M. R. James
Encyclopedia
Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost
of King's College, Cambridge
(1905–1918) and of Eton College
(1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories
, which are regarded as among the best in the genre
. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic
clichés
of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".
Parsonage in Kent
, England, although his parents had associations with Aldeburgh
in Suffolk
. From the age of three (1865) until 1909 his home, if not always his residence, was at the Rectory in Great Livermere
, Suffolk. This had also been the childhood home of another eminent Suffolk antiquary, "Honest Tom" Martin (1696–1771) "of Palgrave
." Several of his ghost stories are set in Suffolk, including "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" (Felixstowe
), "A Warning to the Curious" (Aldeburgh), "Rats" and "A Vignette" (Great Livermere). He lived for many years, first as an undergraduate, then as a don and provost, at King's College, Cambridge
. The university provides settings for several of his tales. Apart from mediaeval subjects, James studied the classics and appeared very successfully in a staging of Aristophanes
' play The Birds
, with music by Hubert Parry
. His ability as an actor was also apparent when he read his new ghost stories to friends at Christmas time.
(a contemporary chronicler) were rediscovered, having been lost since the Dissolution
. His 1917 edition of the Latin Lives of Saint Aethelberht, king and martyr (English Historical Review 32), remains authoritative.
He catalogued many of the manuscript libraries of the Cambridge
colleges. Among his other scholarly works, he wrote The Apocalypse in Art, which placed illuminated Apocalypse manuscripts
into families. He also translated the New Testament Apocrypha
and contributed to the Encyclopaedia Biblica
(1903). His ability to wear his learning lightly is apparent in his Suffolk and Norfolk (Dent, 1930), in which a great deal of knowledge is presented in a popular and accessible form, and in Abbeys (Great Western Railway, 1925).
James also achieved a great deal during his directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum
in Cambridge [1893–1908]. He managed to secure a large number of important paintings and manuscripts, including notable portraits by Titian
.
(1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others
(1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories
(1925). The first hardback collected edition appeared in 1931. Many of the tales were written as Christmas Eve entertainments and read aloud to friends. This idea was used by the BBC in 2000 when they filmed Christopher Lee
reading four stories in a candle-lit room in King's College
.
James perfected a method of story-telling which has since become known as Jamesian. The classic Jamesian tale usually includes the following elements:
According to James, the story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself: 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'" He also perfected the technique of narrating supernatural events through implication and suggestion, letting his reader fill in the blanks, and focusing on the mundane details of his settings and characters in order to throw the horrific and bizarre elements into greater relief. He summed up his approach in his foreword to the anthology Ghosts and Marvels (Oxford
, 1924): "Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo.… Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage."
He also noted: "Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story."
Despite his suggestion (in the essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write") that writers employ reticence in their work, many of James's tales depict scenes and images of savage and often disturbing violence. For example, in "Lost Hearts", pubescent children are drugged by a sinister dabbler in the occult who then removes their hearts from their paralysed bodies. In a 1929 essay, James stated:
Although not overtly sexual, plots of this nature have been perceived as unintentional metaphors of the Freudian variety. James's biographer Michael Cox wrote in M. R. James: An Informal Portrait (1983), "One need not be a professional psychoanalyst to see the ghost stories as some release from feelings held in check." Reviewing this biography (Daily Telegraph, 1983), the novelist and diarist Anthony Powell
, who attended Eton under James's tutelage, commented that "I myself have heard it suggested that James's (of course platonic) love affairs were in fact fascinating to watch." Powell was referring to James's relationships with his pupils, not his peers.
Other critics have seen complex psychological undercurrents in James's work. His authorial revulsion from tactile contact with other people has been noted by Julia Briggs in Night Visitors: The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story (1977). As Nigel Kneale
said in the introduction to the Folio Society
edition of Ghost Stories of M. R. James, "In an age where every man is his own psychologist, M. R. James looks like rich and promising material.… There must have been times when it was hard to be Monty James." Or, to put it another way, "Although James conjures up strange beasts and supernatural manifestations, the shock effect of his stories is usually strongest when he is dealing in physical mutilation and abnormality, generally sketched in with the lightest of pens"
In addition to writing his own stories, James championed the works of Sheridan Le Fanu
, whom he viewed as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories", editing and supplying introductions to Madame Crowl's Ghost (1923) and Uncle Silas (1926).
James's statements about his actual beliefs about ghosts were ambiguous. He wrote, "I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me."
(1968, directed by Jonathan Miller
) and A Warning to the Curious
(1972; directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark
), starring Sir Michael Hordern
and Peter Vaughan
respectively. Both were released on DVD
by the British Film Institute
but are now out-of-print. The latter was part of an annual series titled A Ghost Story for Christmas
. Five dramatizations of James stories were included: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) and The Ash-tree (1975).
The first TV adaptation was American—a 1952 version of "The Tractate Middoth" in the Lights Out series, called "The Lost Will of Dr Rant" and featuring Leslie Nielsen
. It is available on several DVDs, including an Alpha Video release alongside Gore Vidal's Climax! adaptation of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, starring Michael Rennie
.
Although ITV
produced four black-and-white adaptations of James's ghost stories between 1966 and 1968, no surviving copies are known to exist. However, a short preview trailer featuring several scenes from Casting the Runes survived and has been shown at cult film festivals. It is also available on Network DVD
's Mystery and Imagination DVD set. "Casting the Runes" was also adapted for television in 1979 as an episode of the ITV Playhouse series.
In 1975 Yorkshire Television produced a twenty-minute adaptation of "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance" for schools. In 1979 they produced a contemporary version of "Casting the Runes", with Lawrence Gordon Clark directing.
In December 1986 BBC2 broadcast partially dramatized readings by the actor Robert Powell
of "The Mezzotint", "The Ash-Tree", "Wailing Well", "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "The Rose Garden". In a similar vein, the BBC also produced a short series (M. R. James' Ghost Stories for Christmas) of further readings in 2000, which featured Christopher Lee
as James, who (in character) read adaptations of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral", "The Ash-tree", "Number 13" and "A Warning to the Curious".
The 1970s Ghost Story for Christmas tradition was briefly revived in December 2005, when BBC Four
broadcast a new version of James's story "A View from a Hill", with "Number 13" following in December 2006. These were broadly faithful to the originals and were quite well received. A heavily revised version of Whistle and I'll Come to You was broadcast by BBC Two
on Christmas Eve 2010.
All the BBC adaptations made between 1968 and 2010 will be released on BBC DVD in Australia in October 2011. The release will also feature Christopher Lee's reading of James' stories from 2000.
radio series Escape
was an adaptation of "Casting the Runes".
On 12 January 1974, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater
, hosted by E. G. Marshall
, presented the episode "This will Kill You", which was an updated, loose adaptation of "Casting the Runes".
In January 1981, BBC Radio 4
broadcast an Afternoon Play called "The Hex", written by Gregory Evans and loosely based on "Casting the Runes", starring Conrad Phillips
and Kim Hartman
. The play was subsequently transmitted, in translation, in several other countries.
In 1997–1998 Radio 4 broadcast The Late Book: Ghost Stories, a series of 15-minute readings of M. R. James stories, abridged and produced by Paul Kent and narrated by Benjamin Whitrow
(repeated on BBC 7
, December 2003–January 2004, September–October 2004, February 2007, October–November 2011). The stories were "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book
", "Lost Hearts", "A School Story", "The Haunted Dolls' House" and "Rats".
In the 1980s, a series of four double audio cassettes was released by Argo Records
, featuring nineteen unabridged James stories narrated by Michael Hordern
. The tapes were titled Ghost Stories (1982), More Ghost Stories (1984), A Warning to the Curious (1985) and No. 13 and Other Ghost Stories (1988). ISIS Audio Books also released two collections of unabridged James stories, this time narrated by Nigel Lambert
. These tapes were titled A Warning to the Curious and Other Tales (four audio cassettes, six stories, March 1992) and Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (three audio cassettes, eight stories, December 1992).
In Spring 2007 UK-based Craftsman Audio Books released the first complete set of audio recordings of James's stories on CD, spread across two volumes and read by David Collings
. The ghost story author Reggie Oliver
acted as consultant on the project.
April 2007 also saw the release of Tales of the Supernatural, Volume One, an audiobook presentation by Fantom Films, featuring the James stories "Lost Hearts" read by Geoffrey Bayldon
, "Rats" and "Number 13" by Ian Fairbairn, with Gareth David-Lloyd
reading "Casting the Runes" and "There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard". Volume Two was to follow in the summer.
Over the 2007 Christmas period Radio 4 revived the tradition of James's ghost stories for the festive period with a series of adaptations of his most popular tales. Each lasted around 15 minutes and was introduced by Derek Jacobi as James himself. Due to the short running times the tales were fairly rushed, with much of the stories condensed or removed. Stories adapted included "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad", "Number 13" and "Lost Hearts".
As of 2010 the audiobooks site LibriVox
offers a set of audio readings (available as free downloads) under the collective heading "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary".
as Night of the Demon
(1957; U.S. title The Curse of the Demon), starring Dana Andrews
, Peggy Cummins
and Niall MacGinnis
. The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1960) appears to quote the padlocked coffin scene from "Count Magnus", while Michele Soavi
's 1989 film La Chiesa
(The Church) -- which features a script co-authored by Dario Argento
-- borrows the motif of the "stone with seven eyes", as well as a few other important details, from "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas".
, England, on 9–10 June 2006 by the Pandemonium Theatre Company.
In 2006–2007, Nunkie Theatre Company toured A Pleasing Terror round the UK and Ireland. This one-man show was an atmospheric retelling of two of James's tales, "Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book" and "The Mezzotint". In October 2007 a sequel, Oh, Whistle..., comprising "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "The Ash-tree", began to tour the UK. The final part of Nunkie's M. R. James trilogy, A Warning to the Curious, comprising the eponymous story and "Lost Hearts", will begin touring the UK in October 2009. Nunkie's Robert Lloyd Parry has said that it will probably be his last M. R. James tour.
