Pan's Garden / Incredible Adventures

PAN’S GARDEN   Pan’s Garden is a thematic collection of stories which, in the words of the author, “illustrates that characteristic belief, present in all my work, that there exists a definite relationship between Human Beings and Nature.” From the opening novella, “The Man Whom the Trees Loved”—in which Nature welcomes and absorbs the soul of a man—to the concluding “The Temptations of the Clay”—in which Nature rejects the spirit of the man who tries to profit from it—we are transported into a natural world where the elements hold sway. Mike Ashley, in his introduction, calls Pan’s Garden “the definitive volume of Blackwood’s short stories. . . because it defines the true nature of Blackwood’s writing.”   INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES   Incredible Adventures represents what biographer Mike Ashley calls 'the last outburst of his golden period' and is comprised of three novellas and two short stories.  Here, nature is a living force, truth is the only religion and the past holds sway over the present.  At times almost surreal in their intensity, these tales exert a strange power over the reader, opening our eyes to a larger world around us.  From the rugged mountains of Eastern Europe in 'The Regeneration of Lord Ernie' to the vast deserts of Egypt in 'A Descent Into Egypt,' Blackwood takes us to other places--and other worlds. 3