1
A Morbid Curiosity
The Art of Montague Rhodes James
By Matthew E. Banks B.A. 2014
It is said that literature is the foundation of Culture, and that many films have either made cinematic
offerings from this literature or have borrowed heavily from it. For example J R R Tolkien
unwittingly created, almost single handily the fantasy genre and his style has been widely copied.
Isaac Asimov single handily redefined the Science Fiction genre with his three laws of robotics.
There is one author, whose influence is as strongly felt in both current literature as well as film
despite not many people knowing his work and that author is Montague Rhodes James.
For example, both The Ring (2002) and Drag Me To Hell (2009), borrow heavily from his works
especially Drag Me To Hell, which is an unacknowledged remake of 1957s classic Night of the
Demon whose main premise is Jamess 1911 short story Casting the Runes. Night of the Demon
remains the only cinematic outing for any of his tales. (There was a badly made version called
Shriek (US. Shrieker) in 1998, directed by Victoria Sloan which borrowed heavily on both Casting
the Runes, and H R Wakefields He Cometh and He Passeth By, which in itself is an imitation of
Jamess story.) The Ring borrows heavily from Casting the Runes and The Treasure of Abbot
Thomas. Despite remaining in the shadows, his influence remains as strong as ever, influencing
such authors as Ruth Rendell, H R Wakefield, Ramsey Campbell; Mark Gatiss and with her 2010
novel, Dark Matter, Michelle Paver. Other than these examples, Jamess work has been continually
dramatized for both the radio and television since 1938, and since Christmas 2000, connoisseurs
and ghost story fans have been treated to eight new M R James television dramatizations, two
documentaries and approximately twelve radio dramatizations. Perhaps it is the way he uses the
short story platform for his story telling rather than the novel that makes him so successful in this
genre so successful that he is considered the Father of the Modern Ghost Story and that no
ghost story anthology can be truly complete without one of his stories.
Montague Rhodes James, (or Monty to his friends), was born on August 1st 1862, the fourth child
of Herbert and Mary James. He had a classical education at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge,
where he was awarded many prizes and scholarships. As well as publishing his ghost stories, he
published many books on biblical, historical, and artistic subjects. He also published a children's
fantasy novel, The Five Jars in 1922, the only novel he ever wrote. From 1894 to 1908 he was
Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and from 1905 to 1918 he was Provost of
2
King's College, Cambridge, and Vice Chancellor of the University from 1913 to 1915. In 1918, he
became Provost of Eton. In 1930, he was awarded the Order of Merit. In 1936, his health
deteriorated due to poisoning probably caused by his refusal to have a prostate operation and there
is the possibility he may have suffered a slight stroke. Monty passed away peacefully on 12th June,
the same date as his father, and his funeral was the following Monday.
As with all his work, Monty strikes at your imagination by just giving you the bare essentials and
leaves your imagination to fill in the gory details. In all his ghostly writings he relies on the genuine
feeling behind it for the story's effectiveness, and another factor which makes his work so
captivating is the way he can bring life to his characters - making you believe and feel for them.
Perhaps to some degree we can see ourselves reflected in them... a case of morbid curiosity that lies
within us all! Whether Monty actually believed in ghosts is open to conjecture - saying: Do I
believe in ghosts: To which I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it
satisfies me.
Further to this, shortly before he died, Shane Leslie questioned Monty about his belief in ghosts: I
asked him what he really thought on the subject, since he had written better ghost-stories than any
man living. He answered: 'Depend upon it! Some of these things are so, but we do not know the
rules!' This was as far as he was prepared to go when discussing this subject. Though the writer
Mary Butts speculated; What is Doctor James writing about? What is a ghost story? And why is
it, as he has said himself, that no other subject has ever attracted him? While how is it that the
ghost stories he has written are incomparable and unique; that he has found a formula for their
telling more effective and like that of no other writer? [ ] One thing can be said. Years ago, he
found a magical receipt, and has spent his life in perfecting the use of it. With it he can raise the
evil dead; summon the abominable familiars, whose place is just across the threshold of human
life.
