This early work by Algernon Blackwood was originally published in 1906 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York' is a gothic short story of a butler, a reporter, and a possibly lycanthropic would-be chemist. Algernon Henry Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill, South East England, in 1869. In his youth he trained as a doctor at Wellington College in Berkshire, and went on to pursue a number of careers, in areas as varied as milk farming, modelling, journalism and violin teaching. In his thirties, Blackwood returned to England from New York, where he had spent a number of years, and began to write stories of the supernatural. Blackwood was extremely prolific, producing over the course of his life some ten original collections of short stories, fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays.