Empty House and Other Ghost Stories [Paperback]

Algernon Blackwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

excerpt from THE EMPTY HOUSE Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature need betray them; they may boast an open countenance and an ingenuous smile; and yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being: that they are evil. Willy nilly, they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts which makes those in their immediate neighbourhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased. And, perhaps, with houses the same principle is operative, and it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the actual doers have passed away, that makes the gooseflesh come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil-doer, and of the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbours; the same balcony overlooking the gardens; the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door; and, in the rear, there was the same narrow strip of green, with neat box borders, running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number of chimney pots on the roof was the same; the breadth and angle of the eaves; and even the height of the dirty area railings. And yet this house in the square, that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbours, was as a matter of fact entirely different—horribly different. Wherein lay this marked, invisible difference is impossible to say. It cannot be ascribed wholly to the imagination, because persons who had spent some time in the house, knowing nothing of the facts, had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable they would rather die than enter them again, and that the atmosphere of the whole house produced in them symptoms of a genuine terror; while the series of innocent tenants who had tried to live in it and been forced to decamp at the shortest possible notice, was indeed little less than a scandal in the town. When Shorthouse arrived to pay a "week-end" visit to his Aunt Julia in her little house on the sea-front at the other end of the town, he found her charged to the brim with mystery and excitement. He had only received her telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating boredom; but the moment he touched her hand and kissed her apple-skin wrinkled cheek, he caught the first wave of her electrical condition. The impression deepened when he learned that there were to be no other visitors, and that he had been telegraphed for with a very special object. Something was in the wind, and the "something" would doubtless bear fruit; for this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for psychical research, had brains as well as will power, and by hook or by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea, when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along the sea-front in the dusk. "I've got the keys," she announced in a delighted, yet half awesome voice. "Got them till Monday!" "The keys of the bathing-machine, or?" he asked innocently, looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: House of Stratus (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0755107969
• ISBN-13: 978-0755107964
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good scary story, October 1, 2010

By 

Siren "The Horror Diaries" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Empty House and other Ghost stories (Kindle Edition)

I love scary stories and was happy with this one. I recommend it for a quick read.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MIXED BAG!!!, April 10, 2011

By 

Jayyson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (Audio CD)

Algernon Blackwood's The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories is another series of one author collection of stories by Audio Realms. All read by the veteran himself Brian Holsopple this collection has a standard of real hits and real misses.

Now I understood that Blackwood is a legend with the Modern of Horror storytelling and I have finally got my hands in a few of his ghostly tales, at last. However Audio Realms had decided to release only 6 CDs and only released The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories as a celebration of Blackwood's first collection than renaming it The Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood and release instead with 6 discs, they should have released 10. I know that he had written more Ghost stories or other horrors including Wendigo and The Willows and others. But these series of his stories is quite good, though some are great, some are okay and some... well let's just say they needed to be skipped and replaced with something else entirely.

Now the first disc is The Empty House, it's one of the best in the series. Blackwood and Holsopple's performance has a strong atmosphere of dread, fear and the keeping sensation of being with the two characters as they explore a supposedly haunted house in the dead of night. The Empty House is a sort of conjure tale since it was Blackwood's first and the explanations of this one is carefully told by the narrator.

The Second tale is a total surprise and shows you how detailed Blackwood is on writing and the details of the character's nature and environment. The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York is a real hit, a really great story and it surrounds something that's probably a shape shifting spirit or a werewolf and the main character isn't going to be the next victim of his host's strange rituals.

Sadly a Suspicious Gift has no supernatural quality which is a shame since that most in history have declared it to be one of his bests works in his supernatural universe.

Smith: An Episode in a Lodging-House has a strange Lovecraftian nature towards it towards the forbidden arts and summoning something that no one has knowledge of knowing what it is. Of course it's a good story; still not very strong or showing a affect like his other creations.

Now in the other hand, Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp as well as even A Haunted Island are truly great and well dreaded. A Case of Eavesdropping is another weak story though it does have its good points, but still weak. Keeping His Promise is another stronger chilling tale and The Wood of The Dead does have its strengths and weaknesses. The Empty House has its strong points and a few weak ones as well but its still a great audio collection for anyone's library.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst packaging ever, August 31, 2010

By 

ryan timony (NORTH ANDOVER, MA, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (Paperback)

I'm not sure if I will even read this monstrosity. When I order a book I expect a professionally printed novel sized thing. This book is standard copy paper size and lo and behold looks like it was badly printed on computer paper. I'm sure its rife with spelling errors too. How disrespectful. DIY is great when it comes to hardcore punk NOT early Twentieth Century genre fiction. The "people" responsible for this should be very very ashamed of themselves. Really, I am simply horrified.