Acquisitions (60): M. R. James

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1930)

•

Olive Edis: Montague Rhodes James (1910)


M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1930)
[AbeBooks - ordered: October 14 / received: November 19, 2021]:

M. R. James. Suffolk and Norfolk: A Perambulation of the Two Counties with Notices of Their History and Their Ancient Buildings. Illustrated by G. E. Chambers, F.S.A. London & Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1930.

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1950)

The Guide

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1950)

I agree that it doesn't, at least on the surface, sound particularly exciting. An outmoded guide book to a part of the world which I know very little about, and which has never greatly attracted me - so why did I buy it?

Well, on the one hand there's the M. R. James factor. Virtually anything by England's supreme exponent of the art of the ghost story is of interest to enthusiasts such as myself. I've already expressed some of my views about him in a series of posts on my Imaginary Museum blog here, here, and here. To this I should add a module in the 'Fantastic Literature' section of my Advanced Fiction Writing course.

I also own a copy of his book Abbeys, commissioned by the Great Western Railway, which may seem similarly recondite in its appeal.

M. R. James: Abbeys (1925)

M. R. James. Abbeys. With an Additional Chapter on "Monastic Life and Buildings" by A. Hamilton Thompson. 1925. Paddington, London: The Great Western Railway, 1926.

M. R. James: Abbeys (1925)

M. R. James: Abbeys (1925)

There is a bit more to it than that, however.

Ramsey Campbell: Waking Nightmares (1992)

Ramsey Campbell. Waking Nightmares: Tales of Horror and the Supernatural. 1991. London: Little, Brown and Company (UK) Limited, 1992.

There's a story called "The Guide" in Ramsey Campbell's 1991 collection Waking Nightmares which describes the misadventures which befall an unfortunate purchaser of James's Suffolk and Norfolk.

The Core of Ramsey Campbell: A Bibliography & Reader's Guide (1995)

Campbell himself has said of this story, written in 1988:

I was becoming convinced (and still am) that many of today's horror writers are unaware of the traditions of their field ... I therefore welcomed the chance to demonstrate that the techniques employed by M. R. James are as valid as ever.

He goes on to reassure us that "the James book cited in the story is genuine, as are the quotations from it."

Kew, the protagonist of Campbell's story, is initially disappointed by the book he's bought, but soon discovers that:

It was more the M. R. James he remembered nostalgically than he would have dared hope. Comic and macabre images lay low amid the graceful sentences. Here was "that mysterious being Sir John Shorne," Rector of North Marston, who "was invoked against ague; but his only known act was to conjure the devil into a boot, the occasion and sequelae of this being alike unknown." Here were the St. Albans monks, who bought two of St. Margaret's fingers; but who, Kew wondered, were the Crouched Friars, who had "one little house, at Great Whelnetham"? ... Other references were factual, or at least were presented as such: not only a rector named Blastus Godly, but a merman caught at Orford in the thirteenth century, who "could not be induced to take an interest in the services of the church, nor indeed to speak."

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1939)

It is his two grandchildren who point out the extra annotations in the book, after he's "showed them the sketch of the bench-end with the severed head, and thought of ingratiating himself further with them by pointing out a passage referring to the tradition that St. Erasmus had had his entrails wound out of him on a windlass, the kind of things their parents tried half-heartedly to prevent them from watching on videocassette."

One piece of scribble leads to another, and eventually to a line which

led like the first thread of a cobweb to a blotch on the Norfolk coast, where the map identified nothing in particular, showing only beach and fields for miles. The next scribbled phrase, however, was easily read: "churchyard on the cliff - my old parish." It sounded irresistibly Jamesian ...

Irresistible it indeed proves, to his eventual detriment.

Ramsey Campbell: Der Reiseführer / The Guide (1994)

Campbell's story, which has since been published as a limited edition, dual-text chapbook with a German translation by Joachim Körber, is something more than mere Jamesian pastiche, even though he has clearly taken pleasure in his careful evocation of James's prose style.

