“And the word that rose in my mind was not the gross description of ‘impure,’ but the more fundamental qualification—‘un-pure.’” The Damned & Other Stories of the Macabre is Skyboat Media’s second original compilation of stories by Algernon Blackwood, featuring six of his most unique and macabre stories that contemplate the true meaning of reality and nature of the making of the world. In “The Damned,” a brother and sister visit a recently widowed friend at her massive estate in the countryside, only to discover that there is something corrupted at the heart of this former estate of a dead preacher—something eerily similar to the fire and brimstone in his sermons. “A Desert Episode” sees an unlikely couple finding solace in each other against the ominous presence waiting for them in the Egyptian desert. Then in “First Hate,” a man shares a disturbing story about the early years of his engagement with his hunting party. A tenacious little boy ventures into the forbidden parts of his house looking for the mysterious figures of Sleep and the Ruler in “The Other Wing.” In “The Sacrifice,” after receiving terrible news, a man leads a last-minute mountain trekking expedition with two men he has never met before. And finally in “The Man Whom the Trees Loved,” a married couple living on the edge of a forest find themselves on different paths—called to, and warned away from, the trees—and they must decide whether to listen to those calls or to put each other above all else, above their own natures. Full Introduction by Alison Belle Bews “The Damned” “A Desert Episode” “First Hate” “The Other Wing” “The Sacrifice” “The Man Whom the Trees Loved”
Author
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time. Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books. The son of a preacher, Blackwood had a life-long interest in the supernatural, the occult, and spiritualism, and firmly believed that humans possess latent psychic powers. The autobiography Episodes Before Thirty (1923) tells of his lean years as a journalist in New York. In the late 1940s, Blackwood had a television program on the BBC on which he read . . . ghost stories!
