Ho ho ho! We have a festive cracker of an episode for you this month (literally), as Mike and Will explore Sir Andrew Caldecott’s M.R. James-inspired tale, ‘Christmas Re-union‘.

A big thank you to Tony Mears, who provided the readings for this episode. Check out his bands new track ‘A Hypothermia Banquet‘ on Bandcamp!

Story notes:

• ‘Christmas Re-union’ by Sir Andrew Caldecott (gutenberg.net.au)
  The collection in which this story appears can be read online at Project Gutenberg Australia.
• Sir Andrew Caldecott (wikipedia)
  Andrew Caldecott was a big cheese in the Colonial Office for much of this life, only starting to publish ghost stories after he retired. You can find out more about his career at britishempire.co.uk.
• Stories I Have Tried to Write by M.R. James (mrjamespodcast.com)
  Not familiar with the M.R. James essay from which Caldecott took his inspiration for this story? We put out a full reading of it back in 2011 which you can listen to online!
• Ghost story reviews: Not Exactly Ghosts (Tychy)
  An interesting review and commentary on the volume in which this story appears.
• Christmas Re-union (Anibalan.com)
  An essay on this story, and on Sir Andrew Caldecott in general.
• The Great Smog of London (wikipedia)
  The characters express a lot of concern about fog in this story. When you read about the Great Smog of December 1952 you will understand why!
• Sir Roger de Coverley (wikipedia)
  This famous country dance, mentioned in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, also makes an appearance in this story.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This episode join Mike and Will as they don their kilts and sporrans and head north of Hadrian’s wall for some Scottish horror (no, not the midges) as we explore ‘The Open Door’ by Margaret Oliphant!

Big thanks to Kirsty for chilling us to the bone with her readings for this episode.

Show notes:

• Margaret Oliphant (Wikipedia)
  Margaret Oliphant (1828 – 1897) was a prolific and very popular author in her day, and M.R. James describes ‘The Open Door’ as one of only two ‘… really good ghost stories I know in the language wherein the elements of beauty and pity dominate terror.’
• Colinton House, Edinburgh (oliphantfiction.com)
  ‘Brentwood house’ in the story was mostly likely inspired by this house, where Oliphant stayed on a number of occasions as the guest of her friend William Blackwood III, publisher of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in which this story was first published. The house, now a school, features a picturesque castle ruin in the grounds, complete with open doorways leading to nowhere.
• Lasswade, near Edinburgh (Leedstrinity.ac.uk)
  While the house in the story is almost certainly based on Colinton House, the adjoining village of Brentwood is more likely to be based on the village of Lasswade, where Oliphant grew up. Like Lasswade, the village in the story is described as being a centre for paper-making. This article by Rosemary Mitchell also provides some fascinating analysis of the religious symbolism in the story.
• Margaret Oliphant and the Romantic Novel (dangerouswomenproject.org)
  This essay by Laura Witz, subtitled ‘Subtle subversions of Victorian gender conventions’, argues that Oliphant was a feminist whose fiction struggled against the restrictive gender norms of the time. Not that you see much of that in ‘The Open Door’, sadly.
• The Margaret Oliphant Fiction Collection (oliphantfiction.com)
  This website contains not only a bibliography of Oliphant, but also plot synopsis for all her published fiction. The ‘Stories of the Seen and the Unseen‘ section will be of particular interest to fans of the ghost story.
• Bogle (Wikipedia)
  A ‘bogle’ is a uniquely Scottish ghost of folkloric creature, one which the stable-master Jarvis is particularly keen to insist he is not afraid of in this story!
• Mass Hysteria (Wikipedia)
  The doctor is keen to attribute the multiple ghostly sightings as an example of mass hysteria. The wikipedia page on mass hysteria  contains some fascinating examples of this, from mewing nuns in the middle ages to modern forms of viral mass hysteria reportedly spread by the internet.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This episode Mike and Will cover ‘The Haunted and the Haunters‘ by Charles Dickens’s BFF, Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

M.R. James considered this story essential reading, saying “Nobody is permitted to write about ghost stories without
mentioning ‘The Haunted and the Haunters’.” (Some Remarks on Ghost Stories). Will it live up to our expectations?

Our reader for this episode is talented artist and family member, Peter Ross!

We also mention the new book from friend-of-the-podcast Patrick J. Murphy, Medieval Studies and the Ghost Stories of M. R. James, check it out!

Show notes:

• Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Wikipedia)
  Some basic biographical details about EBL’s life. A more detailed biography can be found at
  www.victorianweb.org.
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (www.bulwer-lytton.com)
  Inspired by EBL’s famous clunker “It was a dark and stormy night…”, this competition challenges would-be writers
  to come up with the worst possible opening line to a novel!
• 50 Berkeley Square, London (Wikipedia)
  Often touted as ‘the most haunted house in England’, this place gained a fearsome reputation for ghostliness in the
  latter half of the 19th century. It’s description and locations are tantilisingly close to the house described in
  this story, although the story pre-dated the house’s notoriety.
• The Haunted House (Wikipedia)
  The ‘haunted house’ as a concept goes back for at least 2000 years, and has inspired writers for just as long.
• ‘The Haunted House’ by Charles Dickens et al (Wikipedia)
  Could the publication of this story be connected in any way to the publications of ‘The Haunted House’, the
  portmaneau story that was ‘conducted’ and published by EBL’s friend Charles Dickens in the same year that EBL’s
  story was published?
• Essay by Ellis Jordan (www.cherylblakeprice.com)
  This essay on ‘The Haunted and the Haunters’ sheds some more light onto the story and EBL’s aims in writing it. It
  also compared the two differing versions of the story that were published.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS