One of the former British writers of supernatural tales in the twentieth century, Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) wrote stories in which the slow accumulation of telling details produced a foreboding atmosphere of almost unendurable tension. Blackwood's literary renown began in 1908 with the publication of a highly successful collection of stories, John Silence - Physician Extraordinary, featuring a "psychic doctor." This volume contains the first three of the John Silence stories: A Psychical Invasion, Ancient Sorceries, and The Nemesis of Fire.