Algernon Blackwood (geb. 1869 in Kent) Algernon Blackwood, lgernon Blackwood, one of the "old masters" of horror literature, was financially independent and could thus enjoy his two passions: travelling and writing. In his literary work that contains about twenty books with many short stories he mostly describes places, landscapes or buildings where the souls of the dead live as ghosts or deamons and influence later inhabitants or curious visitors negatively. His short story "The willows" is known as one of the best scary stories ever written. He died the 10.1.1951 and gained already while living great honors as an author.
Bibliography: (german titles translated) Visit from the otherside The feathering soul The grip from the dark The empty house The fire-revenge The dance in the death
Taken exemplary: The willows (from 'the empty house' Suhrkamp-Verlag, TB Nr. 30, 1979) Two man take a boatride at a tributary of the Danube River between Vienna and Budapest. They get into a scary landscape that seems to never end and consists mostly of very old willow trees. After the consens to camp there and rest for a few days they both felt completeley under the demonical spell of the landscape, which confuse more and more their sences and influences them in a frightening way . On the threshold to madness they are confronted with demonical, ghostly creatures, which seems to come out of the willows. They get into a panic and run down to the river, where they find drifting a chewed, death human body, who seems to be a victim of the willows by himself. A story with an open end.