An interview with Mike Ashley 

Q1.  When did your interest in Blackwood start and what story did you first read?

I'm not sure that Blackwood's name registered particularly when I first encountered his stories.  I know I read some in the occasional anthology and I think I had the misfortune to read either "Old Man of Visions" or "Strange Adventure of a Private Secretary in New York" first.  The latter is a dreadful story and nothing like Blackwood's real stuff. The first is a mystical story which you can't appreciate without knowing something of Blackwood and his relationship with others of a like disposition.  So I think my first encounter with Blackwood was uninspiring. This was probably in about 1964.  It meant that I didn't go out of my way to read any Blackwood for some years. Then, in quick succession, I read the John Silence stories (of which I hold "A Psychical Invasion" in very high regard), "The Willows" and "The Wendigo", and then realised that here was someone special.  Here was a writer who looked at the world through different eyes and didn't just try and repeat the same old ghost-story formula.  This must have been in around 1967 - quite late actually. In fact it was probably Blackwood more than any other writer (although M.R. James comes close) that drew my attention more to supernatural horror fiction.  Up until then I was a devotee of science fiction and, from about 1966 on, of heroic fantasy.  I looked down rather on horror stories, though rather liked the occasional ghost story I bothered to read.  Suddenly Blackwood opened my eyes to a much wider world of the supernatural and he tapped into something which I suspect I'd always felt but never explored, and that was mankind's association with the spiritual and natural world around him.  From about 1967 on I began to read more and more supernatural fiction and certainly more and more Algernon Blackwood.

Q2. What made you look into Blackwood's life and do the bio-bibliography?

Back in 1976/77 I was compiling my WHO'S WHO IN HORROR & FANTASY FICTION. At that time I was aware that no one had written a biography of Blackwood. I also came across a reference somewhere (funnily enough I've never found it since) that said that everything that Blackwood had written had been inspired by actual events or circumstances that he had experienced.  Since by then I had become fascinated by his fiction this became a real lure to try and track down the circumstances that had inspired the fiction.  Once I dipped my toe in the water there was no stopping.  I'd contacted the estate and, after some while, was given access to what few papers of Blackwood's survived in the estate's possession.  Despite the limited number of papers they opened my eyes to a world of Blackwood and I realised that hitherto I'd only been scratching the surface.  This was in early 1978.  I suppose I'd have to say I've been working on the biography ever since then, though I only began in earnest in about 1980 when I'd finished other projects.

The bio-bibliography came about because I'd been doing some other books for Greenwood Press and they showed interest in such a book.  I knew I needed to amass all of Blackwood's fiction before doing the biography, and I needed to find the sequence in which the stories were published, and possibly even written, which meant searching for original publication details.  Since I was doing this anyway for the biography, the bibliography seemed an obvious book to publish in advance.  It became all-consuming for a couple of years during which time I tracked down masses of Blackwood's unreprinted material in newspapers and magazines, much of it still unreprinted.  I'm aware, though, that there's more material which I still haven't uncovered.  I refer to some of this in my Bio-bibliography, and though some of this has surfaced since then, most of it hasn't - and I'm now aware of even more material.

Q3. Are you a collector too?

It depends what you mean by "collector".  I'm not an avid collector in that I must have first editions with dustjackets and so on of all of the authors I'm interested in.  I'm afraid I collect too many authors for all of that. My interests have always been more in magazines than books, and I have specialised in science fiction, fantasy and horror magazines.  I have almost all of the sf and fantasy specialist magazines published since 1926, though don't have the room to store them all along with everything else that interests me!

However, when it comes to Blackwood, because of the work on the bibliography, I have gone out of my way to acquire every printing and every edition of his books, as well as all of the stories and articles in magazine and newspaper form. I'm almost complete. Some of the children's stories reprinted by Blackwell's elude me, though I have seen these in the British Library. And I certainly don't have all my editions in dustjackets. It's a shame so few dustjackets survive because the ones I have seen are very attractive. There's a project for someone - to acquire and do an illustrated article about all of the dustjackets on Blackwood's books.

Q4. Compared with H.P. Lovecraft, one of his critics, Blackwood produced about ten times so much fiction. Has all this material fared well over time? Have the stories still appeal to the modern reader and why is that do you think?

