A Warning to Those Who Dabble in the Esoteric & Ancient
“If any of [my stories] succeed in causing readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.” ― M.R. James
American author H. P. Lovecraft had a lot to say about Montague Rhodes James in the seminal essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” calling him a “literary weird fictionist of the very first rank”, and “gifted with an almost diabolic power of calling horror by gentle steps from the midst of prosaic daily life.” M. R. James was indeed a first rank author of the weird having penned 34 chilling English ghost stories meant to be read out loud during the Yule season—a popular tradition in England since the Elizabethan period.
James had a profound influence on Lovecraft and his writing because of Jame’s casual ability to create the uncanny in the modern world. As Lovecraft fans, we often enjoy seeing Lovecraft’s own works brought to film as period pieces, evocative of the era that he was writing them, but Lovecraft lauded one of M. R. James’s core tenets, that a ghost story “should have a familiar setting in the modern period, in order to approach closely the reader’s sphere of experience.” He agreed that setting the Weird in our modern age helps draw us into the fear and horror of the uncanny. James also shared Lovecraft’s love of thinking outside the box, eschewing the traditionally wispy and ineffective ghost looking for something more otherworldly and at times grotesque.
But James was not only a gifted author, he was also a studied medievalist, and provost of King’s College from 1905–1918 and Eton College from 1918–1936, and published countless scholarly works on medieval manuscripts and of church history—including unearthing a manuscript fragment that led to the discovery of the graves of several 12th century abbots in the ruins of Bury St Edmunds abbey. James, however, is probably more popularly known through the exposure from the adaptions of his stories presented on the annual BBC television show “A Ghost Story for Christmas.”
What made James a master of the English ghost story, in my opinion, was that his stories have such authenticity because they are informed by his antiquarian knowledge as a medieval scholar. Just take a look at some of my favorite stories by James: “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral”, “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”, “A View from a Hill” and “The Ash-tree.” His studies gave him the background he needed to authoritatively include convincing antiquarian details of the settings of his tales, giving them a sense of realness and legitimacy that make the uncanny events seem that much more real to the reader. Lovecraft considered this a key component of M. R. James’s fiction, and was a tactic that Lovecraft himself frequently employed in his works that rest on a historical (if fictional) foundation, like “The Shunned House,” The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, or “The Rats in The Walls.” This approach and style paints such a vivid picture for the reader that anyone so fortunate to hear the tale read out loud cannot but help get caught up in the story.
One of my fondest memories from the HPLFF was the first time we invited Robert Lloyd Parry to perform his one-man M. R. James show. Made more special because we decorated the stage with my Irish grandmother’s secretarial, scholarly bric-a-brac and family Persian rug. The stage effect was completed by the addition of an oversized gentleman’s armchair with Robert dressed as James asleep holding a brandy snifter. How magical it was to be ushered quietly into the theatre lit only by the flickering light of candles (I still can’t believe the theatre let us do that). I felt transported to a private salon at Cambridge or Eton College by a don of some prestige. After the audience was seated. Robert, as though waking from a light sleep, was transformed into James recounting a ghost story as though you had been there in his lodgings all along. Brilliant!
I truly hope that you may be inspired to take the time to experience some of the lingering magic and pleasant uncomfortableness that an evening with M. R. James will impart upon you.
About the Author
Andrew Migliore is author of Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft and founder (and the original director for the first 15 years) of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® and CthulhuCon™. During daylight hours he is VP of Engineering at a software startup.
