Debut: It was an eldritch thing...

Hello there,


In the first, to all and any who see fit to visit my new blog, my thanks for your curiosity. Admittedly, there is presently little to compel presently, as yet, though I would like to take this opportunity with the debut of my blog to introduce the themes and and tenor of what you will find here, in the most part.

Though I have been online for many years, with an active presence, I had declined the use of popular services like blogger - social media like Facebook doing little to compel me in its prime - though most recently my interests have found the merit in a more popular, active status online. With that in mind, and the reasons which constitute it, I have found my way to blogger, and thus we have the so named "Eldritch Works".

The understandable curiosity surrounding this unusual title for a blog can be explained in that not only are my interests and appetites somewhat obscure or eclectic - or at least so I have been told gently - but have been inspired through such things as arcane topics, the esoteric, experimental or alternative ideas and strange phenomena - in essence, eldritch things. A long, rich and nourishing vein of these topics through much of my life has been the narrative - wither factual or fictional - of the Fortean, the unknown or mysterious; as so seen in authors like R.L. Stevenson, certainly H.P. Lovecraft - who gave the word eldritch a new gravity -  and sundry other more modern authors and writers who's works I have considered, beyond the traditional book. The blog being a space for these interests, it remains that they have have inspired other ambitions; ambitions which I hope will find their wings, perhaps, through a more central hub like this, which is easily accessible and can bring the latest in news, where these interests and projects are concerned.

"We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight."

                                            - H. P. Lovecraft

In essence, for those who might consider, if even only in part, an interest in eldritch works, I would like to recommend my blog to you and those alike. Of course, this doesn't preclude other or more immediate interests arriving or cultivating the spotlight, as life or circumstances therein make their impression.

As to not disappoint visitors or other interested readers, in the theme of my blog, I would like to proffer a few perhaps interesting things of note.

In the first, please find "Weird Tales: The Strange Life of H.P. Lovecraft" - a brief but compelling and colorful biography by the poet and critic Geoff Ward which illustrates the personal history, places and experiences which informed Lovecraft.

Following on from that, one of Lovecraft's actual tales in a esoteric account of warped worlds and strange knowledge; an unfinished but still compelling story called "The Book",written in 1933 and given excellent narration by the talents of Nick Gisburne (Gisburne2000).

To round things off, we draw away from Lovecraft to consider a singular, remarkable work by another accomplished writer of his era, and crucial in what would become Lovecraft's nascent genre of weird or strange fiction. The story appearing in 1910, Algernon Blackwood brought a remarkable, haunting tale of extreme experience and lingering legends to life in "The Wendigo" - a hunting party, trailing through the Canadian wilds, has a terrifying encounter with an ancient, seemingly malign entity known to native people's for centuries: a mythical, powerful and metamorphic spirit in the Wendigo. A potent, dark meditation on the human condition and experience beyond their safer bounds, and into the more ancient, the story remains a classic tale and has colored North American writers for more than a century.

This presentation of the story is given talented narration by Amy Gramour, on behalf of "Chilling Tales for Dark Nights" http://www.chillingtalesfordarknights.com/ and is hosted on their YouTube page.

I hope that my words and the selection of fiction here, if overly lovecraftian, has inspired your interest or curiosity; this debut perhaps not definitive in its tenor, but hopefully proffering a vista onto what might emerge through my blog in the future of "Eldritch Works".

In the tentative ambitions that this blog represents, I would think it a modest, but potentially interesting start; a quality which others may feel too, as they find it.


Thank you,


Clark Caledon.