In 2011, production began on a brand-new stage adaptation of 'Whistle and I'll Come to You' based on the story by M.R. James. It will be touring the UK this Summer.
was an admirer of James's work, extolling the stories as the peak of the ghost story form in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature
" (1927). Another renowned fan of James in the horror and fantasy genre was Clark Ashton Smith
, who wrote an essay on him. The author John Bellairs
paid homage to James by incorporating plot elements borrowed from James's ghost stories into several of his own juvenile mysteries. Other writers in the Jamesian tradition include A. N. L. Munby, E. G. Swain
, and R. H. Malden, although their stories are generally considered to be inferior to those of James himself. The stories of M. R. James continue to influence many of today's great supernatural writers, including Stephen King
(The Shining, etc.) and Ramsey Campbell
, who edited Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M. R. James and wrote the short story "The Guide" in tribute.
Sir John Betjeman
, in an introduction to Peter Haining's book about James, shows how influenced he was by James's work:
Betjeman later discovered the stories were all based on those of M. R. James.
wrote two pieces for piano with a link to James: “Quaere reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora” (1940), inspired by "Count Magnus", and St. Bertrand de Comminges: “He was laughing in the tower” (1941), inspired by "Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book".
Between 1976 and 1992, Sheila Hodgson authored and produced for BBC Radio 4
a series of plays which portrayed M. R. James as the diarist of a series of fictional ghost stories, mainly inspired by fragments referred to in his essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write". These consisted of Whisper in the Ear (October 1976), Turn, Turn, Turn (March 1977), The Backward Glance (22 September 1977), Here Am I, Where Are You? (29 December 1977), Echoes from the Abbey (21 November 1984), The Lodestone (19 April 1989), and The Boat Hook (15 April 1992). David March appeared as James in all but the final two, which starred Michael Williams. Raidió Teilifís Éireann
also broadcast The Fellow Travellers, with Aiden Grennell as James, on 20 February 1994. All the stories later appeared in Hodgson's collection The Fellow Travellers and Other Ghost Stories (Ash-Tree Press, 1998).
On Christmas Day 1987, "The Teeth of Abbot Thomas", an MRJ parody by Stephen Sheridan, was broadcast on Radio 4. It starred Alfred Marks
(as Abbot Thomas), Robert Bathurst
, Denise Coffey
, Jonathan Adams and Bill Wallis
.
In 2003, Radio 4 broadcast The House at World's End by Stephen Sheridan. A pastiche of James's work, it contained numerous echoes of his stories while offering a fictional account of how he became interested in the supernatural. James was played by John Rowe
, with Jonathan Keeble playing James's younger self.
In 2008 the English
experimental neofolk
duo The Triple Tree, featuring Tony Wakeford
and Andrew King from Sol Invictus
, released the album Ghosts on which all but three songs were based upon the stories of James. One of the songs, "Three Crowns" (based on the short story "A Warning to the Curious"), also appeared on the compilation album John Barleycorn Reborn (2007).
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
of King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
(1905–1918) and of Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
(1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
, which are regarded as among the best in the genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
clichés
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".
Early influences
James was born in GoodnestoneGoodnestone, Dover
Goodnestone is a village in the district of Dover, Kent, England.-Goodnestone Park near Sandwich:Goodnestone Park is a stately home near the Canterbury–Sandwich village. It was built in 1704 by Brook Bridges, 1st Baronet....
Parsonage in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England, although his parents had associations with Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. From the age of three (1865) until 1909 his home, if not always his residence, was at the Rectory in Great Livermere
Great Livermere
Great Livermere is a village and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around four miles north-east of Bury St Edmunds, in 2005 its population was 230....
, Suffolk. This had also been the childhood home of another eminent Suffolk antiquary, "Honest Tom" Martin (1696–1771) "of Palgrave
Palgrave
- Companies :*Palgrave Macmillan, an academic publishing company[The Palgrave Society], studying the history and genealogy of families with the surname Palgrave or any of its many variants.- People :*John Palsgrave - Companies :*Palgrave Macmillan, an academic publishing company[The Palgrave...
." Several of his ghost stories are set in Suffolk, including "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" (Felixstowe
Felixstowe
Felixstowe is a seaside town on the North Sea coast of Suffolk, England. The town gives its name to the nearby Port of Felixstowe, which is the largest container port in the United Kingdom and is owned by Hutchinson Ports UK...
), "A Warning to the Curious" (Aldeburgh), "Rats" and "A Vignette" (Great Livermere). He lived for many years, first as an undergraduate, then as a don and provost, at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
. The university provides settings for several of his tales. Apart from mediaeval subjects, James studied the classics and appeared very successfully in a staging of Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
' play The Birds
The Birds (play)
The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BCE at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs...
, with music by Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
. His ability as an actor was also apparent when he read his new ghost stories to friends at Christmas time.
Scholarly works
James is best known for his ghost stories, but his work as a mediaeval scholar was prodigious and remains highly respected in scholarly circles. Indeed, the success of his stories was founded on his antiquarian talents and knowledge. His discovery of a manuscript fragment led to excavations in the ruins of the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, in 1902, in which the graves of several twelfth-century abbots described by Jocelyn de BrakelondJocelyn de Brakelond
Jocelyn de Brakelond was an English monk and the author of a chronicle narrating the fortunes of the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey between 1173 and 1202. He is only known through his own work.He was a native of Bury St...