Blackwood was prolific for a short period and though he wrote much, his production tailed off over his last thirty years.  In some ways he'd burned himself out by the end of the First World War and only some of his later stories get anywhere near the quality of his early material.  His best work is that written between about 1904 and 1914.  This is when he wrote "The Willows", "The Wendigo", the stories in PAN'S GARDEN, which I regard as containing some of his very best (like "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" and "Sand"), and his brilliant novels THE HUMAN CHORD, THE CENTAUR and JULIUS LE VALLON (even though the last wasn't published until 1916).  Had he produced nothing else, these works would still have made him the premier writer of supernatural fiction, and I believe these works appeal to all ages and as much to today as ever.  In fact I think Blackwood could be regarded as a New Age writer if only those who hold those sympathies became aware of him, and if books like THE CENTAUR were back in print. Unfortunately Blackwood became rather too mystical and some of his works are just too wordy, too obscure and sometimes too sentimental to read.  I'm afraid I find THE PROMISE OF AIR, THE WAVE and THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL almost unreadable and very hard going.  Some of these were popular in their day because of the post-1918 War interest in spiritualism and the need to escape from the horrors of War.  These days those books have a much narrower readership.

Q5. Many of his stories reflect trends of his time; the religious speculations common with movements like theosophy and the later anguish caused by WWI. Can you see more of this tendency to be a theme writer in Blackwood than in other fantasy writers?

I don't think Blackwood was necessarily more strongly influenced by certain matters such as theosophy or the War than other writers.  Arthur Machen reflected similar moods, for instance, and you'll find some similar sentiments to Blackwood's in the work of James Stephens and W.B. Yeats. What I think is different about Blackwood was the intensity with which he sustained this thinking through so many stories and novels.  The especial development that Blackwood made was to consider something like Time almost as an entity in itself, as in "A Descent Into Egypt" where an individual's soul can become so absorbed by the immensity of an ancient world that it takes him over.  Blackwood experienced much of this himself in Egypt and in the Caucasus, the almost overwhelming absorption of the spirit by the surroundings, and he related this to the spirit of place or an extension of Mother Earth that reached out to a sympathetic soul.  Although other writers have tried this from time to time, like James Stephens, they didn't have the same affinity as Blackwood, and no one achieved the same intensity as he did.

Q6. You are currently working on a biography on Blackwood, are you not? Will this be out on the market soon?

Yes, I've been working on the biography of Blackwood since 1978.  The Bio-Bibliography was an offshoot of this, but the full biography is still on the cards.  I found I had to distance myself from Blackwood after I completed the bibliography because I had got too close to him, and couldn't be objective enough.  After that I became so absorbed in other projects that it's been difficult to find the time to get back to Blackwood.  Also there remain certain areas of research still to complete, but I have every intention of completing the biography in the next year or two, probably aiming at publication in 2001 on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Q7. The research for the biography has been very extensive, then?

Some might say my research is too extensive. Blackwood led a long and very involved life and to properly understand him you need to understand what he was doing and why he was doing it. Much of his activity was long periods of isolation in remote places of the world, many of which I have still to visit, but I think it's important to know what affect this had on him and how it influenced his work. I have searched through many archives and through extensive newspaper holdings yet I always get the sense that I'm still only scratching the surface and that there are depths to Blackwood that I have not yet tapped.

Q8. Have you still unsolved mysteries or missing information concerning Blackwood's life?

Yes, though the question is how much of these are solvable. I think I'm reaching the point when I feel I must write the biography or I'll never do it even though I know there are gaps in my research. Most of these gaps are relatively small, and I suspect readers wouldn't even realise they were missing, but I know they're there and I won't be happy until I've done what I can to resolve them. For instance, his Episodes Before Thirty concentrates on a very small period and revolves mostly around his relationship with Boyde (real name Bigge) in New York in 1892. He also spends some time explaining what he did after 1892 but hardly anything once he became the Private Secretary to James Speyer. Those last few years are glossed over. Elsewhere he says he's deliberately not recording his "psychic" adventures, so it is evident that much else happened in New York in the 1890s which he's not revealing. Also the letters and papers that I have acquired from this period show that the sequence of events are not as he records them over the arrest of Bigge, and I am trying to piece together the real events.

I'm missing some of the events from his life 1900-1908 when he travelled extensively, and this is the same period from which I believe there are more published but forgotten stories in obscure newspapers. It's also the heyday of his involvement with the Golden Dawn and with the Society for Psychic Research, and I need to do more research in both their archives. Finally I'm still missing some of the details of his escapades as a "secret agent" during the First World War. Thankfully he did write these down, but they were deliberately incomplete (probably because of Official Secrets) and when I tried to find the papers in the Public Record Office some years ago they were missing.

