Blackwood (publishing house) Blackwood (publishing house) William Blackwood and Sons was a Scottish publishing house and printer founded by William Blackwood in 1804. It played a key role in literary history, publishing many important authors, for example John Buchan, George Tomkyns Chesney, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, E. M. Forster, John Galt, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Reade, Margaret Oliphant, John Hanning Speke and Anthony Trollope, both in books and in the monthly "Blackwood’s Magazine". In 1804 William Blackwood opened a shop in South Bridge Street, Edinburgh, for the sale of old, rare and curious books. He undertook the Scottish agency for John Murray and
Father John Blackwood "Blackie" Ryan Father John Blackwood "Blackie" Ryan Father John Blackwood "Blackie" Ryan is the protagonist in a series of 17 mystery novels by Roman Catholic priest and author Father Andrew Greeley. Fictionally, "Blackie" is a portly, little man. As the innocuous auxiliary bishop (under Cardinal Sean Cronin) and rector of the Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, he travels the Archdiocese of Chicago and around the world (at Cardinal Cronin's ""See to it, Blackwood!"" charge) solving locked-room mysteries related to the Roman Catholic Church and its members. In his fictional biography, John Blackwood "Blackie" Ryan was born in 1945 to a large Irish-American family,