Coming From Stark House: Strange Island Stories - Jonathan E. Lewis, ed.

From Stark House:

STRANGE ISLAND STORIES

Islands are, in many ways, the perfect settings for authors looking to craft stories that explore themes such as human isolation, lost civilizations, strange and unusual animal life, the power of nature, the cruelty of man to his fellow man, and human nature itself. The strange island story takes the reader on a journey into the weird, the bizarre, the scary, and the unsettling. It allows authors to create alternative worlds, places where cannibalism, lycanthropy, and voodoo exist… where islands can literally come alive… where women, rather than men, can be the dominant sex… where the normal rules of geography and topography are defied. Where the only limits are the human imagination. Here are nineteen classic tales from Arthur Conan Doyle, Julian Hawthorne, Francis Stevens, Jack London, H. P. Lovecraft, Frank Norris, M. P. Shiel, John Buchan and many more; plus one new story from the editor himself!

Some of the other authors in this anthology not mentioned above are Algernon Blackwood, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry S. Whitehead, and James Francis Dwyer. The editor's previous anthology, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SUPERNATURAL TALES, is a top-notch volume I'm still reading. STRANGE ISLAND STORIES looks like it will be excellent, too. The title alone is more than enough to catch my interest! It'll be out in March but is available for pre-order now.

Zombies From the Pulps!: Jumbee - Henry S. Whitehead

The second story in ZOMBIES FROM THE PULPS!, the fine new anthology edited by Jeffrey Shanks, is Henry S. Whitehead's "Jumbee", which originally appeared in the September 1926 issue of WEIRD TALES. As Shanks points out in his introduction, it's one of the earliest zombie yarns. Following the lurid "Herbert West: Reanimator" by H.P. Lovecraft, it comes off as a little on the mild side, as the entire story consists of a conversation between an American visitor to the West Indies and a gentleman who lives there, with the host telling his guest about his encounter with an old friend who comes to see him after dying, as well as a brush with a shape-shifter.

"Jumbee" has a couple of things to recommend it, though. Whitehead's prose is very smooth and effective in creating a creepy mood, and the story does a good job of highlighting some differences in racial attitudes between the United States and the West Indies. It's a tale that lingers in the memory, and as far as I can recall, the only story by Henry S. Whitehead that I've ever read.