Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James
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It contained revised versions of the titular short story draft (originally published in Ghosts & Scholars No.12 [1990]), “Marcillyle-Hayer” (Ghosts & Scholars No.22 [1996]), “John Humphreys” (Ghosts & Scholars No.16 [1993]) and “A Night in King’s College Chapel,” which was possibly written as early as 1892 and received its first publication in Ghosts & Scholars No.7 (1985).
The booklet also featured the first publication of the incomplete story drafts “The Game of Bear,” “Speaker Lenthall’s Tomb” (in a severely truncated version) and “Merfield House,” along with a reprint of “The Malice of Inanimate Objects,” the revised transcript of the original notes for a lecture James gave on “The Novels and Stories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu” at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on March 16, 1923 (first published in Ghosts & Scholars No.7), a selection of letters written by the author to Sibyl Cropper and another, written in 1928, to Nicholas Llewelyn Davies (with notes by Jack Adrian).
After twenty-one years and thirty-three issues, Pardoe’s Ghosts & Scholars changed its name to The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter in 2002, ceased publishing fiction and started producing both electronic and paper editions, but soon dropped the electronic version. A twice-yearly hard-copy edition continues to be published today, and the magazine has recently started including fiction again.
Issue No.20 (October 2011) included a previously unpublished supernatural poem by James, contained in a letter written to his family from Cyprus in January 1888. It was titled “Living Night” for its appearance in the twice-yearly periodical.
In 1979, respected British anthologist Peter Haining compiled M.R. James—Book of the Supernatural, which brought together various obscure pieces by and about the author (including the stories originally unearthed by Richard Dalby and Hugh Lamb), along with contributions by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Erckmann-Chatrian. Sir John Betjeman supplied a brief Foreword, while Christopher Lee was represented by “A Tribute to M.R.J.” The book was reprinted in America three years later under the title M.R. James—The Book of Ghost Stories.
The Ghost Story Press issued Two Ghost Stories: A Centenary in 1993, which included facsimile reproductions of the original manuscripts of “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book” and “Lost Hearts.” Limited to 200 numbered copies, the book was edited by Barbara and Christopher Roden, with an Introduction by Michael Cox and an Afterword by Rosemary Pardoe.
Selected by Ramsey Campbell and published by The British Library in 2001, Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M.R. James was a tribute anthology containing stories by the author’s precursors, contemporaries and successors, along with a useful Bibliography of “The James Gang” by Rosemary Pardoe.
By far the most impressive volume ever produced of the author’s work was A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings of M.R. James, published by Canada’s Ash-Tree Press the same year. Edited once again by the Rodens, this hefty (more than 650 pages) compilation contained annotated versions of all James’ stories and fragments, plus various prefaces and articles. Steve Duffy contributed an Introduction, there was a memoir by S.G. Lubbock, along with a Select Bibliography and a checklist of James on film, radio and television. Boasting thirty-three illustrations and cover art by Paul Lowe, the book was limited to just 1,000 copies and sold for $75.00. It quickly went out of print, and copies nowadays command £300 upward.
In 2004, Rosemary Pardoe published Occult Sciences, which featured the first-ever publication of the text of a long talk given by James on February 5, 1881. Tales from Lectoure (2006), also from Pardoe, contained the first publication of an even longer talk given by the author on a strange series of 19th-century folk and supernatural tales from south-west France, and included James’ translations of six of the stories.
Available as a print-on-demand volume from Hippocampus Press in 2007, Warnings to the Curious: A Sheaf of Criticism on M.R. James collected twenty-eight essays on the ghost story author, coedited by S.T. Joshi and Rosemary Pardoe.
In 2012—coincidentally the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth—Britain’s Royal Mail issued a commemorative M.R. James stamp as part of its “Britons of Distinction” set, which also featured architects Sir Basil Spence and Augustus Pugin, composer Frederick Delius, textile designer Mary (May) Morris, inventor Thomas Newcomen, opera singer Kathleen Ferrier, mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing, social reformer Joan Mary Fry, and World War II secret agent Odette Sansom Hallowes.
