This episode Mike & Will put on their golden pince-nez and crack the spine of ‘The Uncommon Prayer-book’ by M.R. James!
Big thanks go to our reader for this episode, Debbie Wedge.
Questions answered during this episode:
- Is M.R. James an anti-semite?
- Is Mr Poschwitz the Germanic Lovejoy?
- How much snakebite is too much snakebite?
Show notes:
- Michael Cox / Pleasing Terror story notes (amazon)
M.R. James’ biographer Michael Cox has written some very useful notes for this story which can be found in the Oxford Classics edition of ‘Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories’. Another set of notes can be found in the ‘Pleasing Terror’ M.R. James anthology.
- ‘The Books, Manuscripts and Literary Patronage of Lady Anne Sadleir (1585-1670)’ by Arnold Hunt (Google Books)
This essay features in the volume ‘Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinity/Trent Colloquium’ contains a wealth of information on the real life individual on who provided M.R. James with the inspiration of this story.
- Info on this story, Lady Sadleir and Anti-Cromwellian editions of the book of common prayer (Two Nerdy History Girls)
Information often turns up in unexpected places, like here in the comments section of a competely unrelated article about Guy Fawkes! Scroll down to the thread of comments starting with Chris Woodyard for some interesting speculation on the inspiration for this story.
- Stereotypes of Jews in Literature (Wikipedia)
Anti-Semitism has been rearing it’s ugly head in literature for centuries. Was M.R. James jumping on the Hebrew-bashing bandwagon? We think not but this info on how Jews have been portrayed in literature over the years is certainly eye-opening.
- “M.R. James, Antiquarian Sleuth: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth and the Blood Libel” by Steve Duffy (Ghosts & Scholars)
This excellent article goes a long way to debunk the suggestion that M.R. James was harbouring anti-semitic tendencies by discussing James’ work to debunk the ‘Blood libel’ myth through close examination of the truth behind the martyrdom of William of Norwich.
- Paul Lowe’s illustration of this story (Trashotron.com)
Perennial M.R. James illustrator Paul Lowe produced a horrifying conception of what the flannel creature from this story may have looked like (scroll to the bottom of the page to find it).
- The Book of Common Prayer (wikipedia)
Here you can read about the troubled history of the Book of Common Prayer, the first book to publish the forms of common Christian worship in English.
- Psalm 109 (rmjs.co.uk)
Here you can read the full Book of Common Prayer version of Psalm 109, in all it’s doom-laden glory!
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This episode Will and Mike delve into the toy box and pull out something truly horrible in the form of ‘The Haunted Doll’s House‘ by M.R. James!
Show notes:
- Queen Mary’s Dolls’s House
This story was written for a real dolls’ house, the one created by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens for Queen Mary of Teck between 1921 and 1924. The dolls’ house in currently on display in Windsor. Further details can be found at Wikipedia.
- Strawberry Hill House
James describes the dolls house in his story as being ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic‘ in style, the ‘quintessence of Horace Walpole‘. Walpole’s gothic castle-style house inspired a generation of architects when it was built on the banks of the Thames in London in the mid 18th century.
- Dolls’ Houses: It’s a Small World
This enjoyable Guardian.com article looks into the world of modern day dolls’ house collectors.
- Interview with Stephen Gray
Episode 21 of this very podcast featured an interview with filmmaker Stephen Gray who has recently completed a short film adaptation of this story. Watch it on Vimeo.
- Ghosts & Scholars notes
The ever-reliable Ghosts & Scholars website contains a useful set of notes on this story compiled by Rosemary Pardoe.
- A frog the size of a man?
Jim Moon’s excellent illustration.
- Improvised Radio Theatre – With Dice!
Many thanks to our reader this week, Roger Burton West. His new RPG podcast is great – and HPL fans will appreciate the domain name…
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In this episode Will and Mike travel back in time to the early 18th century to examine some diabolical goings on in rural Cambridgeshire in M.R. James’s ‘The Fenstanton Witch‘.
Show notes:
- Story Locations (Monty’s World)
This story features many real-world locations, starting in King’s College Cambridge, and following Hardman and Ashe up the Huntindon Road (now the A14) past Lolworth and on to the church at Fenstanton.
- Alchemy! Enlightenment! Revolution!
… Britain in the late 17th and early 18th centuries had it all. Mike recommends two books set around Oxford and Cambridge in this period, both with a pleasing mixture of science, swashbuckling and genre fun: An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iain Pears, and Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.
- ‘Stories I have tried to write’ by M.R. James (A Podcast to the Curious)
Although never published in his lifetime, James did mention this story in his essay ‘Stories I have tried to write’, published in 1929. We provided a full reading of the essay back in November 2011.
- ‘A Night in King’s College Chapel’ by M.R. James (Ghosts & Scholars)
In this episode we mention the only other James story to be set at King’s College, another unpublished story called ‘A Night in King’s College Chapel’.
- Parker’s Piece, Cambridge (Wikipedia)
James refers to snipe being shot in this city centre park back at the time when this story took place.
- Isaac Newton’s Catflap (Wikipedia)
In ‘The Fenstanton Witch’ James refers to the popular myth that Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat flap whilst at King’s College Cambridge.
- The Methuen Treaty (Wikipedia)
James drops a lot of historical details into his description of 18th Century college life. An example of this is his reference to the MEthuen Treaty with Portugal, which included trade regulations that allows wines to be imported from Portugal without tax.
- The Witch of Berkeley (Living the History)
Thinking of turning to God when your pact with the devil turns sour? Read the story of the Witch of Berkeley first. C.S. Watkins “History and the Supernatural in Medieval England” provides expert commentary on what went wrong for her – and Hardman and Abel. Also, check out this cool illustration of the witch being carried away by a demon!
- 91st Psalm (Biblegateway.com)
At the moment in their ritual when the demon appears, Hardman is just reading the 91st psalm.
- Sheila Hodgson (suttonelms.org.uk)
Will first encountered this story in the form of ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’, a 1977 radio play by Sheila Hodgson that was broadcast as part of a series of plays based on the ideas mentioned by M.R. James in ‘Stories I have tried to write’.
- The 17th Century Witchcraft panic in Cambridgeshire (bbc.co.uk)
It is likely that this story was inspired by the witchcraft hysteria which swept through western Cambridgeshire in the mid 17th century. More information of it’s victims can be found at witching.org, where you can also find an account of the trials written at the time.
- Arthur Gray aka Ingulphus (Ghosts & Scholars)
Arthur Gray was a contemporary of M.R. James at Cambridge, where Gray was Master of Jesus College. Between 1910 and 1925 he published a number of ghost stories set at Jesus College under the pseudonym ‘Ingulphus’.
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