When Robert Spinrobin, drifting through life in a daydream, answers a newspaper ad asking for an imaginative tenor with a grasp of ancient languages, he soon finds himself travelling to rural Wales and the home of ex-clergyman, Philip Skale. Here Skale, the housekeeper Mrs. Mawle and her niece, Miriam, have been pursuing a new science, harnessing sound to discover the true names of people - and recording the uncanny phenomena and transformations that this naming ritual brings in the subject. With possibilities of mind-melding and sublime spiritual awakenings already documented, it is not long before Skale pivots towards a grander master plan to intone a forbidden name beyond the preserve of humanity - while a gathering storm of disastrous cosmic consequences threatens to break. First published in 1910 but lost for most of the 20th century, Blackwood's tour-de-force novel is long overdue rediscovery. Featuring a new, incisive introduction from one of the foremost experts on Blackwood, Mike Ashley.
| ISBN: | 9780712355414 |
| Publication date: | 25th July 2024 |
| Author: | Algernon Blackwood |
| Publisher: | British Library Publishing |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 224 pages |
| Series: | British Library Tales of the Weird |
| Genres: |
Classic horror and ghost stories |