M R James and the Psychology of Terror

Abstract

Although Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) would have wanted to be remembered primarily for his antiquarian scholarship, the only substantial work of his which remains in print are the ghost stories. These were frequently tried out at Christmas in front of an audience of dons and students, first at King’s College Cambridge and then at Eton, before seeing the light of day in various literary journals. There are a little over 30 of these stories extant, with the collected edition dating from 1931. Although their subject matter and settings are now historical, the stories are still able to evoke horror and disgust in a modern audience, as may be witnessed by the invariable success of their many retellings on film and television, of which Jonathan Miller’s version of ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, my Lad’ of 1967 is perhaps the best example. My aim in this paper is to explore the means, both psychological and social, whereby James induced terror in his protagonists, and in his listeners, readers and viewers.