11 h 45 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
What if the world you trust is only the surface of something vast, ancient, and aware?
In Incredible Adventures, Algernon Blackwood gathers five long tales where familiar places lose their familiar shape. A young nobleman faces forces untouched by wealth or rank. A house seems to hold emotions long after its people leave. What matters is not a sudden shock, but the feeling that ordinary life can no longer contain what lies beyond it.
The collection includes The Regeneration of Lord Ernie, The Wings of Horus, The Damned, The Sacrifice, and A Descent into Egypt. Across these stories, Blackwood explores ancient memory, lingering fear, and the call to give oneself to something larger. Joy and darkness mingle as atmosphere deepens, leaving the visible world feeling like only one layer of existence.
What you’ll discover
- Forces beyond rank Meet Lord Ernie, whose stale life confronts powers that care nothing for his title.
- Wings of ancient mystery Follow The Wings of Horus toward a hidden past and the pull of ancient Egypt.
- A house holding fear Enter The Damned, where strong emotion seems to linger within a place.
- The cost of surrender Explore The Sacrifice and its call to give beyond the boundaries of personal comfort.
- The pull of Egypt Let A Descent into Egypt draw you toward ancient memory and a less certain reality.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you love ghost stories with a spiritual core, mountain scenery, old country houses, desert nights, and the feeling that everyday life hides something vast.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A tutor brings an empty lord to Villaret
- A pastor offers a dangerous cure
- The climb toward the ridge of fires
- A mountaineer loses his gods
- Two strangers invite him up a peak
- A visit to a house where nothing happens
- Layers of belief and the sound of closing doors
- An explorer sinks into ancient Egypt
- Wayfarers and a love that crosses lives
Who’s who
- John HendricksA conscientious tutor who longs to make Lord Ernie a man, and who is drawn into a risky plan for the boy's cure.
- Lord ErnieThe listless young heir who is called Bindy and who has never wanted anything, until wind and fire stir him.
- Pastor LeysinA fierce little pastor in the Jura who despises the lukewarm and believes the mountain rite holds power.
- John LimassonA rich, reserved lover of mountains whose faith breaks under repeated disasters.
- BillA bachelor critic who dislikes ghosts but cannot work in a haunted house where his sister is afraid.
- FrancesBill's sister, a sensitive amateur painter who follows her friend Mabel to a troubled house.
- George IsleyA gifted, many-sided explorer who is drawn into the Egyptian past and begins to fade from the present.
- MolesonAn Egyptologist and sun worshipper whose ancient chant draws the narrator and Isley backward in time.
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- Audiobook
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Incredible Adventures
by Algernon Blackwood · 1914
A listless young lord, a tutor and a mountain ridge of fires: five tales where unseen forces claim the human soul.
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In short
What happens when a quiet person hears a call that cannot be ignored? Incredible Adventures, by Algernon Blackwood, gathers five tales in which wind, fire, mountains, old houses and the desert press on the human soul.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A tutor brings an empty lord to Villaret
John Hendricks is an honest tutor of thirty-five. He has spent nine months taking Lord Ernie, called Bindy, around the world, hoping to make a man of the heir to a Scottish marquess. The boy is handsome and gentle and has no desire for anything, and Hendricks sees that desire is life.
On the way home he makes a small detour to Villaret, a Jura village where he once learned French. He remembers wild mountain people who light fires on the heights, and a schoolboy named Marston who came back from them broken yet strangely alive. On their first evening a mountain wind called the joran roars down the valley, and Bindy stares at the distant fires and says he has dreamed of this.
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What is Incredible Adventures about?
It is a collection of five supernatural tales by Algernon Blackwood. Each follows an ordinary person drawn into a larger force, whether wind and fire, a haunted house, a mountain ritual, ancient Egypt or a love that crosses lifetimes.
Which stories are in Incredible Adventures?
The five tales are The Regeneration of Lord Ernie, The Sacrifice, The Damned, A Descent into Egypt and Wayfarers. Each stands alone, so you can read them in any order.
What does The Damned mean in the story of that name?
It refers to people believed to be lost forever by the strict creed of the house's former owner. Their imagined fear seems to fill the building, and the narrator hears the phrase rush after him.
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
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