In anoth­er life I could eas­i­ly see myself as an anti­quar­i­an, cycling around remote vil­lages in search of ancient church­es to take brass rub­bings and explore wind-bent, lichen-cov­ered grave­stones, and the hum of sum­mer insects or a dis­tant trac­tor the only sounds gen­tly reach­ing my ears. Ah my! Then back to my clois­tered cham­bers at the Uni­ver­si­ty to study medieval­ism and write beau­ti­ful­ly enig­mat­ic ghost sto­ries for friends and select stu­dents. Per­haps an aged brandy to sip before bed. Oh wait, it seems I’m M R James!

Mon­tague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was an Eng­lish medieval­ist schol­ar who served var­i­ous­ly as provost and Vice-Chan­cel­lor at Kings’ Col­lege Cam­bridge, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge and Eton Col­lege. His life­time was ded­i­cat­ed to edu­ca­tion and in good old Mr Chips’ fash­ion, he died whilst still teach­ing, at Eton in 1936. His schol­ar­ly work was very high­ly regard­ed but his endur­ing lega­cy is his col­lec­tions of ghost sto­ries which he wrote orig­i­nal­ly as Christ­mas Eve enter­tain­ments. He remains the mas­ter ghost sto­ry writer.

James’s sto­ries 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 hard­back omnibus The Col­lect­ed Ghost Sto­ries of M. R. James (1931). In these, he rede­fined the ghost sto­ry by ground­ing his sto­ries in real­ism and dry humour. His sto­ries often fea­tured a mild-man­nered aca­d­e­m­ic turn­ing up at some quaint sea­side resort or old French vil­lage and acci­den­tal­ly acquir­ing a cursed arte­fact which unleash­es some dark force. His ghouls were not overt: James was well aware that the great­est hor­rors lie with­in the human imag­i­na­tion and that one only needs to stim­u­late that imag­i­na­tion to con­jure up the most fright­en­ing appari­tions.

Have you heard of the ‘M R James Test’? The rules are sim­ple: you must read one of his ghost sto­ries by the light of a sin­gle can­dle in a desert­ed house in an emp­ty room, with your back to an open door. You suc­ceed if your nerve holds and you don’t need to turn around and look over your shoul­der! I haven’t tried it myself but hav­ing read sev­er­al of his sto­ries I can well imag­ine the poten­tial for goosebumps…Happy Hal­loween!