finds himself drawn into a deadly ancient ritual, as much by the stark landscape of the mountains as by the priest and his acolyte. Similarly, it is the landscape in ‘The Tarn of Sacrifice’ as much as anything else that causes the protagonist to experience echoes of a past life. It is this aspect of Blackwood’s writing, the sense in which he gives agency to nature and the environment, that is responsible for many of the echoes we see in more recent writers. From folk horror to climate fiction to the New Weird, all imaginings of the environment taking its revenge on humans owe something to Blackwood’s remarkable imagination.

Blackwood’s ‘On Reincarnation’ shows his fascination and love of the idea whilst also displaying some scepticism. From his stories it’s clear that Blackwood was fascinated with past lives, and the article confirms that he very much wants to believe. Blackwood was a member of the Golden Dawn and the Theosophy Society, and his interest in the occult was very much sincere. It’s fascinating as a reader to observe how he used his fiction as a place to explore these interests and consider what impact they would have on everyday people’s lives. 

The Unknown serves as an excellent introduction to Blackwood’s work, offering up intriguing themes and connections that highlight his relevance to a modern audience. One could quibble at the decision to leave out Blackwood’s three biggest hits, but this makes space for more of his lesser known stories and his nonfiction writing, and given that ‘The Willows’, ‘The Wendigo’ and ‘Ancient Sorceries’ are so frequently reprinted they are easy enough to track down. Handheld Press have put out yet another essential anthology of one of Weird fiction’s greats, and this is a treat for anyone with an interest in the genre. As we have come to expect from Handheld, as well as Bartholomew’s fascinating introduction, there are extensive notes offering context and information to the modern reader, and the usual gorgeous cover art. 

The Unknown is out today from Handheld Press. You can order your copy HERE