Jeff. K. Potter: Der Reiseführer

Its German editor refers to it as "Campbells Hommage an den großen Klassiker M. R. James" [Campbell's homage to the great classic M. R. James], and that's probably a better description.

Herbert Brandmeier: Der Reiseführer

It's always been hard for admirers of M. R. James to reconcile themselves to the limitations of his oeuvre. There are only those canonical 30 stories, plus another three published after the appearance of the Collected Ghost Stories in 1931. Hence, I suppose, the increased attention being paid to these other works of the Master's.

It is, no doubt, a harmless enough pursuit - which has, in the hands of Ramsey Campbell, resulted in a minor classic - but when it comes to pursuing the manuscript remains of stories James himself considered and rejected, the pickings are unfortunately pretty slim.

For the genuinely curious, though - but remember what happens to those, as a rule, in M. R. James's fiction - I've provided a series of links below to the online texts of the stories included in The Fenstanton Witch and Others (1999). These have been painstakingly transcribed and edited over the years by Rosemary Pardoe, the editor of Ghosts & Scholars, along with various other contributors to its pages.

I've also provided links to her annotations to those stories not already covered by the notes in Michael Cox's excellent World's Classics selection ‘Casting the Runes’ and Other Ghost Stories (1987). These can be found under the listings for the Collected Ghost Stories (1931) below.

Or you might conclude, in the words of Campbell's story, that such unauthorised additions are "best left out."

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (1987)

•

Montague Rhodes James

Montague Rhodes James
(1862-1936)

Books I own are marked in bold:

James McBryde: Illustration for "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" (1)
[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)]


Fiction:



M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)



1. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)
   1. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book (1895)
   2. Lost Hearts (1895)
   3. The Mezzotint (1904)
   4. The Ash-tree (1904)
   5. Number 13 (1904)
   6. Count Magnus (1904)
   7. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' (1904)
   8. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
   • Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. 1904. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1953.

M. R. James: More Ghost Stories (1911)



2. More Ghost Stories (1911)
   1. A School Story (1911)
   2. The Rose Garden (1911)
   3. The Tractate Middoth (1911)
   4. Casting the Runes (1911)
   5. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
   6. Martin's Close (1911)
   7. Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
   • More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. 1911. London: Edward Arnold, 1924.

M. R. James: A Thin Ghost and Others (1919)



3. A Thin Ghost and Others (1919)
   1. The Residence at Whitminster (1919)
   2. The Diary of Mr Poynter (1919)
   3. An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
   4. The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913)
   5. Two Doctors (1919)
   • A Thin Ghost and Others. 1919. London: Edward Arnold, 1920.

M. R. James: The Five Jars (1922)



4. The Five Jars (1922)
   • The Five Jars. 1920. Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2008.


5. "After Dark in the Playing Fields". In College Days (Eton ephemeral magazine), 10. 28 June 1924.
6. "There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard". In Snapdragon (Eton ephemeral magazine), 6 December 1924.

M. R. James: A Warning to the Curious (1925)



7. A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925)
   1. The Haunted Dolls' House (1923)
   2. The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1921)
   3. A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
   4. A View from a Hill (1925)
   5. A Warning to the Curious (1925)
   6. An Evening's Entertainment (1925)


8. Wailing Well. Stanford Dingley: Mill House Press, 1928.
9. "Rats". In At Random (Eton ephemeral magazine), 23 March 1929.


