BLACKWOOD, Algernon; The Centaur 1913 | 1st Edition

Description and Condition

• Description
• Hardcover | Cloth. Publisher's original green cloth with blind illustration to boards. Centaur illustrated endpapers. Language: English. Size: 19.5 cm by 13 cm. Pages: 347, catalogue.
• Book Condition
• Good
• Wear to corners, edges and spine ends. Toned spine. Lightly rubbed cloth with minor marks. Tightly bound with clean intact endpapers and firm hinges. Lightly toned pages with occasional marks and spots to page margins. Toned text block edges.
• Dust Jacket Condition
• No DJ

Notes

• Author
• Algernon Henry Blackwood (1869 - 1951), English novelist and short story writer, among the most prolific ghost story writer in the history of the genre. He make good use of his travels in the 14 novels and over 180 short stories and novellas he wrote. His trip in Canada provided the inspirational setting for, “The Wendigo” (1910), a canoeing trip down the Danube in 1900 and 1901 led one of his most famous tales, “The Willows,” in 1907. His trip to the Caucasus Mountains in 1910, spurred him to write the novel that he would later call his personal favourite, namely, The Centaur. Blackwood was an occult researcher, a practising magician and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He used this extensive esoteric knowledge to produce novels and short stories that do far more than merely entertain, but are replete with hidden themes and allegories concerning the nature of the supra-mundane world and the array of psychological and spiritual states that humanity may attain. The Centaur is one of Blackwood's most profound works, at once a celebration, and a warning, of the power of nature and her spiritual minions. A compelling book, whose author was praised by H. P. Lovecraft for penning "some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age. A member of 'The Ghost Club', Blackwood's life paralleled his work. He was a mystic and outdoorsman; when he wasn't steeping himself in occultism, including Rosicrucianism, or Buddhism he was likely to be skiing or mountain climbing. He was a member of one of the factions of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as was his contemporary Arthur Machen. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe, a good examples being The Centaur, which reaches a climax with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon and its sequel The Bright Messenger, which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution of human consciousness.

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