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Jimbo. The Education of Uncle Paul
JIMBO
"We dance with phantoms and with shadows play. . ." Jimbo is a very imaginative boy, and together with his brothers and sisters, they make up a lot of games around an old building on their father's property that they call The Empty House, their object of "dreadful delight." Then the Colonel hires a new governess. Miss Lake is much too level-headed to believe any of the children's stories about the Empty House. She knows that it's all nonsense. But in order to "knock the nonsense" out of young Jimbo's head, she makes up a story about the Inmate of the House, a very bad creature indeed. Instead of bringing Jimbo to his senses, the story fills him with a real sense of dread. He becomes convinced that something evil lurks within The Empty House. And, of course, he is right—for Fright itself lives within, ready to reach out and snatch young Jimbo into his clutches!
THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL
Paul Waters returns to England after having lived for the past twenty years in the Canadian wilderness. Unused to adult company, emotionally he feels little more than a boy inside. When he moves in with his widowed sister Margaret and her three children, he tries hard to keep this inner child hidden. But Nixie, Toby and Jonah figure him out right away, and introduce him to their imaginative games. These are no mere hide-and-seeks, but "aventures" that take them all to another realm, the land beyond the Crack, where all the lost and disgarded things can be found--a land of beauty and mystery. And it is here that Paul truly comes alive, finally coming to understand himself, and all that truly matters in life.
"We dance with phantoms and with shadows play. . ." Jimbo is a very imaginative boy, and together with his brothers and sisters, they make up a lot of games around an old building on their father's property that they call The Empty House, their object of "dreadful delight." Then the Colonel hires a new governess. Miss Lake is much too level-headed to believe any of the children's stories about the Empty House. She knows that it's all nonsense. But in order to "knock the nonsense" out of young Jimbo's head, she makes up a story about the Inmate of the House, a very bad creature indeed. Instead of bringing Jimbo to his senses, the story fills him with a real sense of dread. He becomes convinced that something evil lurks within The Empty House. And, of course, he is right—for Fright itself lives within, ready to reach out and snatch young Jimbo into his clutches!
THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL
Paul Waters returns to England after having lived for the past twenty years in the Canadian wilderness. Unused to adult company, emotionally he feels little more than a boy inside. When he moves in with his widowed sister Margaret and her three children, he tries hard to keep this inner child hidden. But Nixie, Toby and Jonah figure him out right away, and introduce him to their imaginative games. These are no mere hide-and-seeks, but "aventures" that take them all to another realm, the land beyond the Crack, where all the lost and disgarded things can be found--a land of beauty and mystery. And it is here that Paul truly comes alive, finally coming to understand himself, and all that truly matters in life.
- GenresFantasyWeird Fiction
Paperback
Published February 14, 2007
About the author
Algernon Blackwood
1,417 books1,208 followersAlgernon Henry Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
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July 6, 2012
I can't think of many writers I would consider more influential to my own writing than Algernon Blackwood. He is marvelous.
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