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Algernon Blackwood

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Author

The Resume

    (March 14, 1869-December 10, 1951)
    Born in Shooter's Hill, Kent, United Kingdom
    English horror writer, journalist, playwright, and radio narrator best known for ghost/pseudo ghost stories and his John Silence stories, about a medical doctor with psychic powers
    Novels include The Education of Uncle Paul (1909), Jimbo (1909), The Human Chord (1910), The Canteen (1911), A Prisoner in Fairyland (1913), The Extra Day (1915), Julius LeVallon (1916), The Wave (1916), The Garden of Survival (1918), The Promise of Air (1918), The Bright Messenger (1921), Dudley & Gilderoy (1929), The Fruit Stoners (1934), How the Circus Came to Tea (1968), The Man Whom the Trees Loved (2002) and The Wendigo (2002)
    Short story collections and anthology appearances include The Empty House (1906), Pan's Garden: A Volume of Nature Stories (1912), Day and Night Stories (1917), The Dance of Death: And Other Tales (1927), The Willows: And Other Tales (1934), The Doll and One Other (1946), Tales of the Mysterious Macabre Vol 2 (1962) Tales of Terror and Darkness (1977) and The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural and Mysterious Stories (1989)
    Short stories include The Willow, A Haunted Island, The Camp of the Dog, Secret Worship, The Attic, The Return, Special Delivery, Ancient Lights, The Wings of Horus, and The Valley of the Beasts
    Plays include The Starlight Express (1915), Karma (1918), The Crossing (1920), Through the Crack (1920), White Magic (1921) The Halfway House (1921), and Max Hensig (1929)
    Books in the John Silence Series: John Silence: Physician Extraordinary (1908), A Psychical Invasion (1908), Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories (1929), and The Complete John Silence Stories (published posthumously, 1993)
    Children's novels include 'Sambo and Snitch' and 'The Fruit Stories: Being the Adventures of Maria Among the Fruit Stoners'
    Wrote the autobiography 'Episodes Before Thirty'
    Graduate of Wellington College

Why he might be annoying:

    He resembled a mummy and had a funny-looking nose.
    Some of his short stories and novels had the same titles whether they were related or not, or had titles that they shared with works by other authors.
    Many of his novels and short story collections had very strange titles.
    He wrote and published (and rewrote and republished in slightly different versions) so many short stories that he wasn't sure how many there were, and even more than 60 years after his death a definitive listing of his short stories has not been decided upon.
    Rebelling against his parents' strict Calvinistic sect, he studied many different religions including the Kabbalah, Buddhism, Hinduism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism, leaning towards Eastern religions (obviously), but only in their bowdlerized Western versions.
    He was once a reporter for the New York Times.
    During a brief period of experimenting with drugs he abused morphine.

Why he might not be annoying:

    S. T. Joshi wrote about him, 'His work is more consistently meritorious than any other weird writer except Dunsany's,' and that his short story collection, Incredible Adventures, 'may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century.'
    He often wore bow ties.
    His short story 'The Willows' was H. P. Lovecraft's favorite horror story.
    In addition to his fiction writing, he worked at a wide variety of jobs including dairy farmer in Canada, hotelier, businessman, reporter, secretary, and violin teacher.
    He was a dedicated outdoorsman, remarkable for an Englishman from London.
    Despite having major differences with his parents over religion; he wrote of them in a very respectful and loving manner.
    Algernon Blackwood is a really cool sounding name.
    His lifetime's worth of accumulated papers were destroyed in the Blitz during WWII.
    He wrote so much that some of his original works were still being discovered and published decades after his death.
    Rare among weird fiction writers, he was very popular during his life, and equally rarely has had some success in having his works filmed for television.
    Born in Victorian England, living through two world wars, and dying during the Cold War he, to put it mildly, lived during interesting times.
    He died after a series of painful and debilitating strokes.

Credit: tom_jeffords


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 81 Votes: 45.68% Annoying