The Willows, The Wendigo, and Other Horrors: The Best Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood: Annotated and Illustrated Tales of ... of Murder, Mystery, Horror, and Haunting)

An intelligently curated collection of the great Blackwood's stories, including the most celebrated ones. The edition is well typeset and bound. The self publishing format adds an agreeably eccentric layer of wierdness. Illustrations are amateurish but mainly appropriate. The copious footnotes on every page seek to explain not only every word that might be unfamiliar to a modern american reader but also the meaning of every metaphor and the intent of the author. I can easily imagine the curator as a character in one of the stories!

There's little point in writing a review for Blackwood himself. I might as well review Shelley, or Stoker or one of the other proven classics - they are masters in their field and any opinion I may have of them is irrelevant. History and critics have already vouchsafed these writers as integral to our literary past. If you don't know this author and his work then this is probably isn't the best book by way of introduction. You can check out Blackwood on Project Gutenberg where some of his best stories are available for free (creative commons).Instead I'll review this particular anthology which is edited, annotated and illustrated by M. Grant Kellermeyer.For fans of Blackwood this is a very informative collection. The forewords for each story shed new light on Blackwood's deeper meanings and revealed to me some of his subtexts which I had not identified before. Annotations and forewords are well written, comprehensive and concise.I advise reading the stories once through before re-reading with the annotations and forewords, or simply perusing the annotations and forewords afterward. The reason for this being the propensity for Kellermeyer to include spoilers and assumptions about the reader's knowledge of the story. Forewords are particularly chock full of spoilers. The same is true of the illustrations which give away the ending before you reach that point in the text.The artwork is stylistic but somewhat amateurish. Illustrations added nothing to the book for me, but neither did they detract beyond - as already mentioned - the occasional spoiler. They provided a sense of self-publication, enhanced by the quality of the binding. But again, this didn't detract for me from the overall product.I'm giving this five stars based on the useful insights you'll glean from Kellermeyer's superior knowledge of his subject matter and his ability to read between the lines of stories which have already been scrutinized by countless other reviewers. I really did gain a lot from the text notes and would like to thank Kellermeyer for sharing these with us.The reason I think this book is less suitable for newcomers to Algernon's work is precisely the reason I recommend it to established fans. The stories deserve to be read the first time on their own merit, and newcomers deserve to make their own minds up about the meaning behind each tale. Blackwood is one of the most profound horror writers of his and any time and many of his stories can be described as archetypal. Any further exploration into meaning should come after you've read the stories as raw text and before you read the opinions of others (regardless of how learned those opinions may be).

i bought this book as a gift for i like blackwood's storys. After seeing the Illustrations i bought one for me too. So soothening to get a chill while safe and sound at home

Buen libro!

Some of the best short horror fiction you will ever read. Period.

worthless annotations that kept pulling me out of the stories to check and receive little to no value out of.

After watching the recent film "Annihilation", which I found very thought provoking, I purchased this book of tales by Algernon Blackwood, which had influenced the film's story line. There are other mass market Blackwood paperbacks available but I chose this particular rendition because of the particular short tales in this book. Regrettably, it was a mistake! I have tried several times to read a few of the tales, but reading the stories is such a huge effort that I have put it aside and will likely not attempt to read it again. Why? Because this specific edition is annotated by an M. Grant Kellermeyer, and the annotations are endless, unnecessary, didactic, distracting, and are as prevalent as the punctuation.. except far far more distracting and annoying. That someone-- anyone-- would feel the need to "explain" a word in nearly every other sentence is simply ludicrous. If my comments seem disparaging, then I've succeeded.