M. R.

James
Montague Rhodes James OM FBA (1 August 1862 – 12 June
M. R. James
1936) was an English medievalist scholar and author who served OM FBA
as provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of
Eton College (1918–1936) as well as Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge (1913–1915). James's scholarly work is
still highly regarded,[1] but he is best remembered for his ghost
stories, which are considered by many critics and authors as the
finest in the English language and widely influential on modern
horror.[2][3]

James originally read the stories to friends and select students at

Eton and Cambridge as Christmas Eve entertainments, and
received wider attention when they were published in the
collections Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost
Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), A
Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925), and the M. R. James, c. 1900
hardback omnibus The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James Born Montague Rhodes
(1931). James published a further three stories before his death in James
1936, and seven previously unpublished or unfinished stories 1 August 1862
appeared in The Fenstanton Witch and Others: M. R. James in Goodnestone, Kent,
Ghosts and Scholars (1999), all of which have been included in England

later collections. Died 12 June 1936

(aged 73)
James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning Eton,
many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors, and is noted Buckinghamshire,
for his use of realism and dry humour to ground the stories and England
contrast with the supernatural elements. He is known as the Pen name M. R. James
originator of the "antiquarian ghost story" and "the Father of Folk Occupation Author, scholar
Horror" for the way his plots and characters drew on his own Nationality British
scholarly interests in ancient folklore and the rural landscapes of Alma mater King's College,
East Anglia.[4][5] This association has continued into the 21st Cambridge
century due to the many adaptations of his stories, which have
Genre Horror · ghost
made him, according to critic Jon Dear, "the go-to folk horror
stories
writer".[6]

Early life
James was born in a clergy house in Goodnestone, Dover, Kent, England, although his parents had
associations with Aldeburgh in Suffolk. His father was Herbert James, an Evangelical Anglican clergyman,
and his mother, Mary Emily (née Horton), was the daughter of a naval officer.[7] He had two older brothers,
Sydney and Herbert (nicknamed "Ber"), and an older sister, Grace.[7]

Sydney James later became Archdeacon of Dudley. From the age of three (1865) until 1909 James's home,
if not always his residence, was at the Rectory in Great Livermere, Suffolk.[7] This had previously been the
childhood home of another eminent Suffolk antiquary, Thomas Martin of Palgrave (1696–1771). Several of
James's 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).

In September 1873, he arrived as a boarder at Temple Grove School in East Sheen in west London, one of
the leading boys' preparatory schools of the day.[8]

From September 1876 to August 1882, he studied at Eton College,[9] where he claims to have translated the
Book of Baruch from its original Ethiopic in 1879.[10] He lived for many years, first as an undergraduate
(1882–1885),[11] then as a don and provost, at King's College, Cambridge,[12] where he was also a
member of the Pitt Club.[13]

The university provides settings for several of his tales. Apart from medieval subjects, James toured Europe
often, including a memorable 1884 tour of France in a Cheylesmore tricycle,[14] 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.

Scholarly works
James is best known for his ghost stories, but his work as a
medievalist 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 Brakelond
(a contemporary chronicler) were rediscovered, having been lost
since the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[16][17] He published a
detailed description of the sculptured ceiling bosses of the cloisters
of Norwich Cathedral in 1911. This included drawings of all the
bosses in the north walk by C. J. W. Winter.[18] His 1917 edition of
the Latin hagiography of Æthelberht II of East Anglia, king and
martyr,[19] remains authoritative. M. R. James's scholarly work
uncovered the burial places of the
He catalogued many of the manuscript libraries of the colleges of abbots of Bury St Edmunds Abbey in
1903 (from front to rear): Edmund of
the University of Cambridge. Among his other scholarly works, he
Walpole (1248–1256); Henry of
wrote The Apocalypse in Art, which placed the English Apocalypse
Rushbrooke (1235–1248); Richard of
manuscripts into families. He also translated the New Testament the Isle of Ely (1229–1234); Samson
apocrypha and contributed to the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903). (1182–1211); and Ording (1148–
His ability to wear his learning lightly is apparent in his Suffolk and 1157).[15]
Norfolk (Dent, 1930), in which a great deal of knowledge is
presented in a popular and accessible form, and in Abbeys.[20]
He 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.