(a contemporary chronicler) were rediscovered, having been lost since the Dissolution
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
. His 1917 edition of the Latin Lives of Saint Aethelberht, king and martyr (English Historical Review 32), remains authoritative.
He catalogued many of the manuscript libraries of the Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
colleges. Among his other scholarly works, he wrote The Apocalypse in Art, which placed illuminated Apocalypse manuscripts
English Apocalypse Manuscripts
Illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts are manuscripts that contain the text of Revelation or a commentary on Revelation and also illustrations. Many of the more famous Apocalypse manuscripts were made in England c. 1250-1400....
into families. He also translated the New Testament Apocrypha
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...
and contributed to the Encyclopaedia Biblica
Encyclopaedia Biblica
Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religion History, the Archeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible , edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, is a critical encyclopedia of the Bible. In Theology/Biblical studies, it is often...
(1903). His ability to wear his learning lightly is apparent in his Suffolk and Norfolk (Dent, 1930), in which a great deal of knowledge is presented in a popular and accessible form, and in Abbeys (Great Western Railway, 1925).
James also achieved a great deal during his directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
in Cambridge [1893–1908]. He managed to secure a large number of important paintings and manuscripts, including notable portraits by Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
.
Ghost stories
James's ghost stories were published in a series of collections: Ghost Stories of an AntiquaryGhost Stories of an Antiquary
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is the title of M. R. James' first collection of ghost stories, published in 1904...
(1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others
A Thin Ghost and Others
A Thin Ghost and Others is M. R. James' third collection of ghost stories, published in 1919.-Contents of the original edition:* "The Residence at Whitminster"* "The Diary of Mr Poynter"* "An Episode of Cathedral History"...
(1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories
A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories
A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories is the title of M. R. James' fourth and final collection of ghost stories, published in 1925....
(1925). The first hardback collected edition appeared in 1931. Many of the tales were written as Christmas Eve entertainments and read aloud to friends. This idea was used by the BBC in 2000 when they filmed Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
reading four stories in a candle-lit room in King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
.
James perfected a method of story-telling which has since become known as Jamesian. The classic Jamesian tale usually includes the following elements:
- a characterful setting in an English village, seaside town or country estate; an ancient town in France, Denmark or Sweden; or a venerable abbey or university
- a nondescript and rather naive gentleman-scholar as protagonist (often of a reserved nature)
- the discovery of an old book or other antiquarian object that somehow unlocks, calls down the wrath, or at least attracts the unwelcome attention of a supernatural menace, usually from beyond the grave
According to James, the story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself: 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'" He also perfected the technique of narrating supernatural events through implication and suggestion, letting his reader fill in the blanks, and focusing on the mundane details of his settings and characters in order to throw the horrific and bizarre elements into greater relief. He summed up his approach in his foreword to the anthology Ghosts and Marvels (Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, 1924): "Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo.… Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage."
He also noted: "Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story."
Despite his suggestion (in the essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write") that writers employ reticence in their work, many of James's tales depict scenes and images of savage and often disturbing violence. For example, in "Lost Hearts", pubescent children are drugged by a sinister dabbler in the occult who then removes their hearts from their paralysed bodies. In a 1929 essay, James stated:
Reticence may be an elderly doctrine to preach, yet from the artistic point of view, I am sure it is a sound one. Reticence conduces to effect, blatancy ruins it, and there is much blatancy in a lot of recent stories. They drag in sex too, which is a fatal mistake; sex is tiresome enough in the novels; in a ghost story, or as the backbone of a ghost story, I have no patience with it. At the same time don't let us be mild and drab. Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, 'the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded; the weltering and wallowing that I too often encounter merely recall the methods of M G Lewis.
Although not overtly sexual, plots of this nature have been perceived as unintentional metaphors of the Freudian variety. James's biographer Michael Cox wrote in M. R. James: An Informal Portrait (1983), "One need not be a professional psychoanalyst to see the ghost stories as some release from feelings held in check." Reviewing this biography (Daily Telegraph, 1983), the novelist and diarist Anthony Powell
Anthony Powell
Anthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....
, who attended Eton under James's tutelage, commented that "I myself have heard it suggested that James's (of course platonic) love affairs were in fact fascinating to watch." Powell was referring to James's relationships with his pupils, not his peers.
Other critics have seen complex psychological undercurrents in James's work. His authorial revulsion from tactile contact with other people has been noted by Julia Briggs in Night Visitors: The Rise and Fall of the English Ghost Story (1977). As Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
said in the introduction to the Folio Society
Folio Society
The Folio Society is a book club based in London that produces new editions of classic books. Their books are notable for their high quality bindings and original illustrations...
edition of Ghost Stories of M. R. James, "In an age where every man is his own psychologist, M. R. James looks like rich and promising material.… There must have been times when it was hard to be Monty James." Or, to put it another way, "Although James conjures up strange beasts and supernatural manifestations, the shock effect of his stories is usually strongest when he is dealing in physical mutilation and abnormality, generally sketched in with the lightest of pens"
In addition to writing his own stories, James championed the works of Sheridan Le Fanu
Sheridan Le Fanu
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era....
