Julius LeVallon. The Bright Messenger

by Algernon Blackwood, Mike Ashley (Introduction)

JULIUS LEVALLON
When John Mason first meets Julius LeVallon at school, he feels an immediate connection. They had known each other before—not in this lifetime, but many lifetimes before. LeVallon introduces his young friend to a much larger world, the world of feeling-with, of communing with the Forces of Nature, even directing them. As Mason is pulled into LeVallon's peculiar world, he discovers that not only had they known each other before, but they had to correct a mistake they had made with another in the days of pre-history, when they had loosed an elemental on the world. The forbidden experiment needs to be recreated to set things right. After college, Mason loses track of LeVallon. But destiny must be fulfilled, and many years later Mason is contacted by his old friend with portentous news—he has found the other! It is time to set things right.

THE BRIGHT MESSENGER
Edward Fillery and Paul Devonham have a new patient at their Spiritual Clinique, a young man raised in the Juru mountains by an eccentric mentor. He seems to be suffering from a split personality. One part of him manifests as a simple country lad by the name of Julian LeVallon, but there is another force within him that Dr. Fillery quickly names "N.H." and seeks to develop. Dr. Devonham, on the other hand, is convinced that "N.H." is the unhealthy side, that LeVallon is the true personality and must be encouraged to become the dominant one. But the young man is more than he seems, for he is not entirely human. And when "N.H." does take control, no one is prepared for the results. Everyone is changed—by the bright messenger.

440 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2005

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.