Ghosts and Scholars: Ghost Stories in the Tradition of M. R. James

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For permission to reprint copyrighted material in this volume the editors are indebted to the following:

N. J. R. James for ‘Ghosts—Treat Them Gently!’ and ‘Ghost Story Competition’ by M. R. James.

Messrs. Edward Arnold Ltd. for ‘Christmas Reunion’ by Sir Andrew Caldecott, and ‘Between Sunset and Moonrise’ by R. H. Malden.

Mrs Elaine Binney for ‘The Saint and the Vicar’ by Cecil Binney.

Ramsey Campbell for his story ‘This Time’.

David Higham Associates Limited for ‘Blind Man’s Hood’ by John Dickson Carr (‘Carter Dickson’).

Mrs Doris Cowles for ‘The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold’ by F. Cowles.

David A. A. Gray for ‘Brother John’s Bequest’ by Arthur Gray.

Sheila Hodgson for her story ‘Come, Follow’.

A. F. Kidd for her story ‘An Incident in the City’.

Lady Leslie for ‘As in a Glass Dimly’ by (Sir) Shane Leslie.

Mrs Sonia Rolt for ‘New Corner’ by L. T. C. Rolt.

David G. Rowlands for his story ‘Sins of the Fathers’.

Mrs Bertha Turner for ‘The Eastern Window’ by E. G. Swain.

Every effort has been made to trace all owners of copyright and it is hoped that our apologies will be accepted for any omissions.

PHOTOGRAPHS

1 M. R. James. A previously unpublished photograph taken in the late 1880s.

2 The Revd Herbert James, rector of Livermere in Suffolk, MRJ’s father.

3 Mary Emily James, MRJ’s mother.

4 Henry Elford Luxmoore, MRJ’s Eton tutor and a regular guest at King’s over Christmas when MRJ’s stories were first read.

5 King’s College, Cambridge: the Fellows’ (Gibbs’) Building. Photograph taken c. 1890.

6 left to right: James McBryde, Will Stone, M. R. James; 1899.

7 James McBryde, the illustrator of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904).

8 and 9 (above and below) Two of McBryde’s illustrations to James’s ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’.

10 The Benson brothers; left to right: Arthur, Robert Hugh (standing), Edward Frederic.

11 A. C. Benson.

12 The Revd Sabine Baring-Gould in old age.

13 Stoneground Ghost Tales (1912) by E. G. Swain, former chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge.

14 Arthur Gray’s Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye (1919).

15 R. H. Malden’s Nine Ghosts (1943). Malden, another Kingsman who had known M. R. James, ended his life as Dean of Wells.

16 The Alabaster Hand (1949) by A. N. L. Munby, a distinguished librarian of King’s.

17 Illustration to James’s ‘“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”’ by Jim Pitts, 1982.

18 Illustration to James’s ‘A Warning to the Curious’ (Jim Pitts, 1982).

19 Two illustrations to ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’ by Russ Nicholson.

20 T.A.F. (Twice a Fortnightly) group at Cambridge in the 1890s. The T.A.F. was an offshoot of the Chitchat Society, at which the first two of M. R. James’s ghost stories were read.

RICHARD DALBY is a professional author, bibliographer, researcher and bookdealer specializing in supernatural fiction. His previous anthologies include The Best Ghost Stories of H. Russell Wakefield (John Murray, 1978) and Dracula’s Brood, a selection of rare vampire stories (Crucible, 1987).

ROSEMARY PARDOE is the founder of Ghosts and Scholars, a magazine devoted to the ghost stories of M. R. James and fiction in the Jamesian tradition.

MICHAEL COX is the author of M. R. James: An Informal Portrait (Oxford, 1983; Oxford Paperbacks, 1986) and is also co-editor of The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories (1986).