M. R. James: Collected Ghost Stories (1931)



10. The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1931)
    1. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book (1895)
    2. Lost Hearts (1895)
    3. The Mezzotint (1904)
    4. The Ash-tree (1904)
    5. Number 13 (1904)
    6. Count Magnus (1904)
    7. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' (1904)
    8. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
    9. A School Story (1911)
    10. The Rose Garden (1911)
    11. The Tractate Middoth (1911)
    12. Casting the Runes (1911)
    13. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
    14. Martin's Close (1911)
    15. Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
    16. The Residence at Whitminster (1919)
    17. The Diary of Mr Poynter (1919)
    18. An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
    19. The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913)
    20. Two Doctors (1919)
    21. The Haunted Dolls' House (1923)
    22. The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1921)
    23. A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
    24. A View from a Hill (1925)
    25. A Warning to the Curious (1925)
    26. An Evening's Entertainment (1925)
    27. After Dark in the Playing Fields (1924)
    28. There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard (1924)
    29. Wailing Well (1928)
    30. Rats (1929)
    • The Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 1931. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., n.d.
    • The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 1931. Pocket Edition. 1942. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., 1964.
    • The Penguin Complete Ghost Stories. 1931. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.


11. "The Experiment: A New Year's Eve Ghost Story". In Morning Post, 31 December 1931.
12. "The Malice of Inanimate Objects". In The Masquerade (Eton ephemeral magazine), no. 1 (June 1933)
13. "A Vignette". In London Mercury 35 (November 1936)

Best Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1944)



14. Best Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1944)

Michael Cox, ed.: The Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1986)



15. The Ghost Stories of M. R. James. Ed. Michael Cox. Illustrated by Rosalind Caldecott. 1986. London: Tiger Books International, 1991.

M. R. James: ‘Casting the Runes’ and Other Ghost Stories. Ed. Michael Cox (1987)



16. ‘Casting the Runes’ and Other Ghost Stories. Ed. Michael Cox. The World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
    1. Introduction, by Michael Cox
    2. Note on the Text
    3. Select Bibliography
    4. A Chronology of M. R. James
    5. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book (1895)
    6. The Mezzotint (1904)
    7. Number 13 (1904)
    8. Count Magnus (1904)
    9. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' (1904)
    10. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
    11. A School Story (1911)
    12. The Rose Garden (1911)
    13. The Tractate Middoth (1911)
    14. Casting the Runes (1911)
    15. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
    16. Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
    17. The Diary of Mr Poynter (1919)
    18. An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
    19. The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1921)
    20. A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
    21. A Warning to the Curious (1925)
    22. Rats (1929)
    23. The Experiment (1931)
    24. The Malice of Inanimate Objects (1933)
    25. A Vignette (1936)
    26. Explanatory Notes, by Michael Cox (1987)
    27. From the Preface to Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)
    28. From the Preface to More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911)
    29. From the Prologue to J. S. Le Fanu, Madam Crowl's Ghost (1923)
    30. From the Introduction to V. H. Collins (Ed.), Ghosts and Marvels (1924)
    31. Stories I Have Tried to Write (1929)
    32. Some Remarks on Ghost Stories (1929)
    33. Ghosts — Treat Them Gently (1931)

M. R. James: Two Ghost Stories: A Centenary (1993)



17. Two Ghost Stories: A Centenary. Illustrated by James McBryde. Ed. Barbara and Christopher Roden. Introduction by Michael Cox. Afterword by Rosemary Pardoe (1993)

M. R. James: The Fenstanton Witch and Others (1999)



18. The Fenstanton Witch and Others: M. R. James in Ghosts and Scholars (1999)
    1. A Night in King's College Chapel (1892? / 1985)
    2. The Fenstanton Witch (1924? / 1990)
    3. John Humphreys (pre-1911 / 1993)
    4. Marcilly-le-Hayer (pre-1929 / 1996)
    5. Speaker Lenthall's Tomb (1890s? / 1999)
    6. The Game of Bear (1999)
    7. Merfield House (1999)