James was Provost of Eton College from 1918 to 1936.[4] He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1930. He
died in 1936 (age 73) and was buried in Eton town cemetery.

Ghost stories
James's ghost stories were published in a series of collections:
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). 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 James's stories in a candle-lit room in King's College.

James perfected a method of story-telling which has since become Illustration by James McBryde for M.
known as Jamesian. The classic Jamesian tale usually includes the R. James's story " 'Oh, Whistle, and
following elements: I'll Come to You, My Lad' ". James
was close friends with the illustrator,
1. a characterful setting in an English village, seaside town and the collection Ghost Stories of
or country estate; an ancient town in France, Denmark or an Antiquary in 1904 was intended
Sweden; or a venerable abbey or university as a showcase for McBryde's
artwork, but McBryde died having
2. a nondescript and rather naive gentleman-scholar as
completed only four plates.
protagonist (often of a reserved nature)
3. 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 very
careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"[21] 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: "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."[22]

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."[21]
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 taken in by a sinister dabbler in the occult who cuts their
hearts from their still-living 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.[23]

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 wrote 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."[24]

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",[25] editing and supplying introductions to
Madame Crowl's Ghost (1923) and Uncle Silas (1926).

James's statements about his actual beliefs about ghosts are ambiguous. He wrote, "I answer that I am
prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me."[26]

Views on literature and politics

James held strongly traditional views about literature. In addition to ghost stories, he also enjoyed reading
the work of William Shakespeare, the detective stories of Agatha Christie, and the works of Charles
Dickens and P. G. Wodehouse.[27] He disliked most contemporary literature, strongly criticising the work of
Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey and James Joyce (whom he called "a charlatan" and "that prostitutor of life
and language").[7][8][27] He also supported the banning of Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel about lesbianism,
The Well of Loneliness, stating, "I believe Miss Hall's book is about birth control or some kindred subject,
isn't it? I find it difficult to believe either that it is a good novel or that its suppression causes any loss to
literature."[27]

When he was a student at King's, James had opposed the appointment of Thomas Henry Huxley as Provost
of Eton because of Huxley's agnosticism; he later became Provost of Eton himself.[8] In his later life James
showed little interest in politics and rarely spoke on political issues. However, he often spoke out against the
Irish Home Rule movement,[7] and in his letters he also expressed a dislike for Communism.[8] His friend
A. C. Benson considered him to be "reactionary", and "against modernity and progress".[8]

Reception and influence

H. P. Lovecraft 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).[28] Another renowned fan of James in the horror and
fantasy genre was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote an essay on him.[29] Michael Sadleir described James as
"the best ghost-story writer England has ever produced".[30] Marjorie Bowen also admired his work,
referring to his ghost stories as "the supreme art of M. R. James".[31] Mary Butts, another admirer, wrote the
first critical essay on his work, "The Art of Montagu James", in the February 1934 issue of the London
Mercury.[32] Manly Wade Wellman esteemed his fiction.[33] In The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux
refers to "The Mezzotint" as "the most frightening story I know". In his list "The 13 Most Terrifying Horror
Stories", T. E. D. Klein placed James's "Casting the Runes" at number one.[34] E. F. Bleiler stated that
James is "in the opinion of many, the foremost modern writer of supernatural fiction", and he described
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary as "one of the landmark books in the history of supernatural fiction" and
characterised the stories in James's other collections as "first-rate stories" and "excellent stories".[35] Ruth
Rendell has also expressed admiration for James's work, stating, "There are some authors one wished one
had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. For me, M. R. James is one of
these."[30] David Langford has described James as the author of "the 20th century's most influential canon
of ghost stories".[36]

Sir John Betjeman, 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 school, Oxford, 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.

