The Human Chord

by Blackwood, Algernon; Ashley, Mike

• ISBN13: 9780712355414
• ISBN10: 0712355413
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-07-01
• Publisher: British Library Publishing

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Algernon Blackwood (1859–1951) was an English author, broadcasting narrator and journalist who published over 230 short stories and 47 books in his lifetime. He was deeply interested in occult and mystic studies, and powers that lie beyond normal human recognition. His regular appearances narrating stories on radio and early television programs garnered him the epithet of ‘The Ghost Man’.

Mike Ashley is an author, anthologist and editor with a specialty in seeking out rare strange stories from the periodicals and magazines of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is an expert in the fields of weird fiction and classic mystery stories, and a leading authority on the history and development of the occult detection tale.