Thirty years ago this year, Rosemary Pardoe published The James Gang – A Bibliography of Writers in the M.R. James Tradition (1991). This provided a checklist of books and stories following in the antiquarian ghost story form perfected by James, as well as those (not necessarily in that style) by his circle of friends. Hugh Lamb, who had drawn up a “James List” for his own use in 1973, provided an introduction.
This soon became an invaluable reference source for any enthusiast repining that James’ stories are all very well, but there just aren’t enough of them. Rosemary has said she would like to see the list updated with similar work published since her list—but is not volunteering to do it! There would certainly be a lot more to list, not least because of Rosemary’s own work with the Ghosts & Scholars journals and anthologies.
The James Gang is organised alphabetically by author
surname, but I thought it would also be interesting to arrange the main items
(not all of them) chronologically, to get a sense of how the Jamesian story
developed. I have here focused on books, or groups of stories, rather than
individual stories, though these are included in the original booklet. I have added a very few new entries.
To begin with, a reminder that the original books by M R James are: 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 Others (1925), and The Collected Ghost Stories of M R James (1931), which assembled the first four books and a few other tales.
Note: I have omitted books by the Benson brothers (A C, E F, R H), Walter de la Mare, Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell as they each have their own distinctive voice.
Chronology1910 The Footprints in the Snow by H F W Tatham, a cycling companion of MRJ
1911-14 – Seven stories published in the Magdalene College Magazine, Cambridge, by ‘B’, identity unknown.
1911 and 1920 – two stories in the Cambridge Review, by ‘D.N.J.’, unidentified
1912 The Stoneground Ghost Tales by E G Swain, a friend of MRJ
1914 The Hole of the Pit by Arthur Reed Ropes, novel; dedicated to MRJ
1918 A College Mystery: the story of the apparition in the Fellows' Garden at Christ's College Cambridge by A P Baker
1919 Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye, by ‘Ingulphus’ (Arthur A Gray, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge)
1919 Six Ghost Stories by T G Jackson, acknowledges MRJ in introduction
1922 In Ghostly Company by Amyas Northcote
1923 Mystic Voices by Roger Pater
1928 They Return At Evening by H Russell Wakefield
1928 Randall’s Round by Eleanor Scott
1929 Old Man’s Beard by H Russell Wakefield
1931 Imagine A Man in a Box by H Russell Wakefield
1933 By Stygian Waters by J.Cecil Maby, dedicated to MRJ and Poe
1936 The Horror of Abbot’s Grange by Frederick Cowles
1938 The Night Wind Howls by Frederick Cowles
1943 Nine Ghosts by R H Malden, Dean of Wells Cathedral
1944 The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin. Crime novel with a Jamesian ghost story in one chapter.
1945 A Handful of Ghosts by George Bushnell
1947 Not Exactly Ghosts by Andrew Caldecott
1947 Unholy Relics by M P Dare
1948 Fires Burn Blue by Andrew Caldecott
1948 Sleep No More by L T C Rolt
1949 The Alabaster Hand by A N L Munby
1950 The Black Fox by H F Heard, novel
1952 A Pad in the Straw by Christopher Woodforde, a later Dean of Wells
1953 The Sweet Singers by William Croft Dickinson
1954 Yesterday Knocks by Noel Boston
1955 My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer
1969 The Green Man by Kingsley Amis, novel
1970 The House on the Brink by John Gordon, young adult novel
1974-76 four stories in anthologies by A.Erskine Ellis, who met MRJ at college
1977 Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber, novel
1978 et seq stories by Sheila Hodgson in Blackwood’s Magazine, then Ghosts & Scholars, featuring MRJ
1979 The Seven Deadly Sins by Lanyon Jones
1980 et seq Eye Hath Not Seen and other books and chapbooks by David Rowlands
1982 High Spirits by Robertson Davies
1983 A Natural Body and A Spiritual Body by J S Leatherbarrow
1985 Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd, novel
1985 A Graven Image by Roger Johnson, chapbook
1985 When Dusk Comes Creeping by Lanyon Jones
1985 et seq Change & Decay and other books and chapbooks by A F Kidd
1986 The Angry Dead by Mary Ann Allen (Rosemary Pardoe), chapbook
1986 et seq An Empty House and other books and chapbooks by Ron Weighell
1987 Ghosts & Scholars ed Richard Dalby and Rosemary Pardoe, indispensable anthology
1989 Antique Dust by Robert Westall
I think the chronology does illustrate a sort of sequence. In the first phase, there is a strong MRJ or Cambridge connection. In the 1920s and 30s a few new authors try their hand: in the 40s the publisher Edward Arnold brings out some conscious pastiches; from the 60s and 70s there are variations very much of their own time, but still nodding to MRJ; in the 80s and after small and independent presses resume the original tradition.