Yet none of his supernatural writings are actually about ghosts as such. They are inhabited by
demons, wraiths, vampires and the darkest blackest magic. But Monty did permit himself and us
this warning: Be careful how you handle the packet you pick up in the carriage drive; particularly
if it contains nail-parings and hair. Do not, in any case, bring it into the house; it may not be
alone.
3
When it came to actually writing his ghost stories, Monty had very set views on what to use and not
to use. In a 1929 article for The Bookman he sets out in two passages the suggestion of a definite
standard. The first commends reticence:
.. Maybe an elderly doctrine to preach; yet from the artistic point of view I am sure it's 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.
A fine example of this can be found in The Tractate Middoth, where Monty is almost unsparing in
his description of someone who has obviously been dead a long time being met by the hero among
the more remote shelves of the Cambridge University library: [sic] there was my parson again,
back to me, looking at the books on the shelf I wanted. His hat was on the table; and he had a bald
head. I waited a second or two looking at him rather particularly. I tell you, he had a very nasty
bald head. It looked to me dry; and it looked dusty; and the streaks of hair across it were much less
like hair than cobwebs.
Well, I made a bit of a noise on purpose; coughed and moved my feet. He turned round and
let me see his face - which I hadn't seen before. I tell you again; I'm not mistaken. Though for one
reason or another I didn't take in the lower part of his face; I did see the upper part; and it was
perfectly dry; and the eyes were very deep-sunk; and over them; from the eyebrows to the
cheekbone; there were cobwebs - thick. Now that closed me up; as they say; and I can't tell you
anything more.
The second passage could serve as an encapsulated summary of Monty's own approach: The
reading of many ghost stories has shown me that the greatest successes have been scored by the
authors who can make us envisage a definite time and place; and give us plenty of clear cut and
matter of fact detail; but who; when the climax is reached; allow us to be just a little in the dark as
to the working of their machinery. We do not want to see the bones of their theory about the
supernatural.
4
With this in mind, we find that Montys characters have an almost morbid curiosity and an
overwhelming desire for knowledge a desire that overshadows any warnings that they are given,
until it is too late. For example, in Count Magnus, the character of Mr Wraxall is driven by a
subconscious curiosity to see what is in the Count's sarcophagus. On his way to the manor house,
he finds that he ends up at the graveyard gates, mocking the spirit of the Count, taunting him to
show himself: It is curious he notes How on retracing a familiar path, ones' thoughts engross
one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. I had entirely failed to notice where I was
going, (I had planned a private visit to the tomb house to copy the epitaphs); when I suddenly, as it
were, awoke to conscience, and found myself (as before), turning in at the graveyard gate, and, I
believe, singing or chanting some such words as, " Are you awake Count Magnus? Are you asleep
Count Magnus?" and then something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I
must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time.
Wraxalls curiosity has led him into facing the Counts wrath for this teasing / taunting. Despite
fleeing from Sweden back to England - Wraxall doesn't find sanctuary from the cowled figure of
the Count. The horror is mounted by the fact that anyone Wraxall sees wearing a cloak and cowl or
wide rimmed hat that covers the face could be the Count. For the Counts' face is never seen. When
Paxton in A Warning to the Curious steals a crown from its barrow - despite being haunted and
hounded by an unseen entity, his fate is undeniably sealed. His desire and curiosity overtake his
basic logic and though he tries to rectify his crime by replacing the crown, he still has to pay with
his life - a high price to pay for curiosity. The same goes for Wraxall, for Baxter in A View from a
Hill, for Lord Saul in The Residence at Whitminster amongst others, for if you delve too deeply,
there is a price to pay.
In Casting the Runes, Monty builds on the growing horror of inevitable doom. The villain is human
and progresses from being a quasi-academic to a figure of deliberate and direct malevolence.