H. Russell Wakefield's supernatural fiction was strongly influenced by the work of James.[37] A large
number of British writers deliberately wrote ghost stories in the Jamesian style; these writers, sometimes
described as the "James Gang",[36] include A. N. L. Munby, E. G. Swain, "Ingulphus" (pseudonym of Sir
Arthur Gray, 1852–1940), Amyas Northcote[38] and R. H. Malden, although some commentators consider
their stories to be inferior to those of James himself.[4][39] Although most of the early Jamesian writers were
male, there were several notable female writers of such fiction, including Eleanor Scott (pseudonym of
Helen M. Leys, 1892–1965) in the stories of her book Randall's Round (1929)[40] and D. K. Broster in the
collection Couching at the Door: Strange and Macabre Tales (1942).[40] L. T. C. Rolt also modelled his
ghost stories on James's work, but, unlike other Jamesian writers, set them in industrial locations, such as
mines and railways.[40][41]

James's stories continue to influence many of today's great supernatural writers, including Stephen King
(who discusses James in the 1981 non-fiction book Danse Macabre) 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.[42] 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. Several of Jonathan Aycliffe's novels,
including Whispers in the Dark and The Matrix are influenced by James's work.[40] Aycliffe/MacEoin
studied for his PhD in Persian Studies at King's College, Cambridge. This makes three King's College
authors of ghost stories (James, Munby and Aycliffe).

Works inspired by James

H. Russell Wakefield's story " 'He Cometh and He Passeth By!' " (1928) is a homage to James's "Casting
the Runes".[43]

W. F. Harvey's ghost story "The Ankardyne Pew" (1928) is also an homage to James's work, which
Harvey admired.[44]

The composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji 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".

Gerald Heard's novel The Black Fox, published in 1950, is an occult thriller inspired by "The Stalls of
Barchester Cathedral".[40]

Kingsley Amis's 1969 novel The Green Man is partly an homage to James's ghost stories.[40]

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.[45] 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, a James 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 1989, Ramsey Campbell published the short story "The Guide", which takes an antiquarian on a
macabre journey to a ruined church after following marginalia in a copy of James's guidebook Suffolk and
Norfolk. In 2001, Campbell edited the anthology Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M. R.
James.

The novelist James Hynes wrote an updated version of "Casting the Runes" in his 1997 story collection
Publish and Perish.

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. The older James was played by John Rowe, and the younger James by Jonathan Keeble.

Chris Priestley's Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror (2007) is a volume of ghost stories influenced by James
in mood, atmosphere and subject matter, as the title suggests.

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.[46] 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).[47]

Helen Grant's novel The Glass Demon (2010) was inspired by "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas".[48]

In February 2012, the UK psychedelic band The Future Kings of England released their 4th album, Who Is
This Who Is Coming, based on James's " 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' ". An instrumental
work, it evokes the story from beginning to end, with the tracks segueing into one another to form a
continuous piece of music.

On 23 February 2012 the Royal Mail released a stamp featuring James as part its "Britons of Distinction"
series.[49]

In 2013, the Fan Museum in London hosted two performances of The Laws of Shadows, a play by Adrian
Drew about M. R. James. The play is set in James's rooms at Cambridge University and deals with his
relationships with his colleague E. F. Benson and the young artist James McBryde.[50]

On 9 January 2019, in the third episode of the seventh series of the BBC One programme Father Brown,
titled "The Whistle in the Dark", the character Professor Robert Wiseman reads a collection of ghost stories
by M. R. James and later suggests that the whistle in his possession is the one described in James's " 'Oh,
Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' ".

Comedian and writer John Finnemore is a fan of the ghost stories of M. R. James.[51] His radio sketch
series John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, first broadcast in 2011, features the recurring character of a
storyteller (a fictionalised version of Finnemore) who tells tall tales partly influenced by M. R. James's ghost
stories. During the ninth series broadcast in 2021, which underwent a format change due to the coronavirus
pandemic, Oswald 'Uncle Newt' Nightingale, analogous with Finnemore's storyteller character, meets M. R.
James during the Christmas of 1898 as a young boy, who proceeds to tell him the story of The Rose
Garden. Later in Uncle Newt's life (or earlier in the series), he tells an iteration of said story whilst
babysitting Deborah and Myra Wilkinson.
In 2022, British post punk band Funboy Five released "Kissing the Ghost of M R James" [52] and "A
Warning to the Curious (Disturbed Mix)",[53] a remix of a song, based on the James story, that first
appeared on their 2019 release An Autumn Collection.[54]

Adaptations
There have been numerous adaptations of the works of M. R. James for radio and television, as well as a
1957 film adaptation of "Casting the Runes" by Jacques Tourneur, titled Night of the Demon (US title
Curse of the Demon).