, whom he viewed as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories", editing and supplying introductions to Madame Crowl's Ghost (1923) and Uncle Silas (1926).
James's statements about his actual beliefs about ghosts were ambiguous. He wrote, "I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me."
Television
There have been numerous television adaptations of James's stories, mostly in Britain. Two of the best-known TV dramas include Whistle and I'll Come to YouWhistle and I'll Come to You
Whistle and I'll Come to You is the name of two BBC television drama adaptations based on the ghost story "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad" by Victorian and Edwardian academic and supernatural writer M. R. James. The story tells the tale of an introverted academic who happens upon a...
(1968, directed by Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...
) and A Warning to the Curious
A Warning to the Curious
"A Warning to the Curious" is a ghost story by M.R. James, found in his book A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories first published in 1925. The tale tells the story of Paxton, an amateur archeologist who travels to "Seaburgh" and inadvertently stumbles across one of the lost crowns of...
(1972; directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark
Lawrence Gordon Clark
Lawrence Gordon Clark is an English television director and producer, perhaps best known for his A Ghost Story for Christmas series of mostly M.R...
), starring Sir Michael Hordern
Michael Hordern
Sir Michael Murray Hordern was an English actor, knighted in 1983 for his services to the theatre, which stretched back to before the Second World War.-Personal life:...
and Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan
Peter Vaughan is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts...
respectively. Both were released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
but are now out-of-print. The latter was part of an annual series titled A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and later revived in 2005 on BBC Four. With one exception, the original instalments are directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films are all shot on 16 mm...
. Five dramatizations of James stories were included: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) and The Ash-tree (1975).
The first TV adaptation was American—a 1952 version of "The Tractate Middoth" in the Lights Out series, called "The Lost Will of Dr Rant" and featuring Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...
. It is available on several DVDs, including an Alpha Video release alongside Gore Vidal's Climax! adaptation of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, starring Michael Rennie
Michael Rennie
Michael Rennie was an English film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, he appeared in over 50 other films since 1936, many with Jean Simmons and other...
.
Although ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
produced four black-and-white adaptations of James's ghost stories between 1966 and 1968, no surviving copies are known to exist. However, a short preview trailer featuring several scenes from Casting the Runes survived and has been shown at cult film festivals. It is also available on Network DVD
Network DVD
Network DVD is a DVD publishing company that specialises in classic British television. In particular, it has the rights to a number of well-known ITV programmes...
's Mystery and Imagination DVD set. "Casting the Runes" was also adapted for television in 1979 as an episode of the ITV Playhouse series.
In 1975 Yorkshire Television produced a twenty-minute adaptation of "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance" for schools. In 1979 they produced a contemporary version of "Casting the Runes", with Lawrence Gordon Clark directing.
In December 1986 BBC2 broadcast partially dramatized readings by the actor Robert Powell
Robert Powell
Robert Powell is an English television and film actor, probably most famous for his title role in Jesus of Nazareth and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay...
of "The Mezzotint", "The Ash-Tree", "Wailing Well", "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "The Rose Garden". In a similar vein, the BBC also produced a short series (M. R. James' Ghost Stories for Christmas) of further readings in 2000, which featured Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
as James, who (in character) read adaptations of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral", "The Ash-tree", "Number 13" and "A Warning to the Curious".
The 1970s Ghost Story for Christmas tradition was briefly revived in December 2005, when BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
broadcast a new version of James's story "A View from a Hill", with "Number 13" following in December 2006. These were broadly faithful to the originals and were quite well received. A heavily revised version of Whistle and I'll Come to You was broadcast by BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on Christmas Eve 2010.
All the BBC adaptations made between 1968 and 2010 will be released on BBC DVD in Australia in October 2011. The release will also feature Christopher Lee's reading of James' stories from 2000.
Radio and audio
On 19 November 1947, the thirteenth episode of the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio series Escape
Escape (radio program)
Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure radio dramas, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. Since the program did not have a regular sponsor like Suspense, it was subjected to frequent schedule shifts and lower production budgets, although Richfield Oil signed...
was an adaptation of "Casting the Runes".
On 12 January 1974, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS affiliates from 1974 to 1982....
, hosted by E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...
, presented the episode "This will Kill You", which was an updated, loose adaptation of "Casting the Runes".
In January 1981, BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
broadcast an Afternoon Play called "The Hex", written by Gregory Evans and loosely based on "Casting the Runes", starring Conrad Phillips
Conrad Phillips
Conrad Phillips is a British film and television actor, born in London. His real name is Conrad Philip Havord.He is best known for portraying William Tell in the popular ITV television series The Adventures of William Tell which ran for 39 episodes from 1958 to 1959. Philips also played Stefan,...
and Kim Hartman
Kim Hartman
Kim Lesley Hartman is an English actress, best known for her role as Private Helga Geerhart in the British television series Allo 'Allo!.Born in London, she was educated at the King's High School For Girls....
. The play was subsequently transmitted, in translation, in several other countries.