And there are small things which may be of greater significance. I'm still not convinced I've identified M.L.W., the original John Silence. I may have done, but can't wholly prove it. Also I want to find out more about his friend Wilfred Wilson with whom he was companions for fifty years. I know some facts about him but not much, and have no idea how they met or what they meant to each other. Another of his close friends, Hesketh Bell, has left his papers in the British Museum but not to be made available to the public until fifty years after his death, which is the end of 2002. That's close now, but seemed ages away when I was researching him in 1982. Do I wait till then in the hope of revelations, or do I publish regardless, as I might be very disappointed.

Q9. So if anyone has this information, you would like to come into contact with them?

You bet. I am greatly indebted to many Blackwood enthusiasts who have shared in my research across the world. Some of the great discoveries I have are due to their research, not mine. Blackwood was something of a rolling stone and hated to keep papers. His whole lifestyle worked against anyone being able to reconstruct his life, because Blackwood did his best to hide it, other than what he revealed in articles and radio talks. There probably will always be gaps in the surviving record, but I also suspect there is a lot more out there, especially in letters and newspaper articles. This is one reason why I try and track down the estates of all those who knew him because I suspect there are any number of letters that were kept which will reveal much. I have been most fortunate in the copies of letters people have loaned me, and I probably have in my possession more letters to and by Blackwood than anyone else. Those to Patsy Ainley, Ella Maillart, Hilaire Belloc, Vera Wainwright, the BBC, his agent A.P. Watt and his publisher Macmillan are particularly revealing, but what about his correspondence with Violet Pearn, Wilfred Wilson, Graham Robertson, Maude ffoulkes, Eveleigh Nash, Hesketh Bell, Baroness Knoop and so many others. Does it survive and, if so, where is it?

Q10. Have you in your research met any relatives or friends of Blackwood?

There are no close relatives of Blackwood still alive, but I have met many friends. In most cases these people were children when they knew him, so I have a very good picture of Blackwood through children's eyes. I am particularly indebted to Patsy Ainley (daughter of the actor Henry Ainley) and to the artist Barbara Lindsay for many personal memories. Also the great traveller Ella Maillart who shared many memories with me, and who had known Blackwood as long ago as 1919. I have contacted many who had distant memories of him, and I shall never forget my meeting with Lady Vansittart, who first met Blackwood in 1926 or thereabouts, and who recreated that meeting so vividly after almost sixty years.

Q11. Is his work still copyrighted?

Yes, the recent revision to the copyright laws means that all of Blackwood's material is still in copyright in Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe for 70 years after his death, that is until the end of 2021. This is not the case in the United States where the 50 year rule still applies, and even then only to material where copyright had not already lapsed. Most of Blackwood's early writings, including JOHN SILENCE, is out of copyright in the USA.

Q12. Did he leave any unpublished material or notes or diaries after him?

He did leave some unpublished material. Some of this was in the form of his BBC radio talks which were broadcast if not published. There were a few stories, one of which I included in the collection THE MAGIC MIRROR. There were a number of chapters of what looked like a projected EPISODES AFTER THIRTY. He always maintained he would never write a follow-on autobiography, but during the Second World War, while down in Devon, he began a series of reminiscences which looked back at certain individuals he remembered well and then wrapped his life about them.

Q13. Currently, there are two collections with Blackwood stories in print. Do you think we will see more of his work reprinted in the future?

Well, S.T. Joshi in America has recently brought THE COMPLETE JOHN SILENCE back into print at Dover Books, and I'm sure the day will come when Blackwood's work will be rediscovered. I'm particularly keen to see JULIUS LE VALLON, THE HUMAN CHORD and THE CENTAUR back into print, and to get organised a proper omnibus edition (or editions) of his short fiction, including much of the unreprinted material, so that there's a full record of all of his fiction brought together in a proper sequence. There's also a large amount of non-fiction, especially travel fiction or his writings about the supernatural and reincarnation which would make a solid book.

Q14. What book or story by Blackwood have influenced you the most?

That's an interesting question, as it's a different question from what story I most enjoy or I think are his best stories. Many of his stories strongly influenced how I thought about the world about us and how I regarded the supernatural, however we define it. In that sense I think THE CENTAUR influenced me the most whilst, amongst his short stories (if short's the right word) it'd be "The Man Whom the Trees Loved". The depth of mysticism and spirituality in these stories is immense.

