Hey! Where are the guns? Or the double-crossing women? What – you mean Stark House Press puts out other genres besides noir? My bad.

Yes, Stark House also puts out a supernatural line, and JIMBO / THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL collects two novels from Algernon Blackwood, who many consider to be one of the greatest storytellers of this kind. After a very informative essay about Blackwood’s early days and his pitfalls while living in North America, we are treated to two of his earliest creepy tales of wonder.

From 1909, JIMBO is a strange bird to describe, since 90 percent of it happens while the main character has blacked out. It begins with a family in need of a nanny for the children, especially for their son Jimbo, who lives in a life of fantasy, while his father just wished to buckle down.

They hire a woman by the name of Miss Lake, who causes even more problems. She tells the children that the abandoned house near them is evil and is populated by monsters. This terrifies Jimbo to a point that Miss Lake is let go right after the fact, soon leading to Jimbo getting knocked out.

Jimbo awakes in a state in which he is conscious of his surroundings, but can’t move. This just adds to the fantasy in his mind, in which he meets Miss Lake, who guides him through this bizarre world. The story follows through Jimbo’s flight as he learns to fly and grow wings, all while Miss Lake helps and even admits to atoning for her sins against the young boy. She teaches him creepy nursery rhymes and shows him that he can survive on his own.

The story continues on until Jimbo awakens, and we learn the story’s surprise. All in all, JIMBO isn’t scary, but it might be if you’re a little one.

Then there’s 1909’s THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL, which seems a bit autobiographical in the sense that the main character of Paul Walters returns to England after a 20-year stay in the Canadian wilderness. This matches Blackwood’s own history.

Walters returns to live with his widowed sister and her three children. He’s still a child in his own mind, in that he gets along better with kids and is more himself around them than people his own age. Margaret, his sister, tries her hardest to make Paul comfortable in his new surroundings, but it’s her children who chip away at his armor by taking their Uncle Paul on “aventures.”

These “aventures” happen in the world of yesterday and tomorrow through a crack the kids can only see. In this wonderful world, all their broken toys and pets that have died are there. This introduces Paul into a wondrous way of life, and his own wishes seem to come true in this world, letting him be the child that he always wanted to remain.

Paul starts writing stories about these experiences and reading them to the children, making the whole thing even more believable for their tight-knit group. The best way to think of EDUCATION is as an adult fairy tale, since it can be read to older children and adults, both of whom would relate and take something from it. You get the feeling that Blackwood has inspired many with this tale of wonder; I’m guessing Guillermo del Toro probably might have read this as a youth.

This twofer is yet another fine addition to the Stark House pantheon, and one that shows not everything they put out needs a gun. –Bruce Grossman

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