In 1997–1998 Radio 4 broadcast The Late Book: Ghost Stories, a series of 15-minute readings of M. R. James stories, abridged and produced by Paul Kent and narrated by Benjamin Whitrow
Benjamin Whitrow
Benjamin "Ben" Whitrow is a British actor. He attended the Dragon School, Tonbridge School, and RADA. Whitrow was also part of the King's Dragoon Guards from 1956 to 1958. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1981...
(repeated on BBC 7
BBC 7
BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment...
, December 2003–January 2004, September–October 2004, February 2007, October–November 2011). The stories were "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book
Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book
"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" is the first story in the first collection of ghost stories published by M. R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary...
", "Lost Hearts", "A School Story", "The Haunted Dolls' House" and "Rats".
In the 1980s, a series of four double audio cassettes was released by Argo Records
Argo Records (UK)
Argo Records was a record label founded in 1951 by Harley Usill , and musicologist Cyril Clarke with £500 capital, initially as a company specialising in "British music played by British artists" , but it quickly became a company primarily specialising in spoken-word recordings and other esoteric ...
, featuring nineteen unabridged James stories narrated by Michael Hordern
Michael Hordern
Sir Michael Murray Hordern was an English actor, knighted in 1983 for his services to the theatre, which stretched back to before the Second World War.-Personal life:...
. The tapes were titled Ghost Stories (1982), More Ghost Stories (1984), A Warning to the Curious (1985) and No. 13 and Other Ghost Stories (1988). ISIS Audio Books also released two collections of unabridged James stories, this time narrated by Nigel Lambert
Nigel Lambert
Nigel Lambert is best known for his role as the narrator of the first series of the BBC comedy series Look Around You.He is the voice of Mr Curry in The Adventures of Paddington Bear television series and also "Papa" in the Dolmio pasta sauce puppet commercials.He also contributed extensively to...
. These tapes were titled A Warning to the Curious and Other Tales (four audio cassettes, six stories, March 1992) and Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (three audio cassettes, eight stories, December 1992).
In Spring 2007 UK-based Craftsman Audio Books released the first complete set of audio recordings of James's stories on CD, spread across two volumes and read by David Collings
David Collings
David Collings is a British actor. He has played many different roles on various television programmes, including the leading dramatic role in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in 1964....
. The ghost story author Reggie Oliver
Reggie Oliver
Reggie Oliver is an English playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories.-Life and career:Reggie Oliver was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford , and has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975.He has worked in radio, television, films, and...
acted as consultant on the project.
April 2007 also saw the release of Tales of the Supernatural, Volume One, an audiobook presentation by Fantom Films, featuring the James stories "Lost Hearts" read by Geoffrey Bayldon
Geoffrey Bayldon
Geoffrey Bayldon is a British actor. After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle , after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in the long-running BBC science fiction...
, "Rats" and "Number 13" by Ian Fairbairn, with Gareth David-Lloyd
Gareth David-Lloyd
Gareth David-Lloyd is a Welsh actor best known for his role as Ianto Jones in the British science fiction television programme Torchwood.- Early life :...
reading "Casting the Runes" and "There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard". Volume Two was to follow in the summer.
Over the 2007 Christmas period Radio 4 revived the tradition of James's ghost stories for the festive period with a series of adaptations of his most popular tales. Each lasted around 15 minutes and was introduced by Derek Jacobi as James himself. Due to the short running times the tales were fairly rushed, with much of the stories condensed or removed. Stories adapted included "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad", "Number 13" and "Lost Hearts".
As of 2010 the audiobooks site LibriVox
LibriVox
LibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...
offers a set of audio readings (available as free downloads) under the collective heading "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary".
Film
The only notable film version of James's work to date has been the British adaptation of "Casting the Runes" by Jacques TourneurJacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur was a French-American film director.-Life:Born in Paris, France, he was the son of film director Maurice Tourneur. At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father. He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk...
as Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon is a 1957 British horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis. An adaptation of the M. R...
(1957; U.S. title The Curse of the Demon), starring Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Peggy Cummins
Peggy Cummins
Peggy Cummins is a retired Irish actress. Cummins is best known for her performance in Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy , playing a trigger happy femme fatale who robs banks with her lover .-Early life:...
and Niall MacGinnis
Niall MacGinnis
Niall MacGinnis was an Irish actor who made 80 screen appearances.-Early life:MacGinnis was born in Dublin in 1913. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in England, and studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon...
. The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1960) appears to quote the padlocked coffin scene from "Count Magnus", while Michele Soavi
Michele Soavi
Michele Soavi, sometimes known as Michael Soavi is an Italian filmmaker.-Career:Michele Soavi was born in Milan. As a teenager, Soavi enrolled in creative arts classes and developed into a talented actor. He took acting lessons at Milan's Fersen Studios, but his greatest talent was working behind...
's 1989 film La Chiesa
The Church (film)
The Church is a 1989 Italian horror film written and produced by Dario Argento and directed by Michele Soavi. The film stars Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Barbara Cupisti, Asia Argento, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., and Giovanni Lombardo Radice...
(The Church) -- which features a script co-authored by Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
-- borrows the motif of the "stone with seven eyes", as well as a few other important details, from "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas".
Stage
The first stage version of "Casting the Runes" was performed at the Carriageworks Theatre in LeedsLeeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, England, on 9–10 June 2006 by the Pandemonium Theatre Company.