Q15. The Q&A's above were recorded in May 1998. Now we write Oct 2001. The main thing that has happened since then is of course that your biography of Blackwood has been completed and is about to be published in the UK now in November. I suppose you are happy to have accomplished this?

Happy and, of course relieved.

Q16. How do you feel about the book now that it is completed?

It's always odd. I've been reading it now as a reader rather than as a writer or proofreader or indexer. And I'm very pleased with it. When I'd completed the first draft I knew I had to edit it down from 180,000 words closer to the publisher's 140,000 or less. That was a lot to take out and at the time I was doing it I found it difficult to lose certain passages. The publisher has been excellent over this book and at proof stage I even managed to reinsert a few passages that could squeeze in without upsetting the pagination. Now reading it objectively for the first time it actually does seem to hang together. Of course, I'm waiting for some bright spark to come along and say "Why haven't you covered this?" or "What happened here?" or the inevitable sod's law that someone will have some information that was crucial to the book and which only now comes to light. But actually that's one of the reasons for getting the book out now. If I'd waited until I'd finished all the research I'd never have written the book. Now it's done and out there and it now has to live its own life.

Q17. Has it been a hard task to research and finish this book? Has this work differed compared to your other projects in any way?

Well, research is research, whatever the subject matter, but it has felt different. It's because you're trying to reconstruct a person's life, their philosophy, their whole existence, which means you have to get inside the person. Yet at the same time you have to remain objective, to try and see him as others see him and place him in the context of the world at the time. In the first few years of my research (this is early eighties) I confess I got rather daunted about all of this thinking I'll never be able to juggle all the balls in the air that I need to all at one time -- and I don't think I could have done then. Leaving the biography for so long, has allowed me to distance myself from Blackwood, even though once I returned to the material his whole being swamped over me again. I actually felt almost like a disembodied spirit hovering over him, watching and following his every move but remaining sufficiently at distance to understand how life was going on about him.

The other advantage of leaving it so long is how much technology -- especially the internet -- has helped research. And the research by others on other matters, such as family trees. I was able to complete far more research in the last few months before writing the book because of the internet than I had achieved in about the last five years!

Q18. There are still as few stories by Blackwood in print as there were in 1998, alas. Do you think that the biography could trigger interest for further publishing enterprises in the UK or US?

I'd like to think it might, but also don't expect things to happen over night. Every little bit helps, as they say. I would hope that at least some people will be attracted to the book and explore Blackwood, and who knows what might come of that. There has been interest in reprinting Blackwood, such as the House of Stratus proposal, but I'm not sure of the status of that at the moment. If that does not come to fruition, I know of another publisher who is interested.

Q19. Are there still issues or mysteries unexplored in Blackwood's life that intrigue you and could such questions be solved in spite of the time gap?

Oh yes, lots. I'd need a whole website just to go into them. Blackwood's life was full of incident. He hardly kept still for any minute of any day -- he was either writing, exploring, travelling, meeting people, learning and studying, and so on. Although I have the broad thrust of his life and have clarified (at least for my own sake) much that was going on, I haven't resolved everything. I don't know what became of Bigge (the Boyde of EPISODES) after he came out of prison, for instance. I still don't know all the details about Blackwood's psychic research or his experiences with the Golden Dawn. You imagine that Blackwood lived for 82 years, or around 30,000 days. Just think of all the things that go on in your own life, and Blackwood was much more active than most. I don't know what he was up to for probably a half of those 30,000 days, but because that's scattered over his life, I can piece most of it together, but I have gaps here and there of several weeks, even months. I have no idea what he was doing during some of these periods. I can speculate, and some of that is in the biography, but there's a limit to speculation.

Q20. Finally, has the work on Algernon changed your opinion about him in any way, or the way you appreciate his work?

If anything, I admire his work even more. I was re-reading all of his stuff before and during writing the biography and this is the first time I've read all of his stuff exactly in the order that he wrote it and while thinking about what he was doing when he wrote it. This has added much more depth and understanding to his stories and it made me realise just how much of his life is in those stories. It also made me appreciate just how brilliant a writer he was. Okay he didn't get it all right all of the time, but when he did get it right, in certain stories and certain passages in his novels his work transcends description. I defy anyone to read the moment when the moonlight opens the gateway into Eden in THE CENTAUR and not be moved to tears. It's one of the most magical pieces of writing in all fiction.