7 h 33 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 33 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if an empty house holds enough fear to follow you through every room?
In The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, Algernon Blackwood brings the uncanny into places that seem ordinary. A house, a room, a quiet stretch of country: each becomes a place where familiar things no longer feel safe. In the title story, a visitor enters an empty house with a bad name.
This collection builds dread through atmosphere, suggestion, and the mind of the person who feels it. Blackwood's characters are not heroes or monsters. They face the unsettling possibility that a place holds more than they can understand. The fear grows slowly, leaving room for your imagination to supply what remains unseen.
What you’ll discover
- A house people avoid Enter the title story's empty house, where a bad reputation makes the visit unsettling.
- The ordinary turns strange Feel familiar rooms and quiet places lose their comfort as the uncanny creeps closer.
- Dread without graphic shocks Discover how restraint and suggestion can stir fear without showing you everything.
- Fear within the mind Follow characters whose state of mind helps shape the unease you share.
- Places with hidden lives Explore the troubling sense that nature and place hold more than people admit.
Who will love it
This book suits you if you enjoy ghost stories told by firelight, quiet dread that builds room by room, and settings from empty houses to northern woods.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two ghost hunters enter the house in the square
- A lone student meets canoes in the night
- A reporter overhears a quarrel through the wall
- A guest at midnight who never speaks
- A sceptic spends a night in the barn
- An old man invites a stranger to midnight
- A doctor remembers his strange neighbour upstairs
- Ten thousand dollars at a poor man's door
- A secretary carries papers to a lonely house
- A rescued man tells a story that does not fit
Who’s who
- ShorthouseA young man who keeps his nerve in a haunted house, a lonely barn and a lonely Long Island mansion, and is troubled by what he sees.
- Aunt JuliaAn elderly spinster devoted to psychical research, who borrows the keys to a haunted house and insists on exploring it.
- MarriottAn Edinburgh medical student cramming for a vital examination, who welcomes an old school friend late at night without remembering one of their vows.
- FieldA starving, hatless visitor and old schoolmate of Marriott, who arrives silent and dusty on a night of pouring rain.
- SmithA strange lodger who works by night at secret practices, with shifting eyes and unusual interest in Hebrew.
- BlakeA hungry New York reporter who longs for a change of luck, and is offered ten thousand dollars by a stranger.
- Joel GarveySidebotham's old partner, a fine-looking man living alone on Long Island, who wants his signature cut from certain papers.
- RushtonA hunter who paddles in exhausted to a Quebec camp, pouring out an urgent story of his lost companion Jake.
Formats and delivery
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- On your phone, tablet or computer, once the book texts are online.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, once the book texts are online.
- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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La casa vacía y otros cuentos de fantasmas
by Algernon Blackwood · 1906
Aunt Julia holds the keys to a haunted house until Monday, and Shorthouse agrees to accompany her that night.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEspañol
Excellent
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In short
Would you spend a night in a house everyone says is haunted, with an elderly aunt holding your arm? That is the opening dare of The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, a collection of ten tales by Algernon Blackwood, first printed in 1906.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two ghost hunters enter the house in the square
The book opens with a house that looks like its fifty neighbours. It has the same windows, the same white steps and the same heavy black door. Yet tenant after tenant has fled it, and the town has begun to talk.
Shorthouse arrives at his Aunt Julia's seaside home expecting a dull weekend. He finds her electric with excitement. She loves psychical research, and she has borrowed the keys of the haunted house until Monday. She tells him of an old murder, in which a jealous stableman chased a servant girl through the house and threw her over the banisters.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1906
- Language
- Español
- Reading time
- 4 h 55 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Blackwood, Algernon. The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-empty-house-and-other-ghost-stories.
Blackwood, A. (2026). The empty house and other ghost stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-empty-house-and-other-ghost-stories (Original work published 1906)
Blackwood, Algernon. The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-empty-house-and-other-ghost-stories.
@book{blackwood2026empty,
author = {Blackwood, Algernon},
title = {The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-empty-house-and-other-ghost-stories},
note = {First published 1906}
}
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What is The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories about?
It is a collection of ten ghost stories by Algernon Blackwood. They range from haunted houses and rented rooms to a Canadian island, a Somerset wood, a Quebec camp and a New York mansion, each building fear through sensation and atmosphere.
Who is Shorthouse in these stories?
Shorthouse is a recurring figure who appears at different stages of life in The Empty House, A Case of Eavesdropping, With Intent to Steal and the private secretary adventure. In each, he is a calm man at the centre of strange events.
When was The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories first published?
It was first printed in 1906 and later reissued in a uniform edition, in 1915 and 1916. The tales are fiction, though Blackwood shapes them to feel like first-hand accounts told by those who lived them.
The author
Algernon Blackwood
1869–1951 · English supernatural fiction writer
Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English short story writer and novelist. He was born in Kent and lived in Canada before returning to Britain. He wrote The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories (1906), The Willows (1907), John Silence (1908), and The Wendigo (1910). He died in London.
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