The Willows

By: Algernon Blackwood

Narrated by: Walter Covell

Algernon Blackwood was an English author who dealt primarily with the supernatural.

The Willows, his most celebrated story, was influenced heavily by Blackwood's own trips down the Danube River. It tells the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, a place where another dimension impinges on our own.

©1914 Macmillan Co. (P)1978 Jimcin Recordings

Wonderfully done

Where to begin with this little masterpiece...This short story is apparently a classic that I just happened upon and on a whim decided to purchase. While it’s not exactly a “horror” novel - IMO - it is certainly atmospheric and rife with narrative tension. It’s eerie, slow and steady, foreboding pace is hauntingly beautiful. You can feel the tension and hear the drumming and see the willows swaying throughout the gothic tone of the story. I very much enjoyed this quick (almost too quick) classic suspenseful tale and must look for more by Algernon Blackwood.

Great story, poor audio quality

The reader did a fine job but the quality of the recording was not the best and made for distracted listening.

great story, poor recording

This is one of my favorite stories. Blackwood does a great job describing the numinous and how an encounter with powerful and apathetic forces would be. The narration is good, but the recording has a cyclical softening that is annoying (to me; it's not a huge volume difference).

Meh Story- Terrible Audio Recording

The story is entertaining BUT I had a few issues. The biggest issue is the terrible quality of the recording itself. The sound ebbs and flows in a way; it gets loud then quiet from one word to the next almost throughout the story. It takes away from the story itself quite a bit. Besides the terrible audio qulity, the POV character is one of the more annoying characters I have ever encountered. He constantly makes excuses for what he is seeing and anytime he can do something wrong, HE DOES. I completely understand that that was the author's intent- to show how one might realistically react; that is, when a "rational" mind encounters the MOST irrational of circumstances. Still, the main character is about as annoying as I have ever read and there's no rationalizing I can do to make up for that fact to properly enjoy the events of the story. Thank God it was a short story. That made it bearable and still somewhat entertaining but any longer with ths bumbling idiot protagonist whose shoes we werei n and I probably would have turned it off, never to come back to it. I found the Wendigo to be a much better story in every single way (its by the same author). Save yourself the trouble and JUST listen to that one only.

Adequate story, poor recording

I would recommend this audio book were it not for the poor audio recording. It was obviously not recorded in a professional sound booth because you can hear where the editor cut out the noise floor between words. It's fuzzy, slightly distorted and metallic sounding. I would recommend finding an alternate recording of this book because the story could have been entertaining without the distraction of the poor audio quality.