A Podcast to the Curious - The M.R. James Podcast

This episode Mike and Will examine Curfew by Lucy M. Boston , a childhood tale of haunted bells, unearthed coffins and post-Jamesian highjinx aplenty. Big thanks to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode. Show notes: Curfew by Lucy M. Boston – read by Robert Lloyd Parry (Youtube.com) The text of this story is not freely available online for copyright reasons, but why not en...

M.R. James said that sex had no place in a ghost story. But was he right? This episode we attempt to answer this question and more, as we cover The Nature of the Evidence by May Sinclair, a tale from 1923 about a couple who just want to enjoy their wedding night. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes. Thanks to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode, and don’t forget to check...

Hold on to your mummy! This episode Mike and Will discuss Mark Gatiss’s recent Ghost Story for Christmas TV adaptation Lot 249 , as well as the Arthur Conan Doyle short story it is based on. Show notes: Watch it online! (BBC iPlayer) If you are in the UK you can watch it on BBC iPlayer until the end of 2024. If you are outside the UK, you may be able to watch if you have a Britbox subscripti...

This episode, Mike and Will grab their literary toboggans and gallop joyously out into the snow, only to be hit in the face by a terrifying fictional snowball in the form of Louisa Baldwin’s The Real and the Counterfeit ! Big thanks as ever to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode. Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift to please the M.R. James fan in your life? Why not head o...

Who would win in a fight between a man and a bed? Find the answer to this question and more in our new episode on The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin!  Also, if you like emotionally-repressed Victorian husbands, you will not leave disappointed. Show notes: Louisa Baldwin (1845–1925) (Wikipedia) Louisa was a member of an illustrious family who included Rudyard Kipling and Prime Minister Sta...

This episode we speak with two experts to better understand Eleanor Scott and her story Randall’s Round, Dr Vicky Margree and Prof Dan Orrells. We discuss what’s known about Eleanor Scott, her time at Oxford University in the early 1900s and the role of gender, folklore and imperialism in her writing. Vicky is a specialist in literary fiction and feminist theory. Her book British Women...

A BBC Ghost Story for Christmas is thankfully as traditional as quaffing eggnog and leaving out a carrot for Rudolph. And what a treat, as this year Count Magnus made the Black Pilgrimage onto our screens.  But has Mark Gatiss been naughty or nice? We give you our verdict. Show notes A recent interview with Mark Gattis including his ambition to adapt Casting the Runes Our coverage of Count Magnus...

This episode Mike and Will explore freaky folk-dance, village-based villainy and Cotswold chicanery in Eleanor Scott’s awesome Jamesian folk-horror tale Randalls Round ! Big thanks to Kirsty Woodfield for providing the readings for this episode. Show notes: Eleanor Scott (The Haunted Library) This article contains some biographical information as well as plot summaries of the stories that ap...

In the first episode of Season 4 tm , Mike and Will are delighted by Let Loose by Mary Cholmondeley , a tale of crypts, clergymen and crikey, what is that in the dog’s mouth? Big thanks to Jim Moon for allowing us to use extracts from his excellent reading of the story. You can listen to the whole thing over on the Hypnogoria podcast feed . Show notes: Mary Cholmondeley (Victorian Fiction Re...

Join Will and Mike for haunted cathedrals, lecherous minor canons and hair-based horrors in Noel Boston’s ‘Right Through My Hair’! Big thanks to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode. Show notes Noel Boston (The Haunted Library) Biographical information about Noel Boston is a bit hard to find online, but there is an excellent introduction in the Ash Tree Press...

Open your hymn books to episode 89, as we’re back in church for Christopher Woodforde’s “Cushi”: a tale of capering cats, sabotaged surplices and vengeful vergers. Don’t lose your head! Show notes: Christopher Woodforde studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge before becoming an Anglican priest. He was later Fellow and Chaplain at New College, Oxford, and Dean of Wells (as wa...

Join Mike and Will for a special 10th anniversary (give or take a few months) special in which your now-aged hosts look back over a decade of M.R. James podcasting and return to the story that started it all, Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook ! You can listen to when we originally covered this story all the way back in episode one . Will the quality of our story commentary have improved? Listen and...

In this episode, Mike and Will share their thoughts on Mark Gatiss’s recent TV adaptation of M.R. James’s The Mezzotint. Join us for some monocle-popping, mustache-bristling, spine-chilling fun! Show notes A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Mezzotint (BBC iPlayer) Mark Gatiss’s adaptation is available to watch on BBC iPlayer for the next 11 months. Episode 3 – The Mezzotint (...

