✦ New novel "The Apothecary's Confession" arriving Autumn 1924 ✦ Now appearing at the Grand Literary Society of Edinburgh ✦ Winner of the Pemberton Prize for Distinguished Fiction ✦ As seen in The Illustrated London Review ✦ Readers' Circle now enrolling ✦
About the Author
A Man of Letters & Remarkable Misadventures
Born beneath a leaking roof in the village of Dunstable-on-Mire, Cornelius Percival Blackwood discovered his gift for storytelling at the age of seven, when he convinced the local constable that a wandering pig was in fact a diplomatic courier from the Belgian consulate.
His works span the shadowy alleyways of gaslit London, the sun-scorched bazaars of Marrakesh, and the improbable parlours of aristocratic households harbouring rather too many secrets. He has twice been mistaken for a foreign dignitary, and once spent a fortnight as an unintentional lighthouse keeper.
Blackwood is the author of fourteen novels, three volumes of travel correspondence, and one treatise on the taxonomy of biscuits that the Times described as "unexpectedly riveting." He divides his time between a draughty flat in Bloomsbury and wherever his research demands, which has lately included a Croatian salt marsh and a cheese cave in Normandy.
Fourteen novels of mystery, wandering, and the occasional accidental revolution
☽
The Magistrate's Phantom Leg
C. P. Blackwood
The Magistrate's Phantom Leg
◆ 1912 · Mystery & Dark Comedy
When a provincial magistrate becomes convinced his amputated limb is solving crimes independently, the town of Lower Grimsby descends into magnificent chaos.
★★★★★
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The Apothecary's Confession
C. P. Blackwood
The Apothecary's Confession
◆ Coming Autumn 1924 · Historical Fiction
An elderly apothecary in Lisbon writes a confession so astonishing that six separate governments attempt to suppress its publication. A tale of perfume, poison, and philosophy.
— Pre-order Now —
✈
Thirty-Seven Hours in the Wrong Embassy
C. P. Blackwood
Thirty-Seven Hours in the Wrong Embassy
◆ 1918 · Travel & Farce
A semi-autobiographical account of one very confused evening in Vienna that snowballed into a minor international incident involving a missing ambassador and seventeen identical hats.
★★★★☆
"Blackwood writes as though the universe itself is slightly embarrassed by its own plot, and is doing its level best to apologise through the medium of extraordinary coincidence."
— The Illustrated London Review, March 1920
Critical Opinion
What the Papers Say
Opinions rendered by those whose opinions are rendered regularly
"Blackwood has done it again — produced a novel that one cannot in good conscience read on public transport, owing to the involuntary exclamations it provokes. Extraordinary, alarming, essential."
⬥ The Dorset Quarterly Review · Vol. XXIII
"It is rare that a novel about a haunted taxidermist in the Outer Hebrides becomes required reading at two separate naval academies. And yet here we are. Blackwood is simply inexplicable."
⬥ Edinburgh Literary Dispatch · Winter 1921
"Part comedy of manners, part ghost story, part inexplicable treatise on the migratory habits of the European starling — Blackwood defies categorisation and the better for it."
⬥ The Manchester Observer · July 1919
"We assigned three reviewers to this novel. Two resigned and the third converted to a new religion of his own invention. We consider this a qualified endorsement."
⬥ The Metropolitan Gazette · 1916
Appearances & Events
Find the Author
Should you wish to meet him in person, which we neither recommend nor discourage
14
Mar
Grand Literary Society of Edinburgh — Annual Lecture
Reading from The Apothecary's Confession · Caledonian Hall, Edinburgh