In 2006–2007, Nunkie Theatre Company toured A Pleasing Terror round the UK and Ireland. This one-man show was an atmospheric retelling of two of James's tales, "Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book" and "The Mezzotint". In October 2007 a sequel, Oh, Whistle..., comprising "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "The Ash-tree", began to tour the UK. The final part of Nunkie's M. R. James trilogy, A Warning to the Curious, comprising the eponymous story and "Lost Hearts", will begin touring the UK in October 2009. Nunkie's Robert Lloyd Parry has said that it will probably be his last M. R. James tour.
In 2011, production began on a brand-new stage adaptation of 'Whistle and I'll Come to You' based on the story by M.R. James. It will be touring the UK this Summer.
Influence
H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
was an admirer of James's work, extolling the stories as the peak of the ghost story form in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature
Supernatural Horror in Literature
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a long essay by the celebrated horror writer H. P. Lovecraft surveying the field of horror fiction. It was written between November 1925 and May 1927 and revised in 1933-1934. It was first published in 1927 in the one-shot magazine The Recluse...
" (1927). Another renowned fan of James in the horror and fantasy genre was Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
, who wrote an essay on him. The author John Bellairs
John Bellairs
John Anthony Bellairs was an American author, best known for his well-respected fantasy novel The Face in the Frost as well as many gothic mystery novels for young adults featuring Lewis Barnavelt, Anthony Monday, and Johnny Dixon.-Biography:After earning degrees at University of Notre Dame and...
paid homage to James by incorporating plot elements borrowed from James's ghost stories into several of his own juvenile mysteries. Other writers in the Jamesian tradition include A. N. L. Munby, E. G. Swain
E. G. Swain
Edmund Gill Swain was an English cleric and author. As a chaplain of King's College, Cambridge, he was a colleague and contemporary of the scholar and author M. R. James, and a regular member of the select group to whom James delivered his famous annual Christmas Eve reading of a ghost story...
, and R. H. Malden, although their stories are generally considered to be inferior to those of James himself. The stories of M. R. James continue to influence many of today's great supernatural writers, including Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
(The Shining, etc.) and Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell
John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...
, who edited Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M. R. James and wrote the short story "The Guide" in tribute.
Sir John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
, in an introduction to Peter Haining's book about James, shows how influenced he was by James's work:
In the year 1920 I was a new boy at the Dragon schoolDragon SchoolThe Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...
, OxfordOxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, then called Lynam's, of which the headmaster was C. C. Lynam, known as 'the Skipper'. He dressed and looked like an old Sea Salt, and in his gruff voice would tell us stories by firelight in the boys' room of an evening with all the lights out and his back to the fire. I remember he told the stories as having happened to himself.…they were the best stories I ever heard, and gave me an interest in old churches, and country houses, and Scandinavia that not even the mighty Hans Christian Andersen eclipsed.
Betjeman later discovered the stories were all based on those of M. R. James.
Works inspired by James
The composer Kaikhosru Shapurji SorabjiKaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was an English composer, music critic, pianist, and writer.-Biography:...
wrote two pieces for piano with a link to James: “Quaere reliqua hujus materiei inter secretiora” (1940), inspired by "Count Magnus", and St. Bertrand de Comminges: “He was laughing in the tower” (1941), inspired by "Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book".
Between 1976 and 1992, Sheila Hodgson authored and produced for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
a series of plays which portrayed M. R. James as the diarist of a series of fictional ghost stories, mainly inspired by fragments referred to in his essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write". These consisted of Whisper in the Ear (October 1976), Turn, Turn, Turn (March 1977), The Backward Glance (22 September 1977), Here Am I, Where Are You? (29 December 1977), Echoes from the Abbey (21 November 1984), The Lodestone (19 April 1989), and The Boat Hook (15 April 1992). David March appeared as James in all but the final two, which starred Michael Williams. Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
also broadcast The Fellow Travellers, with Aiden Grennell as James, on 20 February 1994. All the stories later appeared in Hodgson's collection The Fellow Travellers and Other Ghost Stories (Ash-Tree Press, 1998).
On Christmas Day 1987, "The Teeth of Abbot Thomas", an MRJ parody by Stephen Sheridan, was broadcast on Radio 4. It starred Alfred Marks
Alfred Marks
Alfred Edward Marks OBE was a comic actor and comedian.-Biography:Marks was born as Ruchel Kutchinsky in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged...
(as Abbot Thomas), Robert Bathurst
Robert Bathurst
Robert Guy Bathurst is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school...
, Denise Coffey
Denise Coffey
Denise Coffey is an English actress, director, and playwright.After training at the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art, Coffey began a career in repertory at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh, then moved to the Palladium Theatre there...
, Jonathan Adams and Bill Wallis
Bill Wallis
Bill Wallis is a British character actor and comedian who has appeared in numerous radio and television roles, as well as in the theatre....
.
In 2003, Radio 4 broadcast The House at World's End by Stephen Sheridan. A pastiche of James's work, it contained numerous echoes of his stories while offering a fictional account of how he became interested in the supernatural. James was played by John Rowe
John Rowe (actor)
-TV:*BBC Television Shakespeare - Henry VIII *Juliet Bravo *When the Boat Comes In *Chambers *Agatha Christie's Poirot...