Works

Scholarly works
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library
of Peterhouse (https://archive.org/details/b29003507).
Cambridge University Press, 1899. Reissued by the
publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00307-0
Walter Map : De Nugis Curialium (https://archive.org/deta
ils/waltermapdenugis00mapwuoft) (ed.) Anecdota
Oxoniensia ; Mediaeval and Modern Series 14. Oxford :
Clarendon Press, 1914.
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys.
Sidgwick and Jackson, 1923. Reissued by Cambridge
University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00205-9
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the
Fitzwilliam Museum (https://archive.org/details/descriptiv
ecatal00fitz_0). Cambridge University Press, 1895.
Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-
00396-4
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library
of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Volume 1 (https://
archive.org/details/descriptivecatal0001corp); Volume 2 The Virgin Mary: page from a 15th-
(https://archive.org/details/descriptivecatal0002corp). century book of hours from the
Cambridge University Press, 1912. Reissued by the catalogue of the Fitzwilliam Museum
publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00485-5[55]
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College.
Volume 1 (https://archive.org/details/descriptivecatal0001gonv); Volume 2 (https://archive.or
g/details/descriptivecatal0002gonv). Cambridge University Press, 1907. Reissued by the
publisher, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00248-6
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Jesus College (https://archive.or
g/details/b29003222). Clay and Sons, 1895. Reissued by Cambridge University Press,
2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00351-3
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge
(https://archive.org/download/catofmanuscripts00jamesuoft/catofmanuscripts00jamesuoft.pd
f). Cambridge University Press, 1905. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-
00028-4
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John's College, Cambridge (h
ttps://archive.org/details/descriptivecata00stjo). Cambridge University Press, 1913. Reissued
by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00310-0
St. George's Chapel, Windsor : the woodwork of the choir (http://www.nationaltrustcollection
s.org.uk/object/3223654). Windsor : Oxley & Son, 1933.

A Descriptive Catalogue of the McClean Collection of

Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum (https://archive.or
g/details/descriptivecatal00fitz). Cambridge University
Press, 1913. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-
1-108-00309-4
Apocrypha Anecdota. 1893–1897.
Descriptive Catalogues of the Manuscripts in the
Libraries of Some Cambridge Colleges. Cambridge
University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00258-5
Address at the Unveiling of the Roll of Honour of the
Cambridge Tipperary Club.. 1916.
Henry the Sixth: A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir (htt
ps://archive.org/details/henrythesixth00jameuoft).
1919.[56]
Lists of manuscripts formerly in Peterborough Abbey
library: with preface and identifications. Oxford University
Press, 1926. Reissued by Cambridge University Press,
2010. ISBN 978-1-108-01135-8
New and Old at Cambridge' article on the Cambridge of
1882. 'Fifty Years', various contributors, Thornton
Butterworth,1932 Page of a 12th-century English
Latin Infancy Gospels: A New Text, With a Parallel manuscript from the catalogue of the
Version from Irish. Cambridge University Press, 1927. McClean Collection, Cambridge
The Apocalypse in Art. Schweich Lectures for 1927.
The Apocryphal New Testament (https://archive.org/detai
ls/apocryphalnewtes0000unse_b9n3). 1924.
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.
The Biblical Antiquities of Philo (https://archive.org/details/biblicalantiquit00pseu_0). 1917.
The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (https://web.archive.org/web/20160810201532/htt
p://www.filbluz.ca/resources/JAMES_lostapocryphaofo00.pdf). Vol. 1, 1920.
The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts (https://archive.org/details/cu31924005773548).
1919.
Two Ancient English Scholars: St Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury. 1931.
The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College (https://archive.org/details/wes
ternmanuscrip00emma_0). Cambridge University Press, 1904. Reissued by the publisher,
2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00308-7
The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College. Volume 1 (https://archive.org/detail
s/westernmanuscrip0001trin); Volume 2 (https://archive.org/details/westernmanuscrip0000tri
n); Volume 3 (https://archive.org/details/westernmanuscrip0003trin); Volume 4 (https://archiv
 e.org/details/westernmanuscrip0000trin_c5t9/page/n5/mode/2up). Cambridge University
Press, 1904. Reissued by the publisher, 2009. ISBN 978-1-108-00288-2

Ghost stories

First book publications

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. 1904. 8 stories.
More Ghost Stories. 1911. 7 stories.
A Thin Ghost and Others. 1919. 5 stories.
A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories. 1925. 6 stories.
Wailing Well. 1928 (tale), Mill House Press, Stanford Dingley.