The First Class stamp featured a photo of the “Cambridge academic and author of chilling ghost stories” from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
M.R. James’ antiquarian ghost stories—despite their somewhat archaic language and dry protagonists—are as popular today as when they were first published, more than eighty years ago.
When asked about his approach to writing this kind of fiction, the author self-deprecatorily replied: “There is no receipt for success in this form of fiction more than in any other. The public, as Dr. Johnson said, are the ultimate judges: if they are pleased, it is well; if not, it is no use to tell them why they ought to have been pleased.”
Given the enduring popularity of Dr. James’ ghostly tales, I think that we can safely assume that the public is still very pleased indeed.
Stephen Jones
London, England
September, 2011
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES (1862–1936) was Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and Eton. Most of his ghost stories were occasional pieces, written for friends or college magazines, and were collected in Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary (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). Widely regarded as one of the finest authors of supernatural fiction in the English language, James is credited as the originator of the “antiquarian ghost story,” replacing the Gothic horrors of the previous century with more contemporary settings for his subtle hauntings. Many of his stories were originally written as Christmas entertainments and were read aloud by the author to selected gatherings of friends.
STEPHEN JONES is one of Britain’s most acclaimed anthologists of horror and dark fantasy. He has more than 115 books to his credit and has won numerous awards. You can visit his website at www.stephenjoneseditor.com
LES EDWARDS is an award-winning artist who has established himself as a stalwart of the British fantasy, horror and science fiction illustration scene in a career spanning more than thirty-five years. You can visit his website at www.lesedwards.com
† We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it.
† He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father’s “obsession.”
† The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de Mauléon. Versicle. O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci.).
Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701.
The “Gallia Christiana” gives the date of the Canon’s death as December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure.” Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
† Mr. Rogers was wrong, vide Dombey and Son, chapter xii.
† An account of the Premonstratensian abbey of Steinfeld, in the Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published at Cologne in 1712 by Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet Norbertinum is due to the fact that St. Norbert was founder of the Premonstratensian Order.
† There is a place for gold where it is hidden.
†† They have on their raiment a writing which no man knoweth.
††† Upon one stone are seven eyes.
† Keep that which is committed to thee.
† Apparently the ichneumon
fly (Ophion obscurum), and not the true sawfly, is meant.
† by William Frend de Morgan (1907)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Editor’s Note
Ghosts – Treat Them Gently!
Ghost Stories
Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book
Lost Hearts
The Ash-tree
Count Magnus
The Mezzotint
Number 13
‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
Casting the Runes
Martin’s Close
Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance
The Rose Garden
A School Story
The Tractate Middoth
The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance
An Episode of Cathedral History
The Diary of Mr. Poynter
The Residence at Whitminster
Two Doctors
The Uncommon Prayer-book
The Five Jars
I: The Discovery
II: The First Jar
III: The Second Jar
IV: The Small People
V: Danger to the Jars
VI: The Cat, Wag, Slim and Others
VII: The Bat-Ball
VIII: Wag at Home
The Haunted Dolls’ House
A Neighbour’s Landmark
After Dark in the Playing Fields
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
A View from a Hill
A Warning to the Curious
An Evening’s Entertainment
Wailing Well
Rats
The Experiment: A New Year’s Eve Ghost Story
The Malice of Inanimate Objects
A Vignette
The Bulbul and the Cuckoo: An Indian Folk Tale
Stories I Have Tried to Write
A Night in King’s College Chapel
The Fenstanton Witch
John Humphreys
Marcilly-le-Hayer
The Game of Bear
Speaker Lenthall’s Tomb
Merfield House
Living Night
Some Remarks on Ghost Stories
Afterword: ‘The Stony Grin of Unearthly Malice’ by Stephen Jones
Footnotes
Chapter 3
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 21
Chapter 47