John Silence, Physician Extraordinary

Dr John Silence, widely respected and admired, is known as a 'psychic doctor'. The cases that his special powers are called upon to deal with are out of the ordinary, intangible and of a difficult nature best described as 'psychical afflictions'. In this collection of cases, John Silence uses his spiritual insight to solve the afflictions of his patients, with all the skill and perception of the first-class psychic detective for which he has become celebrated.

From the Inside Flap

JOHN SILENCE PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY Dr. Silence is an eccentric man of science, philanthropic by nature, who specializes in cases involving psychical afflictions. An authority on the occult after years of rigorous training, John Silence is more interested in curing a home of an ancient haunting than in curing a head of the common cold. Herein are six of his most unusual cases, including the story of the man who seeks to renew childhood memories while travelling through France, but instead stumbles upon a monastery of the dead; and the island camping trip that turns into a shapeshifting nightmare. Six spellbinding tales from the grand master of supernatural fiction.THE WAVE Ever since childhood, Tom Kelverdon is haunted by a recurring dream in which a giant wave hovers over him. Strangely, he is aware in the dream that it isn t a wave of water, but something else. There is a sweet smell that accompanies this dream, and a vision of two bright blue eyes. Even as he grows older, Tom never loses this feeling of the Wave his career as an engineer rides its own wave of success. Now in his 30s, he is reunited with Lettice, whom Tom had fallen in love with as a child, and meets up with her group in Egypt. So begins a strange journey that involves his impulsive cousin Tony also in love with Lettice as the three of them re-enact a doomed triangle from Egypt s dim past.

About the Author

Algernon Blackwood, one of the most prolific ghost story authors in the genre's history, was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist, and short story writer (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951). According to the literary critic S. T. Joshi, Incredible Adventures (1914), a collection of short stories, ""may be the finest weird book of this or any other century,"" and ""His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's."" A few weeks after his passing, his nephew carried his ashes to the Swiss Alps' Saanenmöser Pass and spread them among the peaks he had cherished for more than 40 years. Shooter's Hill is where Blackwood was born (now part of south-east London, then part of north-west Kent). He attended Wellington College and resided at Crayford Manor House in Crayford from 1871 and 1880. His mother, Harriet Dobbs, was the widow of the 6th Duke of Manchester; his father, Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, was a Post Office official. Following many strokes, Blackwood passed away. Officially, cerebral thrombosis was the cause of his death on December 10, 1951; arteriosclerosis was a contributory factor. At the Golders Green Crematorium, he was cremated.

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