Algernon Blackwood

A Prisoner in Fairyland Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Henry Blackwood, (1869 -1951) was an English writer of supernatural fiction. Blackwood was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, a newspaper reporter in New York, and essayist for various periodicals. His works included ten collections of short stories, fourteen novels, children's stories, and several plays. Many of his stories reflect his love of nature and the outdoors. His two best-known stories were "The Willows" and "The Wendigo". A Prisoner in Fairyland is the story of a London financier who after years of amassing his fortune goes back to a childhood dream of becoming a philanthropist. An excerpt reads, "In the train, even before St. John's was passed, a touch of inevitable reaction had set in, and Rogers asked himself why he was going. For a sentimental journey was hardly in his line, it seemed. But no satisfactory answer was forthcoming -- none, at least, that a Board or a Shareholders' Meeting would have considered satisfactory. The old vicar spoke to him strangely. "We've not forgotten you as you've forgotten us," he said. "And the place, though empty now for years, has not forgotten you either, I'll be bound." Rogers brushed it off. Just silliness -- that was all it was. But after St. John's the conductor shouted, "Take your seats! Take your seats! The Starlight Express is off to Fairyland! Show your tickets! Show your tickets!" And then the forgotten mystery of his childhood came back to him. " A Prisoner in Fairyland was adapted into the musical, "The Starlight Express".