The Human Chord : 51

by Blackwood, Algernon | Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published 25/07/2024 by British Library Publishing in the United Kingdom as part of the Tales of the Weird series
Paperback | 224 pages
190 x 130mm | 0g

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 twentieth 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.