Incredible Adventures [Paperback]

Algernon Blackwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2002

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Originally published in 1914 by Macmillan, London and New York. New introduction by Tim Lebbon. Biographer Mike Ashley calls Incredible Adventures--comprised of three novellas and two short stories--"the last outburst of his golden period." This is the 3rd edition and has been thoroughly corrected of its original typos and printing errors. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Storyteller, mystic, adventurer, radio and television personality--Algernon Blackwood has been all of these in his rich and varied lifetime. In fact, as he revealed to his friends, most of his strange stories were based on actual events. At the time of his death in 1951, he had become one of the greatest writers of supernatural fiction in the 20th century. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: House of Stratus (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0755108000
• ISBN-13: 978-0755108008
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING BOOK IN A TERRIBLY MESSY EDITION, October 7, 2003

By 

s.ferber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incredible Adventures (Paperback)

This collection was first released in book form in 1914, and is comprised of three novellas and two short stories. The literary critic and scholar S.T. Joshi has called this book "perhaps the greatest weird collection of all time," and while I do not pretend to be well read enough to concur in that evaluation, I will say that the book is beautifully written...and certainly weird, in Blackwood's best manner. The five pieces in "Incredible Adventures" are almost impossible to categorize. They're not exactly horror or fantasy tales, but they all share one thing in common: In all of them, Algernon Blackwood--lover of Nature (with a capital "N") and ever one to seek for the ultimate reality behind the surfaces of what we seem to know--gives us characters who are bettered for their glimpses behind "reality's" curtain. This is not an easy book to write about, nor are the stories in it by any means light reading. Blackwood was trying to elucidate important points with these tales; to help readers understand their true relation to Nature, and time and space. Sounds like heavy going, I know, but for all lovers of finely crafted albeit unusual tales, this book will be a godsend.
The collection starts off with a bang with one of the novellas, "The Regeneration of Lord Ernie." In this tale, a tutor tries to breathe some much-needed spirit into his young ward by exposing him to a pagan ceremony in the Jura Mountains. But things get a little out of control in this very atmospheric tale. Next up is "The Sacrifice," one of the shorter pieces, in which a mountaineer who has just undergone some severe life setbacks goes climbing. This story is the most symbolic, surrealistic and ambiguous of the bunch. I don't want to ruin the tale for any prospective readers, so just let me say that I have never read a story quite like it. "The Damned" is next up, and it is the longest novella in the collection. At first glance a traditional haunted-house story, the tale is soon revealed to go much deeper than that. As the author tells us repeatedly, "nothing happens" in this tale per se; atmosphere is everything, and nobody conveys atmosphere better than Blackwood (as a reading of his classic tale "The Willows" will surely demonstrate). But it really is remarkable how Blackwood maintains and magnifies this ominous atmosphere over the length of this novella; a really bravura performance. The last of the three long tales, "A Descent Into Egypt," immediately follows. In this tale, a group of men in modern-day Egypt find themselves being helplessly drawn back in time (spiritually, at least) by the glamour of that ancient land. This tale just keeps getting weirder and weirder. It is hallucinatory in the extreme; so much so that it makes me wonder why Blackwood was never championed in the 1960s by the same hippie college kids who took so wholeheartedly to Carlos Castaneda and P.K. Dick. Like Dick, Blackwood was very concerned with the reality that underlies our so-called reality. In this Egyptian tale, the land and time of the ancients is the reality; the present day is only the skin on the surface. This really is some amazing work. The book ends on a lovely note with the short story entitled "Wayfarers." Here, a man awakens after an auto accident and finds himself in bed a full hundred years earlier! It is a tale of eternal love and reincarnation; the type of tale that H. Rider Haggard would probably have loved, and another beautifully written winner. I should add here that these stories are probably best read and savored slowly, both for their exquisite atmospheres as well as for their deeper meanings. There is a lady here at amazon.com who, at the moment, is the #1 reviewer. She claims to be a speed reader who goes through two books a day! Well, I would like to advise her, and anyone else lucky enough to read this collection, to SLOW DOWN! Savor the language that Blackwood commands, and lines such as this one: "The stars turned a shade less brilliant, a softness in them as of human eyes that say farewell." You can't sprint through a botanical garden and expect to appreciate all the wonders therein!
I should also mention that, while I am grateful to Stark House for making this classic, long-out-of-print collection available again, I deplore the sloppiness with which this edition has been put together. I have never read a book with more typographical errors of every description. Besides the run-of-the-mill typos, hyphens and M dashes are routinely intermixed throughout; margins are fouled up; words are omitted from sentences; changes in font size occur; British pound symbols are substituted for the letter "f"; words are repeated; boldface words appear for no reason; accent marks are at times used for apostrophes; and on and on. I myself am a copy editor and proofreader, and find it amazing that this edition was proofed at all. And yet, uncommonly enough, a credit for the proofreader is given at the front of the book!!! If it were me, I would have had my name deleted, out of professional pride! Stark House has a lot of chutzpah charging $17 for this remarkably messy work. Still, the book IS a collection of wonders, and Blackwood's vision does shine through. But potential readers would be well advised to do themselves a favor and splurge for an older copy!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BLACKWOOD AT HIS BEST!, June 8, 2008

By 

IAN BRUCE-DOUGLAS "AZLBRAX" (The Cat Farm, North Central Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Incredible Adventures (Lovecraft's Library) (Paperback)

I have been working my way through Algernon Blackwood's short stories (including his "John Silence" series), over the last year, and I have become very fond of his style of writing. With Blackwood, the atmosphere and mood of his stories frequently supersedes the plot so, if you're looking for a lot of pyrotechnics and fast-paced action, his writing is probably not for you. However, if you appreciate a true "wordsmith" as much as I do, then you will definitely enjoy the way he weaves a moody, palpably "not-quite right" atmosphere into what might, otherwise, seem like a boring, slow-moving story wherein not much happens. His descriptive prose frequently approaches poetry.

I can see why H.P. Lovecraft thought so highly of Blackwood's work.

I definitely recommend this collection (and other Blackwood stories) to those who appreciate quality writing that unfolds at its own pace over a lot of the "wham-bam" garbage that gives Horror and Dark Fantasy a bad name.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Adventures for wierd fiction readers, April 16, 2010

By 

Paul Brooks (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Incredible Adventures (Lovecraft's Library) (Paperback)

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English author noted for the remarkable number of "weird fiction" stories that he wrote.

I sought out this particular collection based upon H. P. Lovecraft's comment that Blackwood was perhaps the greatest weird fiction writer of his day and "Incredible Adventures" as among his finest works.

According to Wikipedia Blackwood was a member of one of the factions of the qabbalistic Orders, the Hermetic Order of the Golden dawn. This accounts for the almost obsessive focus on religious themes and inner spiritual struggles in the stories.

This reader found all the stories interesting up to a point. As an adjunct to reading Lovecraft they were helpful. I must say honestly I am not motivated to read any addition works by this author.

Blackwood certainly has a way with language and an ability to express his ideas. In "The Damned" he describes an intolerant religious figure:"his voice was alternately hard and unctuous; he regarded theatres, ballrooms and race-courses as the vestibule of that brimstone lake of whose geography he was positive as of his great office in the city".

The five stories in this collection were first published in 1914.

The Hippocampus Press trade paperback edition includes a helpful introduction by S. T. Joshi.