The Touch of Pan & Other Stories

An Original Compilation

De: Algernon Blackwood

Narrado por: Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Justine Eyre, Kate Orsini, Stefan Rudnicki

Algernon Blackwood, a journalist and broadcast narrator, was one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. The title story, "The Touch of Pan", explores the lingering presence of myth in everyday life. In "The Glamour of the Snow", Blackwood winds a tale about a man's infatuation with a supernatural winter beauty. In "The Attic", the ghost of an usurer haunts the old Chateaux and, on the anniversary of a young boy's death, the boy's cat brings the family together. "The Willows" follows two campers who are on a canoe trip down the Danube, with the sense of a looming threat following them. When darkness falls, they pick the wrong place to sleep for the night - a place where another dimension impinges on our own. American horror author H. P. Lovecraft considered "The Willows" to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature.

Full contents:

"The Touch of Pan", read by Stefan Rudnicki
"The Transfer", read by Justine Eyre
"The Occupant of the Room", read by Paul Boehmer
"The Valley of the Beasts", read by Stefan Rudnicki
"The Glamour of the Snow", read by Paul Boehmer
"The Pikestaff Case", read by Kate Orsini
"The Tryst", read by Paul Boehmer
"Wayfarers", read by Stefan Rudnicki
"The House of the Past", read by Paul Boehmer
"Initiation", read by Stefan Rudnicki
"The Wings of Horus", read by Gabrielle de Cuir
"The Attic", read by Paul Boehmer
"The Willows", read by Stefan Rudnicki

Public Domain (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

One of the better compilations

This is a fairly entertaining compilation of Algernon Blackwood’s stories. I can’t say if it could serve as an introduction to the author’s works, but for all that, it is reasonably compiled to include both his better known and more obscure stories. The overall narration too is quite good considering that there are usually multiple narrators for an anthology or compilation of short stories and as long as the diction is lucid it keeps my interest alive to have different voices telling different narratives.