The Willows - by Algernon Blackwood

Book Synopsis

In this classic tale of supernatural horror, two friends embark on a canoe trip along the remote Danube River, only to find themselves trapped in a strange and hostile landscape. As they camp on a desolate island surrounded by swaying willow trees, they begin to sense a presence lurking beyond the natural world. Blackwood masterfully creates an atmosphere of dread and awe, where nature itself becomes an otherworldly force, testing the limits of human perception and sanity.

This edition adds a new introduction by John Gregory Betancourt.

Review Quotes

"Less intense than Machen in delineating the extremes of stark fear, yet infinitely more closely wedded to the idea of an unreal world constantly pressing upon ours is the inspired and prolific Algernon Blackwood, amidst whose voluminous and uneven work may be found some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age. Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute; for no one has even approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences, or the preternatural insight with which he builds up detail by detail the complete sensations and perceptions leading from reality into supernormal life or vision. Without notable command of the poetic witchery of mere words, he is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere; and can evoke what amounts almost to a story from a simple fragment of humourless psychological description. Above all others he understands how fully some sensitive minds dwell forever on the borderland of dream, and how relatively slight is the distinction betwixt those images formed from actual objects and those excited by the play of the imagination." -- H.P. Lovecraft