First magazine publication of uncollected tales

"After Dark in the Playing Fields", in College Days (Eton ephemeral magazine), no. 10 (28
June 1924), pp. 311–312, 314
"There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard", in Snapdragon (Eton ephemeral magazine), 6
December 1924, pp. 4–5
"Rats", in At Random (Eton ephemeral magazine), 23 March 1929, pp. 12–14
"The Experiment: A New Year's Eve Ghost Story", in Morning Post, 31 December 1931, p. 8
"The Malice of Inanimate Objects", in The Masquerade (Eton ephemeral magazine), no. 1
(June 1933), pp. 29–32
"A Vignette", written 1935, in London Mercury 35 (November 1936), pp. 18–22

Reprint collections
The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 1931. Contains the 26 stories from the original
four books, plus "After Dark in the Playing Fields" (1924), "There Was a Man Dwelt by a
Churchyard" (1924), "Wailing Well" (1928), and "Rats" (1929). It does not include three
stories completed between 1931 and James's death in 1936.
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. Contains
seven unpublished or unfinished tales or drafts: "A Night in King's College Chapel" (1892?),
"The Fenstanton Witch" (1924?), "John Humphreys" (unfinished, pre-1911), "Marcilly-le-
Hayer"(story draft, pre-1929), "Speaker Lenthall's Tomb" (unfinished, 1890s?), "The Game of
Bear" (unfinished) and "Merfield House" (unfinished).
A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings. 2001. Ash-Tree Press. Contains 40
stories: the 30 stories from Collected Ghost Stories, the three tales published after them and
the seven items from The Fenstanton Witch and Others. It also includes some related non-
fiction by James and some writings about him by others. It is the only complete collection of
his ghost fiction, although revised versions of unfinished tales and drafts have subsequently
appeared on the Ghosts and Scholars website, following further deciphering of James's
handwriting.
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. 2005. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by S.
T. Joshi.
 The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories. 2006. Edited, with an introduction and
notes, by S. T. Joshi.
Curious Warnings: The Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James. 2012. Edited,
reparagraphing the text for the modern reader, by Stephen Jones.

Guidebooks
Abbeys. 1925.
Suffolk and Norfolk. 1930.

Children's books
The Five Jars. 1922.
As translator: Forty-Two Stories, by Hans Christian Andersen, translated and with an
introduction by M. R. James. 1930.

Memoirs
Eton and King's, Recollections Mostly Trivial, 1875–1925, Cambridge University Press,
1925. ISBN 978-1-108-03053-3.

