As a young man, Blackwood travelled extensively and held many varied jobs. He farmed in Canada, mined in the Alaskan goldfields, operated an hotel and worked as a newspaper reporter in New York, among others. He returned to England in 1899. In 1906, he published his first short stories, The Empty House, and thereafter devoted himself to writing.During the First World War, Blackwood acted as a secret agent for Britain in Switzerland. The supernatural was Blackwood's sphere and he was undoubtedly one of the most inventive writers of this genre. He was a Buddhist, Theosophist and a member of the Golden Dawn. His first novel, Jimbo, appeared in 1909. Blackwood wrote hundreds of short stories, numerous novels and even some children's literature, but it is his tales of the supernatural, ghosts and mysticism that will be best remembered. Among his many novels are The Centaur (1911), Julius Le Vallon (1916), The Promise of Air (1918), The Garden of Survival (1918), The Bright Messenger (1922) and Episodes Before Thirty (1923), which describes his early travels. |
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