, with Jonathan Keeble playing James's younger self.
In 2008 the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
experimental neofolk
Neofolk
Neofolk is a form of folk music-inspired experimental music that emerged from post-industrial music circles. Neofolk can either be solely acoustic folk music or a blend of acoustic folk instrumentation aided by varieties of accompanying sounds such as pianos, strings and elements of industrial...
duo The Triple Tree, featuring Tony Wakeford
Tony Wakeford
Anthony Charles "Tony" Wakeford is an English folk and neoclassical musician who primarily records under the name Sol Invictus.Wakeford lives in London and is married to Sol Invictus violinist Renée Rosen....
and Andrew King from Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus was the official sun god of the later Roman empire. In 274 Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol, a revival of the cult of Elagabalus or completely new...
, released the album Ghosts on which all but three songs were based upon the stories of James. One of the songs, "Three Crowns" (based on the short story "A Warning to the Curious"), also appeared on the compilation album John Barleycorn Reborn (2007).
Scholarly works
- Apocrypha Anecdota. 1893–1897.
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge University Press, 1895. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108003964
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Jesus College. Clay and Sons, 1895. Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781108003513
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse. Cambridge University Press, 1899. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108003070
- The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College. Cambridge University Press, 1904. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108003087
- The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College. 4 vols. Cambridge University Press, 1904. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108002882
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1905. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108000284
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College. 2 vols. Cambridge University Press, 1907. Reissued by the publisher, 2009; ISBN 9781108002486
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1912. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108004855
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John's College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1913. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108003100
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the McClean Collection of Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge University Press, 1913. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 9781108003094
- The Biblical Antiquities of Philo. 1917.
- Henry the Sixth: A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir. 1919.
- The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts. 1919.
- The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament. 1920.
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1923. Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781108002059
- The Apocryphal New Testament. 1924.
- Lists of manuscripts formerly in Peterborough Abbey library: with preface and identifications. Oxford University Press, 1926. Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 9781108011358
- The Apocalypse in Art. Schweich Lectures for 1927.
- The Bestiary: Being a Reproduction in Full of the Manuscript Ii.4.26 in the University Library, Cambridge. Printed for the Roxburghe club, by John Johnson at the University Press, 1928.
- Descriptive Catalogues of the Manuscripts in the Libraries of Some Cambridge Colleges. Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781108002585
- New and Old at Cambridge' article on the Cambridge of 1882. 'Fifty Years', various contributors, Thornton Butterworth,1932
First book publications
- Ghost Stories of an AntiquaryGhost Stories of an AntiquaryGhost Stories of an Antiquary is the title of M. R. James' first collection of ghost stories, published in 1904...
. 1904. - More Ghost StoriesMore Ghost StoriesMore Ghost Stories is the title of M. R. James' second collection of ghost stories, published in 1911. Some later editions under the title Ghost Stories of an Antiquary contain with the preceding "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" in one volume....
. 1911. - A Thin Ghost and OthersA Thin Ghost and OthersA Thin Ghost and Others is M. R. James' third collection of ghost stories, published in 1919.-Contents of the original edition:* "The Residence at Whitminster"* "The Diary of Mr Poynter"* "An Episode of Cathedral History"...
. 1919. - A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost StoriesA Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost StoriesA Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories is the title of M. R. James' fourth and final collection of ghost stories, published in 1925....
. 1925. - Wailing Well. 1928.
Reprint collections
- The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. JamesThe Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. JamesThe Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James is the title of M. R. James' omnibus collection of ghost stories, published in 1931, bringing together all but four of his ghost stories ....
. 1931. - Best Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 1944.
- The Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 1986. Selection by Michael Cox, including an excellent introduction with numerous photographs.
- Two Ghost Stories: A Centenary. 1993.
- The Fenstanton Witch and Others: M. R. James in Ghosts and Scholars. 1999.
- A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings. 2001.
- Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. 2005. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by S. T. JoshiS. T. JoshiSunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
. - The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories. 2006. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by S. T. Joshi.
Children's books
- The Five Jars. 1920.
- As translator: Forty-Two Stories, by Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
, translated and with an introduction by M. R. James. 1930.
External links
- A complete chronological bibliography of all of his writings hosted by the University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
School of Arts and Sciences - Complete list of ghost stories by M. R. James
- Ghosts & Scholars - exhaustive online magazine devoted to James and related literature and writers
- A Guide to Supernatural Fiction - descriptions and images of James's books of fiction
- Nunkie Theatre Company - a Cambridge-based theatre company, presenting a trilogy of one man shows based on the works of M. R. James
- A Thin Ghost - collections include comprehensive Film & TV listing, bibliography of fictional works and M.R.James related illustrations
- BBC Suffolk feature about MR James - a look at the author's links with Great Livermere and Suffolk
- Ghost stories of an antiquary - LibriVox (Freely available volunteer driven audio recordings)
- Works by Montague Rhodes James (published after 1923 and can't be hosted at Wikisource)
- A Podcast to the Curious - A podcast dedicated to M.R. James