Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!
(all together now):
Happy One Hundred and Fiftieth Birthday,
dear Mo-o-o-nty!
Happy Birthday to You!
And to celebrate the birth of Britain’s greatest teller of ghost stories, I hope you’re all going to rush out and buy Curious Warnings , which is not only the most beautiful collection of M.R. James’ stories, but it’s also the most complete edition – thanks in great part to Nick James, his great-nephew, and Rosemary and Darrell Pardoe, of the Ghost Story Society, who graciously allowed us to include several unfinished pieces which previously only been seen in the Pardoes’ Ghosts and Scholars – thanks, guys!
And no Burgundy Book from Jo Fletcher Books would be complete with the fantastic illustrations provided by multi-award-winning artist Les Edwards – here’s just one of the glories within our magnificent tome.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the tireless efforts of editor Stephen Jones, who not only tracked down all the stories, but also punctuated them for greater clarity, and provided his usual riveting Afterword, telling us all about Montague Rhodes James and his writing and publishing career; it’s not just a fascinating read, it’s also an invaluable resource, and you can also find a short piece by Stephen on his favourite M.R. James stories below. Thanks, Steve!
So who is M.R. James? He was born in Goodnestone Parsonage, in the village of Goodnestone, near Canterbury in Kent on August 1st, 1862 (hence the whole ‘Happy Birthday’ thing). He was educated at home until he was eleven years old, then he went to Eton College on a scholarship – and unlike many former alumni who didn’t care for the peculiarities of a unique school, he loved it there.
He went up to King’s College, Cambridge where, eschewing the family traditions of joining either the clergy or military, he stayed, becoming one of the foremost scholars of his generation, specialising in Divinity, the Classics and French.
He worked his way through Fellow, Dean and Tutor until, in May 1905, he accepted the post of Provost of King’s, before returning to his beloved Eton in 1918, where he remained Provost until his death – so it’s quite right that Eton should commemorate one of their many distinguished old boys by turning him into a gargoyle (no, Beloved Reader, not literally – although I grant you that would be even cooler!)
M.R. James started writing fiction in his early thirties, writing his now-celebrated ‘antiquarian ghost stories’ to read aloud as Christmas entertainments at Cambridge’s select Chit-Chat Club. His first two, ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’ and ‘Lost Hearts’ were an overwhelming success – and after that, it became traditional for Monty to regale his friends and fans with a new ghostly tale every Christmas Eve.
It took some time for those same chums to persuade Monty to publish the stories, and the first collection, Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary, got some pretty lukewarm reviews – but his second collection, enticingly entitled, More Ghost Stories, gained him a number of celebrity admirers, including Arthur Machen, Montague Summers, Thomas Hardy, A.E. Houseman, Theodore Roosevelt and even the Prince of Wales.
As well our own commemorative volume of Curious Warnings and Eton’s gargoyle, earlier this year, the Royal Mail issued a commemorative M.R. James stamp as part of its ‘Britons of Distinction’ set – so it looks like Monty has finally come of age!
So let’s raise a Happy Birthday glass to one of the greatest ghost story writers ever, and hope that a whole new generation will discover his masterful way with terror – for M.R. James is proof positive that the most disturbing horror fiction does not always have to be the most explicit.
Jo Fletcher
(with thanks to Stephen Jones for the informative bits
and Les Edwards for the author pic!)
MY FAVOURITE M.R. JAMES STORIES by Stephen Jones
I guess my favourite M.R. James story is ‘A Warning to the Curious’, simply because I find it the most quintessential of all the author’s supernatural fiction. It has the desolate coastal setting, the narrative-within-a-narrative structure, a legendary ‘cursed object’ (in this case an ancient holy crown) and the hint of something very nasty indeed seeking revenge for being disturbed:
And there were tracks on the sand as of someone running who wore shoes; and there were other tracks made before those – for the shoes sometimes trod in them and interfered with them – of someone not in shoes . . . All we could do was to notice these marks as we hurried on. But there they were over and over again, and we had no doubt whatever that what we saw was the track of a bare foot, and one that showed more bones than flesh.
If you were to read just one James story, then this is the one that I would recommend, simply because it has within it everything that defines his work and makes it quite so unique.
Of course, he used these elements (with different variations) in other stories, most notably one of his best-known works, ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’. Instead of a crown, the cursed object that brings forth the vengeful revenant is a bronze whistle, which the antiquarian protagonist discovers hidden in some coastal ruins, and not long after, he finds himself being pursued by a flapping apparition that had ‘a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumpled linen.’
Once again, James merely sketches in the horror and allows the reader’s imagination to do the rest.
A very different kind of Jamesian story is ‘Count Magnus’, which is more along the lines of a traditional macabre tale, as its protagonist is menaced by an almost vampire-like alchemist and the thing that he brought back with him from the Black Pilgrimage.
There are further hints of vampirism in ‘An Episode of Cathedral History’, as the moving of a church pulpit releases something long-dead, while the shambling horrors encountered in ‘Rats’ and ‘Wailing Well’ are more akin to the traditional zombie.
Of course, James’ most famous story is probably ‘Casting the Runes’, a timeless tale of occult revenge, which was filmed in 1957 as Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon) and has been adapted several times for radio and television.
Despite their somewhat archaic language and rather dry protagonists, James’ ghost stories are as popular and influential today as when they were first published, more than eighty years ago. It was an honour to compile Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James, and I truly hope that the book will introduce the author’s work to a whole new generation of readers.
STEPHEN JONES Editor of Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James
