Mike is off on his honeymoon at the moment, so in lieu of a full episode Will provides a reading of and short commentary on an M.R. James essay ‘Ghosts – Treat them Gently!‘ which was originally published in the Evening News on 17 April 1931.

In the essay Monty talks about what ingredients he thinks go to make up a really successful ghost story, and gives an insight into the supernatural fiction he rates most highly.

Links

• The ‘Not at Night’ series
• Society for Psychical Research
• Mr Wardle’s Fat Boy
• Sheridan Le Fanu
• William Harrison Ainsworth
• The Lancashire Witches (Novel by above)
• E.F Benson
• Algernon Blackwood
• A. M. Burrage
• Walter de la Mare
• H. Russell Wakefield
• Margaret Oliphant
• Lanoe Falconer

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Join Mike and Will as they peer through their scrying glass at the second installment of ‘The Residence at Whitminster’ by M.R. James.

More black magic, strange visions, swarms of satanic flies and is that Beelzebub hiding in the closet? Or is it just R. Kelly? One things for sure, you’ll never look into your underwear draw in the same way again!

Show notes:

• William Oldys (wikipedia)
  This English antiquarian and bibliographer provided James with the inspiration for Dr Oldys in ‘Residence at Whitminster’.
• Sir Walter Scott – The Talisman (wikipedia)
  This is the book which Mary is reading in ‘Residence at Whitminster’ that puts the idea of talismans and scrying into her mind.
• Ichneumonoidea Fly aka Sawfly (wikipedia)
  Is this the strange species of insect that the inhabitants have such difficulty conclusively identifying?
• Anna Seward (wikipedia)
  Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’, is the English romantic poet whose prose style James parodies in Mary Oldys’s letter to her friend Emily.
• Beelzebub – The Lord of the Flies (wikipedia)
  Could the sorcery of Lord Saul have literally summoned up Beelzebub, the devil? In various texts Beelzebub appears in the form of a swarm of flies.
• M.R. James – The Fenstanton Witch (Ghosts & Scholars)
  Simon McCollough describes M.R. James’s unpublished short stoy ‘The Fenstanton Witch’ as a prototype for ‘Residence at Whitminster’. It also features a pair of young necromancers whose naive sorceries summon up a terrible winged creature, and also namechecks the Witch of Endor. ‘An Evening’s Entertainment’ by M.R. James also features a horrible swarm of flies, which a sexton describes as “Lord of the Flies, sir”.
• Salem’s Lot (1979) (youtube)
  This is the ‘window’ scene from the 1979 Stephen King adaptation which reminded Will of the ghost of Saul tapping at the villagers windows on cold winters nights.
• R.Kelly – Trapped in the Closet (youtube)
  The Oldys family are not the only ones with some closet trouble, check out R.Kelly’s magnum opus, his epic 22-part ‘hip-hopera’ “Trapped in the Closet”!

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Join Mike & Will for the first in a two part special on ‘The Residence at Whitminster’ by M.R. James! No black cockerels were harmed in the recording of this podcast (OK, maybe one or two. It’s called research people).

This episode features readings by Hamish Symington and Peter Ross.

Show Notes:

• M.R. James – An Informal Portrait by Michael Cox (Amazon)
  For details of Monty’s life during WWI we lean heavily on Michael Cox’s excellent biography. It is sadly now out of print but secondhand copies are available, if expensive. Try your local library before you splash out, they may be able to order it in for you.
• Warnings to the Curious (Ed. Joshi & Pardoe) (Amazon)
  We have recommended this many times before, but once again this great book of essays has helped a lot with our understanding of the story.
• Whitminster/Wheatenhurst, Gloucestershire (Googlemaps)
  The real Whitminster can be found here, although it was known as Wheatenhurst in James’s lifetime. More information on Whitminster House and estate, from which the place got it’s new name, can be found at british-history.ac.uk. Also see the Whitminster Community Website.
• Saul, in the Bible (Wikipedia)
  Lord Saul’s namesake appears in the Books of Samuel, and comes to a sticky end after some necromantic funny-business involving the Witch of Endor (no, not that Endor).
• Some Remarks on Ghost Stories by M.R. James (Ash Tree Press)
  In this episode we mention the M.R. James essay ‘Some Remarks on Ghost Stories’ which can be found in the ‘Pleasing Terror’ M.R. James anthology. The hardback is out of print but the eBook version is available.

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