Another excellent collection from the sadly defunct Handheld Press. The idea here is to demonstrate Blackwood's range beyond the usual suspects, 'Wendigo' and 'The Willows'. Editor Henry Batholomew four key topics - Canada, Mountain, Reincarnation and Imagination - and illustrates each with three examples, an essay or article, and two short stories.
I was especially taken with the Reincarnation section, which firstly demonstrates how Blackwood came to view the topic, then follows with 'The Insanity of Jones' from 1907 and 'The Tarn of Sacrifice' from 1921. 'The Insanity of Jones' was my favourite in the book, a tale of ancient revenge carried out in the present. The third wheel as it were, the spirit who sucks the meek clerk Jones into his act of revenge, was truly scary. I would also single out the story 'By Water' in the final Imagination section, largely because it is the story Blackwood talks about writing in the essay 'The Genesis of Ideas' which immediately precedes it.
Highly recommended.
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