M. R. James: A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings (2001)



19. A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings. Ed. Christopher Roden & Barbara Roden. Introduction by Steve Duffy. Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 2001.
    1. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book (1895)
    2. Lost Hearts (1895)
    3. The Mezzotint (1904)
    4. The Ash-tree (1904)
    5. Number 13 (1904)
    6. Count Magnus (1904)
    7. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' (1904)
    8. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
    9. A School Story (1911)
    10. The Rose Garden (1911)
    11. The Tractate Middoth (1911)
    12. Casting the Runes (1911)
    13. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
    14. Martin's Close (1911)
    15. Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
    16. The Residence at Whitminster (1919)
    17. The Diary of Mr Poynter (1919)
    18. An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
    19. The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913)
    20. Two Doctors (1919)
    21. The Haunted Dolls' House (1923)
    22. The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1921)
    23. A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
    24. A View from a Hill (1925)
    25. A Warning to the Curious (1925)
    26. An Evening's Entertainment (1925)
    27. After Dark in the Playing Fields (1924)
    28. There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard (1924)
    29. Wailing Well (1928)
    30. Rats (1929)
    31. The Experiment (1931)
    32. The Malice of Inanimate Objects (1933)
    33. A Vignette (1936)
    34. A Night in King's College Chapel (1892? / 1985)
    35. The Fenstanton Witch (1924? / 1990)
    36. John Humphreys (pre-1911 / 1993)
    37. Marcilly-le-Hayer (pre-1929 / 1996)
    38. Speaker Lenthall's Tomb (1890s? / 1999)
    39. The Game of Bear (1999)
    40. Merfield House (1999)

M. R. James: Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories (2005)



20. Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. Ed. S. T. Joshi. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2005.

M. R. James: The Haunted Dolls' House (2006)



21. The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories. Ed. S. T. Joshi. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2006.

M. R. James: Collected Ghost Stories (2011)



22. Collected Ghost Stories. Ed. Darryl Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
    1. Introduction, by Darryl Jones
    2. Note on the Text
    3. Select Bibliography
    4. A Chronology of M. R. James
    The Ghost Stories
    5. Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book (1895)
    6. Lost Hearts (1895)
    7. The Mezzotint (1904)
    8. The Ash-tree (1904)
    9. Number 13 (1904)
    10. Count Magnus (1904)
    11. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' (1904)
    12. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1904)
    13. A School Story (1911)
    14. The Rose Garden (1911)
    15. The Tractate Middoth (1911)
    16. Casting the Runes (1911)
    17. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral (1910)
    18. Martin's Close (1911)
    19. Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1911)
    20. The Residence at Whitminster (1919)
    21. The Diary of Mr Poynter (1919)
    22. An Episode of Cathedral History (1914)
    23. The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913)
    24. Two Doctors (1919)
    25. The Haunted Dolls' House (1923)
    26. The Uncommon Prayer-Book (1921)
    27. A Neighbour's Landmark (1924)
    28. A View from a Hill (1925)
    29. A Warning to the Curious (1925)
    30. An Evening's Entertainment (1925)
    31. After Dark in the Playing Fields (1924)
    32. There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard (1924)
    33. Wailing Well (1928)
    34. Rats (1929)
    35. The Experiment (1931)
    36. The Malice of Inanimate Objects (1933)
    37. A Vignette (1936)
    Appendix: M. R. James on Ghost Stories
    38. From the Preface to Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)
    39. From the Preface to More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911)
    40. From the Introduction to V. H. Collins (Ed.), Ghosts and Marvels (1924)
    41. Stories I Have Tried to Write (1929)
    42. Some Remarks on Ghost Stories (1929)
    43. Ghosts — Treat Them Gently (1931)
    44. Preface to The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1931)
    45. Explanatory Notes, by Darryl Jones (2011)

Stephen Jones: Curious Warnings: The Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James (2012)



23. Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M. R. James. Ed. Stephen Jones (2012)




James McBryde: Illustration for "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" (2)
[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)]


Non-fiction:



M. R. James: Abbeys (1925)



24. The Great Western Railway Guides. Paddington Station, London: The Great Western Railway, 1924-1926.
    1. [G. E. B.] Cathedrals (1924)
       • [G. E. B.] Cathedrals: With Seventy-Four Illustrations by Photographic Reproduction and Seventy-Four Drawings. With 'Cathedrals and How to Understand their Architecture' by Martin S. Briggs. March 1924. Paddington, London: The Great Western Railway, 1926.
    2. M. R. James. Abbeys (1925)
       • M. R. James. Abbeys. With an Additional Chapter on ‘Monastic Life and Buildings’ by A. Hamilton Thompson. August 1925. Paddington, London: The Great Western Railway, 1926.
    3. Charles Oman. Castles (1926)
       • Charles Oman. Castles: With 105 Illustrations, 67 Drawings, 5 Plans, 2 Coloured Plates, and 2 Maps. Paddington, London: The Great Western Railway, 1926.

