The Extra Day

by Algernon Blackwood

Uncle Felix visits three children who live in an Old Mill House. They always enjoy his magical tales and he has a particular influence upon their lives and growing-up. He challenges the children to think laterally and to question what they see and do, especially when out in the countryside, but always with a mystical air. Could they gain an answer from the night wind as it passes, or make time stop? The novel chronicles a miraculous adventure across the English countryside, where no grown-up rules apply, where magic is real, and wonder is everywhere. Written for adults, this work is equally suitable for children.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Short Stories, Ebooks, Classics, Horror, Fiction

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Algernon Henry Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".

Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.

H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.

Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.

Reviews

[Jean-marcel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book the maximum possible rating, which I almost never do except for absolute favourites. While I'm not going to say this book is among the absolute best I've read, I think it deserves this rating because of its nature. This is what most would probably consider a "childrens' book", but it's one that adults ought to read to their children, and ought to take to heart themselves. Blackwood is a beautiful writer, and his ideas are gorgeous and so clear in their simplicity and focus. While he may be more known for tales of supernatural horror like "The Willows", a theme that runs through just about all of Blackwood's writing is the most supreme joy in the revelation of nature and the feeling that if we could but cast aside the chains of punctiliousness and formality, could "remember" to be children again, life would be better for all of us. In The Extra Day Blackwood not only takes us into the minds of three young people adventuring in the world for the first time, but makes us feel their excitement and zeal at witnessing the most mundane things. Algernon's alchemy is such that the whisper of the wind and the swaying of a tree becomes something magical and spectacular, and gives us the sense of a whole world waiting just a breath away. The book is also hilarious at times, especially in the childrens' attempts to find someone who could tell them the perfect story, and in the end, when "the extra day" itself finally arrives, the sense of breathless anticipation, that really, anything could happen, is electrifying.

I'm not going to claim that everyone will love this, but I think it's a treasure. If I had children I would read them this book with every ounce of passion in me, and would hope that they would fall under its spell. It makes me smile to think of how subversive some people might have found this to be in 1915, when most literature for children was, to be blunt, not nearly so open-minded and free. The message of love and companionship and kindness simply flows from every sentence here, and at no point did I find it all to be overwrought or cloyingly sentimental. This book, and Blackwood's writing generally, works on the imagination in such a profound, revelatory way; if you're of the right disposition, child or adult, you can't help but come away with a different appreciation of things, a finer way of seeing the world around you. If I could use a single word to describe this book, it would be "beautiful".

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK 👌

Another will written novel by Algernon Blackwood. I could not connect to this story. I have read other novels by author without issues guess there is one. Enjoy the adventure of novels 🔰 2022

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

This reads exactly like all of his previous novels. Oh, another story about children's imaginations being literally magical? How inspired. While he is so busy with his romantic notions of the magic of childhood, he misses the real magic of it. In his books, every child is almost exactly like every other child in every other book of his. (As is the "uncle character" and the children's parents.) Some of the dialogue is practically reused verbatim from his other books. They say the same things, act the same ways, believe in the same fantasies... real children have variety in their personalities, Blackwood's are just minor variations on his favorite theme. The great thing about real children is that they say and do unpredictable things, his don't. There are literally no surprises at any point.

Reading this felt like looking at someone so preoccupied with their own ideas they failed to see what was happening in from of them. While he is busy fantasizing about children's fantasies, he completely ignores the real marvel of children experimenting with and learning about how the real world really works. And there's a whole pointless chapter about daisies. Plot was very thin in this book, and I doubt I could summarize it if I tried.

Blackwood was a great writer, but he was obsessed with some really tedious and batshit ideas and kept shoving them into his writing when they really weren't warranted.

[Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very long, and not a ghost story.... But overall great message