Ho ho, and indeed ho! In this special festive episode, Mike and Will pull on their wellies and wander straight into Lucky’s Grove by H.R. Wakefield . But who’s that hiding behind the Christmas tree? Big thanks to Julia Morgan for allowing us to use extracts from her excellent Youtube reading of this story . Show notes: The Clock Strikes Twelve (Ash Tree Press) If you want to read this...

This episode Mike and Will grab their torches and disappear up ‘The Tudor Chimney’ by A.N.L. Munby. But what is that shape moving up above? Meh, it’s probably nothing. Thanks to Debbie Wedge for providing the readings for this episode! In this episode, we also mention Will’s new project  DarkOxfordshire.co.uk , which explores the darker side of Oxfordshire’s history,...

Ahoy there listeners!  Be grabbin’ yer nautical gear for a  cruise on the high seas of Leicestershire, with LTC Rolt and his story Bosworth Summit Pound .  (Enough.  It’s set on a canal – ed) What terrors might await us on England’s peaceful inland waterways? And just who digs a canal tunnel under an ancient graveyard anyway? Story notes Thank you to our reader this week To...

This episode Will and Mike hitch up their cassocks, pack their prayer books and head to ‘Southshire’ to open ‘A Room in a Rectory’ by Sir Andrew Caldecott! Big thanks to Kirsty who provided the readings for this episode, and to Garry Platt who provided the photo that accompanies this episode. You can see more of Garry’s photos at his Instagram account . Show notes: Si...

This week Will and Mike don their warmest Christmas jumpers for dinner with Dr James and the troubled incumbents of Medborough Abbey, in the company of Sheila Hodgson. What could be more seasonal than a cracker, eh?  Oh the fun that tumbles out when it goes snap! Paper hat, plastic keyring, lighthearted message of impending doom, that sort of thing. Indeed, Monty James felt a cracker could prompt...

This episode Mike and Will brace themselves for the ‘appalling stench of goat, cordite, sulphur, and burning human flesh’ in M.P. Dare’s The Demoniac Goat . Lovely! Also in this episode we speak to actor Robert Lloyd Parry and publisher Brian J. Showers about ‘Ghosts of the Chit-chat’, their soon to be published new anthology of ghost stories from authors who, alongsi...

This Halloween Mike and Will stroll out into the garden to take a look at The Sundial by R.H. Malden . But who is that lurking in the bushes? Thanks to Kirsty for providing excellent readings for this episode! Show notes: Nine Ghosts by R.H. Malden (Project Gutenberg Australia) Malden only wrote one volume of ghost stories, and it is available to read in its entirety on the Project Gutenberg Austr...

Today we head to East Anglia for a round of golf in the company of enthusiastic James fan H.R. Wakefield. No whistling ‘ere though – you might just wake up something nasty… Wakefield published seven volumes of ghost stories between 1928 and 1961, but also wrote three detective novels and two non-fiction ‘true crime’ studies. He served in the military and as a private secretary to...

This episode Mike and Will travel back to 16th century Cambridge to get acquainted with a rather unsavory guest at Jesus College in ‘ Brother John’s Bequest ‘ by Arthur Gray. Booze, burials and bell-book-and-candle are the order of the day here, with a side order of spitting. Eww. Big thanks to Kirsty for providing the excellent readings for this episode! Notes Arthur Gray (Ghost...

This episode Mike and Will put on their dancing shoes and head out to the lawn, only to encounter The Man with the Roller by E.G. Swain ! Massive thanks to podcaster Jim Moon of hypnogoria.com for letting us use extracts from his reading of this story in the episode! You can listen to the full reading, as well as all Jim’s other E.G. Swain readings here . Note: we realised after recording th...

We liven up our social distancing by finishing off the Benson boys, with Fred’s How Fear Departed From the Long Gallery .  Dirty Dick gets his comeuppance for a murderous deed, but can the ghosts of his victims be laid to rest? Trigger warning for gratuitous violence against children.  And yes, we do mean it this time! Thank you again to the fabulous Richard Crowest of the ‘Ghost Stories of...

This episode explores some ecclesiastical terrors in R.H. Benson’s ‘The Traveller’ . It was ‘too ecclesiastical’ for M.R. James, but will Mike and Will find something to enjoy in this tale of perturbed priests, creepy confessionals and historical haunting? Thanks to our reader for this episode Debbie Wedge! Show notes: Robert Hugh Benson (catholiceducation.org) Benson...