References
1. Barker, Nicolas (1970). "After M. R. James". The Book Collector. 19 (1): 7–20.
2. Morton-Haworth, James (director) (18 December 2005). The Story of the Ghost Story (https://
archive.org/details/story-of-the-ghost-story-2005) (Television production). BBC. Event occurs
at 19.50. "The strength of M. R. James' writing has come to be the benchmark by which all
modern ghost stories are judged"
3. Scovell, Adam (15 December 2020). "The Restless Ghost Stories of M. R. James" (https://lith
ub.com/the-restless-ghost-stories-of-m-r-james/). Literary Hub. Retrieved 29 April 2024. "His
first collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, was published to great acclaim by Edward
Arnold in 1904, followed by several equally celebrated volumes establishing him as the
foremost writer of the genre, still arguably unsurpassed."
4. Briggs, Julia (1986). "James, M(ontague) R(hodes)". In Sullivan, Jack, ed., The Penguin
Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-80902-0
5. Cooray Smith, James (22 December 2016). "The fear of other people: these Folk Horror
ghost stories are perfect for Brexit Christmas" (https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2016/
12/fear-other-people-these-folk-horror-ghost-stories-are-perfect-brexit-christmas). New
Statesman. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20211025124508/https://www.newstatesm
an.com/culture/2016/12/fear-other-people-these-folk-horror-ghost-stories-are-perfect-brexit-c
hristmas) from the original on 25 October 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2024.
6. Dear, Jon (5 December 2022) [Whistle and I'll Come to You, first broadcast May 7, 1968].
Ghost Stories for Christmas: Volume 1: Disc 1: Commentary for Whistle and I'll Come to You
(DVD). BFI. "M. R. James has become the go-to folk horror writer for telly because of the
Ghost Stories for Christmas."
7. Cox, Michael (1987). "Introduction". Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories by M. R.
James. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. xi–xxx. ISBN 978-0-19-281719-8
 8. Jones, Darryl (2011). "Introduction". Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. p. xii. ISBN 978-019-956884-0
9. James, M. R. (1925). Eton and King's. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–97.
ISBN 978-1-108-03053-3
10. James, M. R. (1925). Eton and King's. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 41–42;
ISBN 978-1-108-03053-3
11. James, M. R. (1925). Eton and King's. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 106–
195; ISBN 978-1-108-03053-3
12. "James, Montague Rhodes (JMS882MR)" (http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?
sur=&suro=w&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=JMS882MR&sye=&eye=&col=all&
maxcount=50). A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
13. Benson, Edward Frederic (1920). Our Family Affairs, 1867–1896 (https://archive.org/details/o
urfamilyaffairs0000bens). London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne: Cassell and
Company, Ltd. p. 231 (https://archive.org/details/ourfamilyaffairs0000bens/page/231).
14. James, M. R. (1925). Eton and King's. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–
153; ISBN 978-1-108-03053-3
15. Bury St Edmunds Past and Present Society, burypastandpresent.org.uk (http://www.burypast
andpresent.org.uk/j_brief.html#top) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100404001740/
http://www.burypastandpresent.org.uk/j_brief.html#top) 4 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine
16. "Discoveries at Bury St Edmunds". The Times. 9 January 1903. p. 9.
17. Moshenska, Gabriel (2012). "MR James and the archaeological uncanny". Antiquity. 86
(334): 1192–1201. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00048341 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0003598
X00048341). S2CID 160982792 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:160982792).
18. James, Montague Rhodes (1911). The Sculptured Bosses in the Cloisters of Norwich
Cathedral (https://archive.org/details/norwich-cloisters-sculptured-bosses). Norfolk and
Norwich Archaeological Society.
19. James, M. R. (1917). "Two Lives of St. Ethelbert, King and Martyr". The English Historical
Review. 32 (126): 214–244. doi:10.1093/ehr/XXXII.CXXVI.214 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fe
hr%2FXXXII.CXXVI.214). JSTOR 551656 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/551656).
20. James, M.R. (1926). Abbeys (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.533601). London:
The Great Western Railway.
21. James, M. R., "Preface to More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=0VxZ13zOtt8C&pg=PT217)". In Joshi, S. T., ed. (2005). Count Magnus and Other
Ghost Stories: The Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James, Volume 1, pt. 217. Penguin
Books.
22. James, M. R. (1924). "Introduction". In Collins, V. H. (ed.). Ghosts and Marvels: A Selection of
Uncanny Tales from Daniel Defoe to Algernon Blackwood. London: Oxford University Press.
Rpt. in James, M. R. (2001). Roden, Christopher; Roden, Barbara (eds.). A Pleasing Terror:
The Complete Supernatural Writings. Ashcroft, B.C.: Ash-Tree Press. p. 486. ISBN 1-55310-
024-7.
23. M. R. James. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories". The Bookman, December 1929.
24. David Punter, The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present
Day, Vol. II, Modern Gothic, p. 86.
25. James, M. R., Prologue to J. S. Le Fanu, Madame Crowl's Ghost (1923), p. vii. Quoted in
"Introduction" (https://books.google.com/books?id=N7Wri3Y_wCMC&pg=PR17), Cox,
Michael, and Gilbert, R. A., eds. (2003), The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, p.xvii.
Oxford University Press.
26. James, M. R. "Preface to The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James" (1931) (https://books.
google.com/books?id=3gpihu2SOjEC&pg=PA419). In Jones, Darryl, ed. (2011), p. 419.
Oxford University Press.
27. Pfaff, Richard William (1980). Montague Rhodes James. London: Scolar Press. p. 401.
28. Lovecraft, Howard Phillips (1945). Supernatural Horror in Literature (Abramson ed.). New
York: Dover Publications. pp. 100–105. ISBN 0-486-20105-8.
29. Smith, Clark Ashton (February 1934). "The Weird Works of M. R. James", The Fantasy Fan.
Reprinted in Smith, Planets and Dimensions. Baltimore: Mirage Press, 1973.
30. Sadleir, Michael (1992). "Introduction". Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James. Ware,
Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1853260533
31. Salmonsom, Jessica Amanda (1998). "Introduction". In Bowen, Marjorie, Twilight and Other
Supernatural Romances. Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press. ISBN 1-899562-49-4
32. Harold Bloom, Modern Horror Writers. Chelsea House Publishers, 1995 ISBN 0791022242,
(p. 129)
33. "I admire and constantly reread James, Dunsany and Hearn....I wish I wrote things as well as
James did.". Wellman interviewed in Jeffrey M. Elliot, Fantasy Voices: Interviews with
American Fantasy Writers. Borgo Press, San Bernardino. 1982 ISSN 0271-7808
34. Klein, T. E. D. (July–August 1983), "The 13 Most Terrifying Horror Stories". Rod Serling's
The Twilight Zone Magazine, p. 63.
35. Bleiler, E. F. The Guide to Supernatural Fiction. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press,
1983. pp. 279–81. ISBN 0873382889
36. Langford, David (1998). "James, Montague Rhodes". In Pringle, David, ed., St. James Guide
to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. London: St. James Press. ISBN 1558622063
37. Morgan, Chris (1985). "H. Russell Wakefield". In Bleiler, E. F., ed., Supernatural Fiction
Writers. New York: Scribner's. pp. 617–622. ISBN 0-684-17808-7
38. Wilson, Neil (2000). Shadows in the Attic: A Guide to British Supernatural Fiction, 1820–
1950. London: British Library. p. 383. ISBN 0712310746. "The author's [Northcote's] tales
are firmly in the style of M. R. James' antiquarian school of traditional ghost stories."
39. Joshi, S. T. (2005). "Introduction". Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M. R. James.
London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-303939-3
40. Pardoe, Rosemary (2001). "The James Gang". Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition
of M. R. James. London: British Library. pp. 267–87. ISBN 0-7123-1125-4
41. Wilson, Neil (2000). Shadows in the Attic: A Guide to British Supernatural Fiction, 1820–
1950. London: British Library. pp. 433–34. ISBN 0712310746
42. Campbell, Ramsey (2001). "Preface". Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M. R.
James. London: British Library. ISBN 0-7123-1125-4
43. Don D'Ammassa, Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. Infobase Publishing, 2009.
ISBN 1438109091 (pp. 159–160).
44. Searles, A. L. (1983). "The Short Fiction of Harvey". In Frank N. Magill, ed., Survey of
Modern Fantasy Literature, Vol 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press. pp. 1532–1535.
ISBN 0-89356-450-8
45. Pardoe, Rosemary (30 August 2007). "M. R. James on TV, Radio and Film" (http://www.user
s.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/MediaList.html). Ghosts and Scholars. Retrieved 30 September
2009.
46. "The Triple Tree-Ghosts" (http://www.discogs.com/Triple-Tree-Ghosts/release/1482003).
Discogs. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
47. "Various-John Barleycorn Reborn" (http://www.discogs.com/Various-John-Barleycorn-Rebor
n/release/1070437). Discogs. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
48. Grant, Helen (20 January 2017). "The Antiquary and the Crocodile: M. R. James Resources"
(https://helengrantbooks.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-antiquary-and-crocodile-mrjames.html).
Helen Grant Blog. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
49. "Britons of Distinction" (http://www.royalmail.com/node/6424655). Royal Mail. 23 February
2012.
50. "In Celebration 2013: The Laws of Shadows (http://www.thefanmuseum.org.uk/events.html)".
The Fan Museum, Greenwich, London. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
51. "[1] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvoY5dt9rJ8)". YouTube. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
52. "Kissing The Ghost Of M R James by Funboy Five" (https://funboyfive.bandcamp.com/track/k
issing-the-ghost-of-m-r-james). Bandcamp. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
53. "A Warning To The Curious (Disturbed Mix) by Funboy Five" (https://funboyfive.bandcamp.co
m/track/a-warning-to-the-curious-disturbed-mix). Bandcamp. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
54. "An Autumn Collection by Funboy Five" (https://funboyfive.bandcamp.com/album/an-autumn
-collection). Bandcamp. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
55. Corpus Christi College Cambridge: The Parker Library (http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/parker/
printed_catalogue.php) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20071003005044/http://www.c
orpus.cam.ac.uk/parker/printed_catalogue.php) 3 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine at
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk
56. Blakman, J., James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)., Rogers, B. (1919). Henry the Sixth: a reprint
of John Blacman's memoir (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000309954/Home).
Cambridge [Eng.]: The University Press.