M. R. James: Eton and King's (1925)



25. Eton and King's: Recollections, Mostly Trivial, 1875–1925. London: Williams & Norgate, Ltd., 1926.
    • Eton and King's: Recollections, Mostly Trivial, 1875-1925. 1926. Cambridge Library Collection. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2011.

M. R. James: Suffolk and Norfolk (2010)



26. Suffolk and Norfolk (1930)
    • Suffolk and Norfolk: A Perambulation of the Two Counties with Notices of Their History and Their Ancient Buildings. Illustrated by G. E. Chambers, F.S.A. London & Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1930.




James McBryde: Illustration for "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" (1)
[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)]


Translated & Edited:



J. S. Le Fanu: Madam Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1923)



27. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Madam Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery. Ed. M. R. James. 1923. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1994.

M. R. James: The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)



28. The Apocryphal New Testament: Being the Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypses, with Other Narratives and Fragments. Trans. Montague Rhodes James. 1924. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1955.

V. H. Collins, ed.: Ghosts and Marvels (1924)



29. "Introduction." In V. H. Collins, ed. Ghosts and Marvels: A Selection of Uncanny Tales from Daniel Defoe to Algernon Blackwood. London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1924.

Hans Christian Andersen: Forty-Two Stories (1930)



30. Hans Christian Andersen. Forty-Two Stories. Trans. M. R. James. 1930. London: Faber & Faber, 1973.




James McBryde: Illustration for "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" (2)
[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)]


Scholarly Publications:



M. R. James: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Eton College (1895 / 2010)



31. Apocrypha Anecdota (1893–1897)
32. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Eton College. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1895.
33. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1895.
34. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Jesus College. London: Clay and Sons, 1895.
35. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899.
36. The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904.
37. The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904.
38. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905.
39. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907.
40. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912.
41. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John's College, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913.
42. A Descriptive Catalogue of the McClean Collection of Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913.
43. [Ed.] Walter Map: De Nugis Curialium. Anecdota Oxoniensia. Mediaeval and Modern Series, 14. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.
44. Address at the Unveiling of the Roll of Honour of the Cambridge Tipperary Club (1916)
45. The Biblical Antiquities of Philo (1917)
46. Henry the Sixth: A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir (1919)
47. The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts (1919)
48. The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Vol. 1 (1920)
49. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1923.
50. Lists of Manuscripts Formerly in Peterborough Abbey Library: with Preface and Identifications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926.
51. The Apocalypse in Art: Schweich Lectures (1927)
52. The Bestiary: Being a Reproduction in Full of the Manuscript Ii.4.26 in the University Library, Cambridge. Cambridge: Printed for the Roxburghe club, by John Johnson at the University Press, 1928.
53. Two Ancient English Scholars: St Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury (1931)
54. [with others] 'New and Old at Cambridge'. Fifty Years. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1932.
55. St. George's Chapel, Windsor: The Woodwork of the Choir. Windsor: Oxley & Son, 1933.
56. Descriptive Catalogues of the Manuscripts in the Libraries of Some Cambridge Colleges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Secondary:



Michael Cox: M. R. James: An Informal Portrait (1983)



57. Michael Cox. M. R. James: An Informal Portrait. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Richard William Pfaff: Montague Rhodes James (1980)



58. Richard William Pfaff. Montague Rhodes James. London: Scolar Press, 1980.

Jorge Gonzalez: M. R. James (2012)

•

• category - Occult & Supernatural: Fiction

•