Now that Handheld Press is no more, The Living Stone and The Unknown are collectible volumes!

Absolutely!

Happy birthday to the one and only Algernon Blackwood #BOTD

How wonderful! Thank you so much - that’s fascinating.

Thinking she could be the subject of this late Hardy poem (published 1925, but perhaps written a bit earlier?). The inscribed book is a volume of children’s stories…

@hardysociety.bsky.social

Calling all Thomas Hardy scholars - I bought a book for an obscure Algernon Blackwood story only to discover that it appears to be inscribed by Hardy. Can anyone confirm? And who is Caroline (‘Sammy’)? 🧐

The latest issue of @edinburghup.bsky.social's Gothic Studies features articles by our own Dr Nick Freeman and doctoral researcher Milly Harrison, on 'Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic':

It's a fantastic issue (I'm biased) packed with wonderful contributions. Please share far and wide!

8/8 "World War Weird: Blackwood and the First World War", by Andrew Smith, analyses the tensions between orthodox religious beliefs and heterodox occult beliefs in Blackwood's "war" fiction, focusing on trauma, belief, and morality.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

7/8 "Dark Empathy: Algernon Blackwood and the Aesthetics of Rapture", my own contribution to the volume, argues that Blackwood achieves his entanglements between the human and the nonhuman through a Gothic feeling-with or  "dark empathy".

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

6/8 "The Cosmos and the Cage: Masculinity and Mysticism in Blackwood's 'The Eccentricity of Simon Parachute' (1910)", by @millykateh.bsky.social, shows how the supernatural can create "speculative possibilities", especially in regard to Edwardian masculinity.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

5/8 "'Entrancing but Dangerous'": Blackwood and the Erotic", by Nick Freeman, takes aim at Blackwood's supposed disinterest in sex and the erotic by drawing attention to the palpable sensuality in three of his stories, and its power to generate fear.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

4/8 "'The Stranger and the Snow': Ghosts and Skiing in Algernon Blackwood's 'The Glamour of the Snow'" (1911), by @emilyalder.bsky.social, links skiing to Blackwood's conception of the super-natural while also engaging with contemporary theorising about agency and vitality.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

‘Wireless Message from a Vast Emitter’: Blackwood's Gothic Media | Gothic Studies Algernon Blackwood wrote in many broadly Gothic modes, from the traditional ghost story to pioneering tales of eco-horror. One largely unnoticed thread of thematic continuity running through much of h...

3/8 "'Wireless Message from a Vast Emitter': Blackwood's Gothic Media", by Aaron Worth, details Blackwood's personal and professional enmeshments in different media, and shows how these elements emerge as a haunting, "big Other" in his fiction.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

‘Destination Indigenous’: Wilderness Tourism, White Guilt, and Indigenous Ghosts in Algernon Blackwood's Canadian Gothic | Gothic Studies Blackwood's Canadian stories offer a version of Gothic wilderness-tourism terror, informed by an inherent ambivalence and repressed guilt about the British ‘colonizer’ entering traditional Indigenous ...

2/8 "'Destination Indigenous': Wilderness Tourism, White Guilt, and Indigenous Ghosts in Algernon Blackwood's Canada Gothic", by Cynthia Sugars, argues that Blackwood's indigenous ghosts internalise within the colonizer's imagination as spectres of both guilt and desire.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

Weird Immanence: Genre and Belief in Blackwood's Fiction | Gothic Studies This article explores how Algernon Blackwood's spiritual and mystical beliefs complicate his relationship with the Gothic genre. Rather than adhering strictly to Gothic conventions, Blackwood blends s...

1/8 "Weird Immanence: Genre and Belief in Blackwood's Fiction", by James Machin, kicks us off with an analysis of "The Willows", arguing that Blackwood "creat[es] a literature of possibilities rather than impossibilities".

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

ICYMI - the latest issue of Gothic Studies journal is devoted to the author, mystic, and media star Algernon Blackwood.

The Intro asks how we can understand Blackwood as an author both in and beyond the Gothic tradition and how his work reshapes the genre.

doi.org/10.3366/goth...

TOC:

Edinburgh University Press Journals - Table of Contents - gothic: Vol 27, No 3

Publication day! My special issue on Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic is officially out: www.euppublishing.com/toc/gothic/c...
My heartfelt thanks to all the contributors. So much in here - will cover in future posts. The issue positions B as a major force in C20th British Gothic.

👀

That’s very kind of you to say - I hope you enjoy it!

Proof image of the front and back covers of Volume 27 Issue 3 of Gothic Studies Journal. The back cover lists the contents.

The cover of my upcoming special issue of @gothicstudies.bsky.social - 'Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic' - is here! Eight essays on Blackwood's fiction, delving into questions of genre, war, empathy, occultism, and much more. Full issue out soon! @edinburghup.bsky.social @igagoths.bsky.social

Three large stacks of first edition copies of Algernon Blackwood books

Something cosmic this way comes... the special issue of Gothic Studies I have been working on - Algernon Blackwood and the Gothic - is now in production ready for its November publication. Thrilled with the depth and breadth of insight and expertise from the contributors. More updates soon!

Oh I’m sure there are many! Off the top of my head there’s Algernon Blackwood’s ‘The Deferred Appointment’

@emilyalder.bsky.social, @gothicstudies.bsky.social

Includes essays on media, eroticism, mysticism, ecocriticism, empathy, war, colonialism, and more!

The wondrous Algernon Blackwood was born on this day in 1869! Excited to say that I am currently editing a special issue of Gothic Studies on ‘Blackwood and the Gothic’ due Nov. Features a truly fantastic line-up of contributors. I can’t wait for people to read it.

Table tennis 🏓 … I think it’s safe to say he would have loathed it all. Though you never know! I can see him enjoying a beanbag..

Profile photographic portait of Algernon Blackwood, with bow-tie.

The most uncanny thing I've learnt from @henrybartholomew.bsky.social's excellent Handheld Press edition of Algernon Blackwood's writings is that—before turning to weird fiction—he tried to open something called 'the Hub'. Presumably bean bags, open plan desks, big lamps, Starbucks, no microwave.