Further reading
Bleiler, E. F. The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Shasta Publishers, 1948.
Bloom, Clive. "M. R. James and His Fiction." in Clive Bloom, ed., Creepers: British Horror
and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. London and Boulder CO: Pluto Press, 1993, pp. 64–
71.
Cox, Michael. M. R. James: An Informal Portrait. Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-19-
211765-3.
Haining, Peter. M. R. James: Book of the Supernatural. W. Foulsham, 1979. ISBN 0-572-
01048-6
James, M. R. A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings, ed. Christopher
Roden and Barbara Roden. Ash-Tree Press, 2001. ISBN 1-55310-024-7.
Joshi, S. T. Introductions to Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. Penguin Classics, 2005.
ISBN 0-14-303939-3 and The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories. Penguin
Classics, 2006. ISBN 0-14-303992-X.
Lubbock, S. G. (1939). A Memoir of Montague Rhodes James ... with a list of his writings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murphy, Patrick J. (2017). Medieval Studies and the Ghost Stories of M. R. James. University
Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 9780271077710.
Pfaff, Richard William (1980). Montague Rhodes James (https://archive.org/details/montague
rhodesja0000pfaf). London: Scolar Press. ISBN 0859675548. (concentrates on his scholarly
work)
Sullivan, Jack. Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood.
Ohio University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-8214-0374-5.
Tolhurst, Peter. East Anglia—a Literary Pilgrimage. Black Dog Books, Bungay, 1996.
ISBN 0-9528839-0-2. (pp. 99–101).
 Wagenknecht, Edward. Seven Masters of Supernatural Fiction. Greenwood Press, 1991.
ISBN 0-313-27960-8.
Weighell, Ron. Dark Devotions: M. R. James and the Magical Tradition (http://www.pardoes.i
nfo/roanddarroll/ArchiveDark.html), Ghosts and Scholars 6 (1984):20–30