Karswell, an evil warlock, has the unpleasant habit of cursing his unfortunate victims that he sees
as having done something wrong to him, by passing them a slip of paper inscribed with runic
symbols. Tension builds as the heroes race to give him back the paper, before they are consumed by
a pursuing demon. There is one moment of almost gratuitous terror; the hero, Dunning, is made
sleepless by a sound in his study; going out into the passage and leaning over the banister: No light
was visible; no further sound came; only a gust of warm, or even hot air played for an instant
around his shins. (Then after returning to bed)... the electric light was off. The obvious course was
to find a match; and also to consult his watch: he might as well know how many hours of
5
discomfort awaited him. So he put his hand into the well-known nook under his pillow: it did not
get so far. What he touched was, according to his account; a mouth, with teeth; and with hair about
it, and, he declares; not the mouth of a human being.
This story formed the basis for Night of the Demon and the dark atmosphere of the story is captured
by the film especially in the performances of Dana Andrews as the disbelieving scientist Holden
and Naill MacGinnis as Karswell, who (unlike his literary predecessor; who is truly malevolent),
adds a new depth to the character by showing us that Karswell is just as trapped by the evil that he
dabbles in, just as much as Holden; who he's passed the runes to, is. In one scene in the film
Karswell says to his Mother: Well believe this also. You get nothing for nothing. This house, the
land, the way we live, nothing for nothing! My followers who pay for all this, do it out of fear, and I
do what I do out of fear also... It's part of the price.(sic) cause if it's not someone else's life, itll
be mine, you understand Mother, it'll be mine.
The film really comes into its own with the presentation of the demon, which unlike many
contemporary movie monsters lives up to its fearsome description. Originally the director Jacques
Tourneur (Cat People 1942) had strong reservations about showing the demon, but bowed to
pressure from the film company. The film was a success at the box office and many film historians
have labelled this film as the last great horror film. In 1985, the singer Kate Bush sampled this film
for the title track of her hit album, The Hounds of Love. It is interesting to note here that Mary Butts
said of this story, The writer has an idea, from wholly different sources, that one part of this story
is founded on fact. The implication here is that Monty either dabbled in the occult or knew
someone that had. The only connection between Mary Butts and Monty is the occultist Aleister
Crowley, who was at Cambridge whilst James was Provost and Vice-Chancellor. This is a tenuous
connection as there is no direct evidence that they had actually met. Butts certainly believed that he
had had an experience as she wrote, It would not surprise me if once and he will never own to it
he has met something uncommonly like the presence or the work of an evil spirit. Or that there
has been but one episode in his life which gave him a psychic turn, left an impress on his
imagination. Even that someone underground once came up, and made him aware of it in no easy
shape; and that this one encounter gave him the material for five books. Some experience, apart
from his immense scholarship, he must have had [ ] Butts further speculates, Or is it also possible
that the belief and the experience in some old book came through and stamped itself on him and
persuaded him. Here Butts may have a point as there are more than a couple of stories where
Monty uses this concept as the basis. For example both in The Tractate Middoth and The
6
Uncommon Prayer Book have vengeful guardians, in The Ash Tree the bible gives warnings when
characters draw the Sortes, in Count Magnus a book informs Wraxell as to the nature of the Count,
and in Lost Hearts it is a book that inspires Mr Abeny to commit his murderous crimes. Finally,
and going back to Montys first published story, Canon Alberics Scrapbook, we have a character,
Denniston, who Monty based upon himself, whose curiosity is roused when he is told about a
scrapbook despite having an idea that the book is protected. If Butts hypothesis is correct,
then is Monty acknowledging this in his writings? In 2003, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio play
The House at Worlds End by Stephen Sheridan in which the basis for Montys interest in the
supernatural was born via a book!
