Cover Reveal: THE WILLOWS by Algernon Blackwood, edited by Ruthanna Emrys
We’re delighted to reveal the cover design for the next installment in our Clockwork Editions line, forthcoming from Lanternfish Press on October 29, 2024.
Lanternfish Press announced the new edition in February of this year. This novella is a classic by beloved weird fiction writer Algernon Blackwood and will feature new annotations and introduction by Ruthanna Emrys as well as new illustrations by Robert Kraiza.
The cover of The Willows was designed by Kimberly Glyder with art direction by Christine Neulieb.
East of Vienna, a canoe trip down the length of the Danube River turns strange and horrifying. The two men traveling find it bad enough when they are forced to camp on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere while gale-force winds howl and waters rise. But soon, the threats take on a supernatural tinge. Wild sounds and visions in the night convince the men that they’re being hunted by beings from another dimension, who are not so much malicious as vastly, cosmically indifferent to their welfare–and hungry.
Algernon Blackwood has influenced weird fiction and horror writers down to the present day, with H.P. Lovecraft naming him among the modern masters of the genre. The Willows, which first appeared in The Listener and Other Stories (1907), is one of his best-known tales. Noted weird fiction writer Ruthanna Emrys enlivens the text with sprightly commentary and traces the streams of story to their headwaters in a poetic and incisive introduction.
Ruthanna Emrys is the author of A Half-Built Garden, Winter Tide, and Deep Roots, as well as co-writer of Tor.com's Reading the Weird column with Anne M. Pillsworth. She also writes radically hopeful short stories about religion and aliens and psycholinguistics. She lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with her wife and their large, strange family. There she creates real versions of imaginary foods, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world.