External links
Digital collections

Works by M. R. James in eBook form (https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/m-r-james) at

Standard Ebooks
Works by M. R. James (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2768) at Project Gutenberg
Works by M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James (https://fadedpage.com/csearch.php?author=Jam
es%2C%20M.%20R.%20%28Montague%20Rhodes%29) at Faded Page (Canada)
Works by M. R. James (https://librivox.org/author/2959) at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
A complete chronological bibliography of all of his writings (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/p
ublics/mrjames/MRJBIBL.htm) hosted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and
Sciences
Shadows at the Door: The Podcast (https://shadowsatthedoor.com/), a series of full-cast
adaptations of James' stories

Analysis and scholarship

Ghosts & Scholars (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GS.html) – online magazine

devoted to James and related literature and writers
Chronological listing of M. R. James's ghost stories (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardo
s/MRJStories.html) – compiled by Rosemary Pardoe, 2007
A Thin Ghost (http://www.thin-ghost.org) – collections include comprehensive film & TV
listing, bibliography of fictional works and James-related illustrations
BBC Suffolk feature about M. R. James (http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/suffolk/hi/people_and_pl
aces/arts_and_culture/newsid_8319000/8319392.stm) – concerning the author's links with
Great Livermere and Suffolk
"Fright Nights: The Horror of M. R. James (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/13/f
right-nights-2)" – article by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker
Great Thinkers: Uta Frith FBA on M. R. James FBA (https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/po
dcast/great-thinkers-uta-frith-m-r-james) podcast, The British Academy
M. R. James (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?5578) at the Internet Speculative Fiction
Database
M. R. James (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0416721/) at IMDb

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