In his later years Monty's production of ghost stories slowed down. There were only three or four
stories or parts of stories that were written between 1925 and 1931; and these were produced for
Eton ephemerals: There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard, Rats, and, After Dark in the Playing
fields. Of these three pieces, the second, Rats is a fine piece in the vein of the very earliest stories.
In 1931, these three stories (plus Wailing Well, which was written, to be read by the Provost to the
Eton Troop boy scout camp in July 1927;) were added to the four earlier collections to form the
volume of collected ghost stories, which has remained in print continuously ever since. Although
the latter pertains to be The Complete ghost stories of..., it is, in fact missing Monty's final three
published stories: The Experiment (1931), The Malice of Inanimate Objects (1933), and the
posthumous, A Vignette (1936).
With just five publications - Ghost Stories from an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories from an
Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Other Stories (1919), A Warning to the Curious (1925), and
The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R.James (1931), his reputation as a writer of supernatural fiction
was firmly assured.
In Stories I Have Tried to Write, Monty makes mention of several stories or drafts of stories that he
had tried to write, but had lacked that something special and had been relegated to a drawer. The
first of these being: Marcilly - Le Hayer, which is just a story outline. Then we have the Two
students of King's' plot, which is a complete manuscript, now titled The Fenstanton Witch.
Rosemary Pardoe, editor of Ghosts & Scholars has found and published seven previously
unknown manuscripts and story outlines by M. R. J. These being Marcilly - Le - Hayer (Ghosts &
Scholars # 22), The Fenstanton Witch (Ghosts & Scholars # 12), A Night In King's College Chapel
(Ghosts & Scholars # 7) and finally John Humphreys (Ghosts & Scholars #16.) This piece is a
7
long and incomplete manuscript, which can be seen as a fore runner to Mr Humphreys & His
Inheritance, although only one scene from this draft was adapted for use in the published tale, and I
suppose there are a few other similarities. The story drafts of Marcilly - Le Hayer, The Game Of
Bear, Speaker Lenthall's Tomb, Merfield House and the incomplete John Humphreys show a
fascinating insight into how Monty wrote his stories - where he began and of what ideas ran
through his mind as he wrote the stories. John Humphreys has some brilliant ideas that he never
used anywhere else. The Game Of Bear and Speaker Lenthall's Tomb both end before anything
supernatural happen, which is a great shame, as you are left wondering what might have happened,
and there are two versions of Merfield House. The first piece takes place in Merfield Hall and the
second has the title Merfield House. As to why Monty relegated The Fenstanton Witch to the
drawer is beyond me. It is well constructed and like his earlier work, holds the reader to the page,
and for that reason I cannot understand why he didn't like it. His description of the demon is as
detailed and excessive as that featured in his earlier short story Canon Alberics Scrapbook:
It was the figure, one would say, at first sight, of an enormous bat, with folded wings and
hints of head approaching the human form. In a short moment, Hardman caught sight of the folds
of wrinkled skin or hide that hung down from the cheeks, of the wide ears which shone transparent
in the moonlight, and of the two lines of dusky red fire which marked the almost closed eyes.
A Night in King's College Chapel, is a short piece that is not a ghost story as such, but the tale of
what the characters in stained glass windows get up to at night. What came as a surprise was the
fact that this piece was humorous rather than scary, and shows a new depth to Monty and his work.
These three drafts were published in a companion to Ghosts & Scholars, titled, The Fenstanton
Witch and Others. M R James in Ghosts & Scholars. Unfortunately, to date these drafts have not
been anthologised, although there is a two book set of Montys complete supernatural fiction
available from Penguin books.
With so much originality in his work, and despite some absolutely brilliant radio and television
productions it is amazing that not more films have been made of his stories, rather than his
influence. It's a shame; after all, Poe and Lovecraft whose work bears much in common with
James, have both had numerous films based on their writing. Lets hope that in the future this will
be rectified and more people can enjoy his pleasing terror.
