8 h 11 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Far from familiar ground, a change in the weather can turn a journey into a test of courage.
Adventures in Many Lands brings together short adventure writing by Algernon Blackwood, Charles Edwardes, John Lang and others. Wilderness, long journeys and hard weather put people under pressure. Each piece stands alone, with its own setting, its own people and its own trouble. There is no single path to follow—only another place to enter and another danger to face.
The collection explores how place shapes an adventure and how courage appears in small choices. Go on or wait? Trust a stranger or keep a secret? Such decisions give these tales their tension. Blackwood’s sense of nature and the uncanny adds a feeling of the wild as a living force, while the changing voices offer a fresh start with each piece.
What you’ll discover
- Many voices, changing scenes Meet different writers through separate tales, each with its own people and pressures.
- Land that shapes events Enter settings where the ground people cross matters as much as their choices.
- Courage in small decisions Explore the tense choices that turn a difficult journey into a struggle for survival.
- The wild feels alive Discover Blackwood’s sense of nature, where wilderness carries a feeling of the uncanny.
- One tale at a time Let each setting settle before stepping into another place and another kind of trouble.
Who will love it
For readers who love true-sounding hunting yarns, boys' own mysteries, jungle expeditions, sea tales and smugglers, and who like to finish a whole story in a single sitting.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A trapper fools a pack of hyenas
- A stammering boy learns of a plot at a mine
- Hunters meet bears and panthers
- A schoolboy takes a revolver to Italy
- A boy carves his name on a sacred tree
- A midnight ride after wild cattle
- An engineer learns to see a rival's courage
- A lion in a stable and a mystery in a cave
- Many more journeys and what they share
Who’s who
- Arthur SpencerA trapper for a Hamburg animal dealer who must keep calm when a hyena pack finds him alone in Africa.
- Jim CayleyA stammering fifteen year old at a Spanish mine who tries to pass on a dangerous secret.
- Hugh JervoisAn older brother in New Zealand who searches by night for Dick, his younger brother, taken by an angry priest.
- TrevannionA proud engineer in charge of a wharf who resents his new assistant and must learn to value him.
- GarstinA young assistant engineer, clever with figures and plans, who is afraid of heights.
- Harry BurtonA tracker and police officer of the Punjab who goes in disguise to solve the mystery of the stolen stones.
- AlecA boy who befriends a huge elephant and must trust him on a dark journey.
- MaharajA gentle and wise elephant who obeys his old keeper above all other people.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Adventures in Many Lands
by Algernon Blackwood; Charles Edwardes; John Lang; others
A trapper plays dead as a pack of hyenas carries him to their den, and many more tales follow.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Can you stay perfectly still while a pack of hyenas sniffs your neck? Arthur Spencer has to, in the first of eighteen adventure tales gathered in Adventures in Many Lands, a collection by Algernon Blackwood, Charles Edwardes, John Lang and other writers.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A trapper fools a pack of hyenas
The collection opens with Arthur Spencer, who traps wild animals in Africa for the Hamburg dealer Carl Hagenbach. One hot day he wanders away from his party and falls asleep, which is the most dangerous thing a lone traveler can do. He wakes to a strange laughing sound and sees a pack of about one hundred spotted hyenas.
Spencer knows their habits. He cannot outrun them and cannot fight them, so he lies still and pretends to be dead. The animals sniff him, tug his clothes and test him with their teeth, puzzled that he is not ready to eat. Then two of them lift him and carry him away.
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What is Adventures in Many Lands about?
It is a collection of eighteen short adventure tales set in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and at sea. Each tale follows a person who faces danger, such as an animal, a plot, a storm or a mystery, with courage and quick thinking.
Who wrote Adventures in Many Lands?
Several writers contributed. They include Algernon Blackwood, Charles Edwardes and John Lang. The tales have different voices, from boastful schoolboys to serious officers and travelers, and they appear in one volume.
Are the stories in this collection true?
Many are told as true or personal experiences, such as the hyena trapper, the panther hunts and Bishop Hannington's letters. The pilot's narrator says he draws on old chronicles. These accounts do not establish how much of each tale is true.
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.
More by Algernon Blackwood; Charles Edwardes; John Lang; others
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