(Mark Valentine)
By Stygian Waters by Maby seems impossible to find. Has anyone read it?
ReplyDeleteEven though I've read quite a few of these books, I still find it hard to put my finger on what makes a "Jamesian" story and what doesn't. Is it just a kind of bookishness and an atmosphere that is cozily antiquarian? Today, it would seem that writing in the James tradition is now simply an artistic choice. Ramsey Campbell's "The Guide" is a Jamesian story even if most of his work doesn't qualify. Why isn't Rosemary Timperley a Jamesian writer, at least some of the time? Or Russell Kirk? And where would you place such contemporary figures as Mark Valentine, Reggie Oliver, Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker? And could dark thrillers, set in libraries and the world of old books, like "The Club Dumas," "The Shadow of the Wind" "Lempriere's Dictionary" and "The Name of the Rose," be considered Jamesian? As I said at the start of this note, I've always found it hard to decide what is and what isn't in the James tradition.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pleasant question for debate, Michael. "Scholar encounters the malevolent influence of ancient ritual magic, witchcraft or supernatural revenge" might do as to the subject matter, but Jamesian style is equally important. I think this would exclude therefore stories with a similar theme but written in, eg, aesthetical, occult, modernist or pulp styles. However, there is a simpler definition: "it's Jamesian if Rosemary says so"!
DeleteThank you for reprinting this useful list. I think it works wonderfully well in this chronological format. The Leiber novel is an interesting choice for inclusion. I know Ms. Pardoe (and perhaps others) has long advocated for its consideration as a Jamesian work, and no wonder. It is arguably the most accomplished work on this list. I’ve always felt, however, that the novel must be greatly minimized in order to fit beneath the relatively small umbrella of Jamesian works. Perhaps it is too readily accepted as such rather than as a work with Jamesian touches. I imagine consideration of the latter type would greatly inflate this list.
ReplyDeleteLeiber’s novel unquestionably contains a number of Jamesian touches, particularly in its appropriation of imagery from "Oh, Whistle," but I wonder if perhaps other influences on the novel, like those of London, Bierce, Chambers, Sterling, and Smith, as well as Leiber’s own experiences and works as a pulp writer, are not read as the influence of James, or simply assimilated in a subjective reading. If not, then Night’s Black Agents (1947) could also reasonably be placed on this list. “Smoke Ghost,” “The Hound,” “The Hill and the Hole,” and perhaps also “The Dreams of Albert Moreland” and “The Inheritance,” are certainly open to similar Jamesian readings.
Our Lady of Darkness is also, unless I’m mistaken, the only work on this list written by an American. I wonder what this can offer about the development of the Jamesian ghost story other than that a prolific and protean American writer of speculative fiction integrated the Jamesian influence into a broader work of supernatural fiction. It is worth noting that Leiber, in my view, possessed the greatest range of any writer on this list, including those noted to have been excluded, generally due to his wide-ranging interest but also to his steady presence in the pulps and later digest magazines. The dearth of American writers in general is interesting. We can be fairly certain that American writers of supernatural fiction have read and been influenced by James’ stories. Perhaps an updated list, brought up to the present, would better reflect James’ influence in this respect. On the other hand, perhaps the tradition of American weird fiction, especially the suffocating influence of Lovecraft, has simply overshadowed James’ influence.
The exclusion of writers due to possessing "their own distinctive voice" is also interesting in relation to Leiber. Whether or not Leiber possessed a distinctive style is less the issue for me than that he possessed a style dissimilar to that of MRJ. Although I consider Aickman and Campbell to be far more Jamesian writers than Leiber, I also feel that the overt eroticism in the works of all three writers moves them toward each other as it also moves them away from MRJ in the same regard. I’m also not sure of a method by which Our Lady of Darkness can be categorized as a Jamesian work but nothing from the pen of, say, Joan Aiken be likewise considered.
Anyway, sorry for the length of this comment. I only recently discovered the blog and have found it informative and stimulating. Please feel no obligation to reply. I wished only to share my enthusiasm.
-Jordan Prejean
Thank you for your interesting comment, Jordan. As it happens the next issue of 'Wormwood' will have two features relevant to the points you raise. John Howard contributes an appreciation of Leiber, celebrating his many dimensions. And Tom Sparrow writes about Henry Mercer, an American antiquarian whose ghost stories were rediscovered by Peter Bell, and whose work could well be seen as Jamesian.
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