The Haunted House Tales of Algernon Blackwood
The Supernatural as Catalyst for Psychic Awakening
Sep 6, 2009
Algernon Blackwood’s tales of the supernatural are not so much frightening as they are apocalyptic. The heavy atmospheres of haunted places serve but to awaken the psychic abilities of the visitor, and to bring them, momentarily, a little more in tune with the hidden parts of existence.
Algernon Blackwood the Author
Algernon Blackwood was born in Kent in 1869 to strict Calvinist parents. He was from the beginning a speculative youth, becoming fascinated with psychic phenomenon and the occult. His first venture as an adult took him to a farm in Canada; he also tried being a journalist in New York. Neither of these attempts was successful, however; Algernon returned to England to write fiction, publishing The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories in 1906.
He continued to write tales of the supernatural all his life, eventually applying his talents to appearances on radio and television. He died in 1951, two years after receiving a knighthood.
H. P. Lovecraft was a great admirer of his works, stating that “[Blackwood] is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." It is this grasp of atmosphere that comes to the forefront in Blackwood’s haunted house stories, where history and ambiance so envelops the protagonists that they are transported to another plane of understanding.
“The Empty House”
This is quite a simple story: a young man, Shorthouse, and his aunt, Julia, possessed of a key to a known haunted house, take a deliberate midnight tour about its deserted rooms. They already know what once occurred in the old mansion: a jealous stable boy chased a servant girl out of her room, and threw her over the railing of the staircase. And what Shorthouse and his aunt experience is a very precise re-enactment of the horrific event, from beginning to end.
The story as a whole acts a sort of thrill ride, cataloguing spooky occurrence after spooky occurrence in vivid and engaging prose. But there is something dismissive about this tale; a sense that supernatural phenomena can do one no real harm. The image of the sea recurs throughout the story, perhaps symbolic of the eons of life and death recorded in the Earth itself, just as one girl’s plight has been recorded by the house.
“The House of the Past”
In this interesting twist on the haunted house tale, the narrator dreams up a house where all the memories of his life (and, it seems, past lives) are kept. A sort of test takes place: the narrator must look each of his memories in the eyes, and if he does not recognize them, they must hide again, deep within the house, where they are not to be awakened until after the narrator’s death.
There is a tragic moment when the narrator looks into the face of an Eastern beauty, and feels he must know her, though he does not in fact really recognize her. She, like many of the others, is fated to return to sleep.
As in “The Empty House”, there is little plot to this tale; rather, Blackwood evokes with lyrical prose all the yearning beauty of nostalgia. “And to think that some day they will step forth and confront me,” muses the narrator of his memories, “and I shall meet their eyes again, claim them, know them, forgive, and be forgiven…”
So does a faint spirit of hope emerge in this eerie tale of a spiritual haunting.
“The Other Wing”
A young boy named Tim is sure that he sees a benevolent apparition peer around his door every night before he goes to sleep. When he tells his mother and father about it, they, of course, merely humour him - but Tim grows more and more sure that this apparition is the reigning deity of the closed wing of the house.
One day, he determines to secretly visit this closed wing. He becomes certain that the ghost of his grandfather must, too, reside there, and so he brings along the cane he knew belonged to him. Sure enough, his grandfather is there waiting for him, and takes back with gratitude his possession. But how can Tim prove that he had ever been there, when his father finds the boy asleep in his study?
Supposedly imaginary events have surprising consequences later on in this story about family ties and the power of imagination.
Further Reading
Apart from featuring explicitly haunted houses in his works, Algernon Blackwood often used the architecture of houses simply to enhance tension; some such works include 1908’s “The Kit-Bag”, where an apartment staircase plays a large role, as well as 1907’s “The Listener”.
In almost all of Blackwood's work, the psychic preoccupation persists, and he often drives this theme home to some subtle and surprising insights. For anybody who has ever suspected that there is more to life - and death - than meets the eye, a visit to one of Algernon Blackwood’s haunted houses might just be the revelation they’re looking for.
References
Works of Algernon Blackwood at The Literary Gothic
Brief Biography at Fantastic Fiction
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