The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories

Blackwood is a master of the ghost tale….a master at creating eerie environments and taking the reader on a weird and a sometimes wild ride. It’s a collection of short, creepy, goose-bump producing stories that have obviously well stood the test of time. They are, or are like, the stories that have been told by dying campfires…told on dark & stormy nights…and passed down from generation to generation. Some things are just timeless and that certainly applies to these stories that will tickle your imagination no matter what you believe or disbelieve about the supernatural. My Scottish granddad used to say “I don’t believe in ghost…but I’m very much “afeared” of them.” I bet you’ll be “very much “afeared” of show more them” after reading the first few. show less

Blackwood is high on my list of favorite ghost story writers. He's a master for creating a palpable sense of dread, the mental anguish of not knowing, where sitting in the dark on an island or in bed can be more horrifying than actually seeing a monster.
I enjoyed all of the stories in The Empty House and am looking forward to the next Blackwood in my stack. Some modern readers may find his writing style long winded; he can stretch a sentence yet doesn't waste words. I am a very visual person and find he creates a scene vividly in my head. I'm there in the dark, listening, waiting.
A note on this particular physical book-- I bought it, lured by the book cover depicting a path through bare, wintery trees. The format of this particular show more book is much like reading an Ebook-- the formatting is rough: no table of contents or forward, just the stories back to back with barely a break. Not even a new page for a new story. Buyers remorse on this particular publication. I'd have paid more for a more professionally laid out book with a bit of introduction about the author or SOMETHING... quite seriously, the first story begins on the first page, there are no first pages. show less

As I've written elsewhere, I've been in a "ghost stories" mood lately, and ran across Algernon Blackwood's name fairly early in the hunt for more M.R. James-like authors. This is the first Blackwood collection I've read, but I'll certainly seek out more, since I greatly enjoyed this bunch. Like James' stories many of these feature some unsuspecting protagonist (in this collection, often named Jim Shorthouse) finding himself thrown into a situation with some inexplicable supernatural force at work.

Slightly uneven, as many short story collections are, but for the most part I liked them all. The ones that have stuck with me after finishing are the titular "The Empty House," "A Case of Eavesdropping", "A Suspicious Gift," and "The Strange show more Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York," but several others ("Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp" and "A Haunted Island") are also very good. Blackwood's settings vary a bit, from the Canadian backwoods to the wilds of Long Island, providing a bracing chance of pace.

More on Blackwood soon, I'm sure, as I dig into more of his stories. show less

An enjoyable collection, of stories, although not nearly as capable of creating dread as classics from Poe. These read like the real life stories you might tell around a campfire in the dark to get the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up. These events happen to realistic people, who might be anyone of your companions. Definitely worth a read but it didn't keep me up at night in anticipation or fear.

Read Skeleton Lake, a short story about a tragic accident (?) during a moose hunting trip in Canada. Two of the men have their canoe overturned and only one returns to camp. The remainder of the party go looking for the last man, which is found dead. No more--I don't want to give away what "plot" there is--I'm not even sure there is one!

Some excellent spooky stories, though a couple suffer from the racism of the period.