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    Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
    Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
    Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
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    Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

    By M.R. James

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    This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of M. R. James’.



    Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of James includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

    eBook features:
    * The complete unabridged text of ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’
    * Beautifully illustrated with images related to James’s works
    * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
    * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateJul 17, 2017
    ISBN9781788774567
    Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)
    Author

    M.R. James

    Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 at Goodnestone Parsonage, Kent, where his father was a curate, but the family moved soon afterwards to Great Livermere in Suffolk. James attended Eton College and later King's College Cambridge where he won many awards and scholarships. From 1894 to 1908 he was Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and from 1905 to 1918 was Provost of King's College. In 1913, he became Vice-Chancellor of the University for two years. In 1918 he was installed as Provost of Eton. A distinguished medievalist and scholar of international status, James published many works on biblical and historical antiquarian subjects. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1930. His ghost story writing began almost as a divertissement from his academic work and as a form of entertainment for his colleagues. His first collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary was published in 1904. He never married and died in 1936.

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      Book preview

      Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) - M.R. James

      The Complete Works of

      M. R. JAMES

      VOLUME 1 OF 19

      Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

      Parts Edition

      By Delphi Classics, 2013

      Version 1

      COPYRIGHT

      ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’

      M. R. James: Parts Edition (in 19 parts)

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2017.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      ISBN: 978 1 78877 456 7

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

      www.delphiclassics.com

      M. R. James: Parts Edition

      This eBook is Part 1 of the Delphi Classics edition of M. R. James in 19 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of M. R. James, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

      Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of M. R. James or the Complete Works of M. R. James in a single eBook.

      Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

      M. R. JAMES

      IN 19 VOLUMES

      Parts Edition Contents

      The Short Story Collections

      1, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

      2, More Ghost Stories

      3, A Thin Ghost and Others

      4, A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories

      5, The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James

      6, Uncollected Stories

      The Children’s Books

      7, The Five Jars

      8, Forty-Two Stories by Hans Christian Andersen

      The Non-Fiction

      9, Henry the Sixth: A Reprint of John Blacman’s Memoir

      10, The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts Helps for Students of History

      11, Old Testament Legends

      12, Prologue to Le Fanu’s Madam Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery

      13, The Apocryphal New Testament

      14, Introduction to ‘Ghosts and Marvels’

      15, Some Remarks on Ghost Stories

      16, Ghosts — Treat Them Gently!

      The Guidebooks

      17, Abbeys

      18, Suffolk and Norfolk

      The Memoir

      19, Eton and King’s: Recollections, Mostly Trivial, 1875-1925

      www.delphiclassics.com

      Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

      This is M. R. James’ first short story collection, which was published by Edward Arnold in 1904. Two of the stories (‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’ and ‘Lost Hearts’) had previously appeared in journals, but the rest were published here for the first time. The first seven stories had been written to be read aloud at private gatherings for colleagues and students, which James held annually at Christmas in his rooms at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow. This accounts for the distinctive narrative voice, implying an academic or scholarly persona easily identifiable with James himself. These first seven stories had been composed between 1894 and 1904, while ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ was written specifically to add length to the collection.

      When Ghost Stories of an Antiquary appeared, Montague Rhodes James (known to his friends as ‘Monty’) was 42 years old and a highly-regarded historian and textual scholar, particularly in the fields of medieval history, Church history and Biblical studies. The appearance of this book marked the beginning of the secondary career for which he is most widely known to posterity – as a writer of brilliantly-crafted ghost stories.

      The tales in this first collection, however, were originally written for amusement only and were never actually intended for publication. The story of how James finally came to offer the tales to a publisher is a tragic one. One of his closest friends was a young artist named James McBryde. Accounts differ, but it seems James had invited McBryde to illustrate the stories for publication in order to help promote the young man’s work. In the end, however, McBryde was only able to complete four illustrations before his sudden death, the result of complications following an appendix operation. James refused to engage a new illustrator and the book became a tribute to McBryde’s memory. James himself remained close to McBryde’s widow Gwendolyn until the end of his life and acted as legal guardian to his friend’s young daughter.

      The tales themselves established immediately the formula that was to define the traditional ghost story genre in twentieth-century Britain. The protagonist is typically a scholarly gentleman of leisure, who encounters a terrifying and visceral remnant of the past he is engaged in investigating. Usually, this revenant is linked to a particular mysterious object or text and the encounter tends to take place in a quiet rural or collegiate setting, which contrasts startlingly with the violence of the apparitions themselves.

      Another noteworthy feature that has had a profound effect on later practitioners of the genre is the structure of the tales. James emulated the style of his favourite author Sheridan Le Fanu, whose stories provided a slow build up, hinting gradually at the supernatural before culminating in a climactic burst of horror. James also drew on his knowledge and experience of antiquarian research to create convincing historical and textual background, often structuring the tales as a series of fragments unearthed either by the narrator or by the main protagonist. There is variation, however, of tone and treatment, ranging from the humorous ‘Number 13’ to the truly horrific ‘Count Magnus’ and ‘Lost Hearts’ – a story James would later express as being among his least favourite, due to its especially gruesome central idea.

      The cover of the first edition

      James at Cambridge, 1910

      The Cathedral of St Bertrand de Comminges in the South of France, the setting for James’ first ghost story: ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’

      One of James McBryde’s illustrations for the collection, depicting a scene from ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’. All of McBryde’s illustrations are provided in situ in this edition of the stories.

      CONTENTS

      CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK

      LOST HEARTS

      THE MEZZOTINT

      THE ASH-TREE

      NUMBER 13

      COUNT MAGNUS

      ‘OH, WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD’

      THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS

      PREFACE

      I WROTE these stories at long intervals, and most of them were read to patient friends, usually at the season of Christmas. One of these friends [James McBryde] offered to illustrate them, and it was agreed that, if he would do that, I would consider the question of publishing them. Four pictures he completed, which will be found in this volume, and then, very quickly and unexpectedly, he was taken away. This is the reason why the greater part of the stories are not provided with illustrations. Those who knew the artist will understand how much I wished to give a permanent form even to a fragment of his work; others will appreciate the fact that here a remembrance is made of one in whom many friendships centred. The stories themselves do not make any very exalted claim. If any of them succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying Ere in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.

      If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You’ I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book as that which I quote in ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’. ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’ was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the National Review, ‘Lost Hearts’ appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine; of the next five stories, most of which were read to friends at Christmas-time at King’s College, Cambridge, I only recollect that I wrote ‘Number 13’ in 1899, while ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ was composed in the summer of 1904.

      M. R. James

      CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK

      St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place — I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand’s Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy them, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.

      However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his déjeuner, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St Bertrand’s ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him.

      ‘Won’t you go home?’ he said at last; ‘I’m quite well able to finish my notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn’t it?’

      ‘Good heavens!’ said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror, ‘such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at all cold, with many thanks to monsieur.’

      ‘Very well, my little man,’ quoth Dennistoun to himself: ‘you have been warned, and you must take the consequences.’

      Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauléon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at Dennistoun’s heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were, sometimes.

      ‘Once,’ Dennistoun said to me, ‘I could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. It is he — that is — it is no one; the door is locked, was all he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute.’

      Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of St Bertrand. The composition of the picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below, which runs thus:

      Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat strangulare. (How St Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long sought to strangle.)

      Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain

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