The Jamesian Break in Ghost Stories

Before the Break

There was a Jamesian break in the ghost story model that happened around 1900. This really came home to me as I have been reading old ghost stories for the holiday season. Having read all the M. R. James stories, I have had to go further back in time to those who came before. In particular, Mrs. J. H. (Charlotte) Riddell and her book Weird Stories (1882). It contains several good tales, no duds here, including: “Walnut-Tree House”, “The Open Door”, “Nut-Bush Farm”, “The Old House in Vauxhall Walk”, “Sandy the Tinker” and “Old Mrs. Jones”. All well-written, enjoyable tales, but let’s take a look at the opener, “Walnut-Tree House”.

Mr. Stainton and the Child

Mr. Stainton comes back from the gold fields a rich man, buys the house he has always wanted. The estate agents seem a little hedgy and later he hears about “the child”, a ghost that haunts the property. Stainton sees the ghost, a young boy who searches endlessly through the rooms. Digging into the mystery, he learns the boy was one of a pair of twins. The girl was taken by relatives but the boy was left to be neglected by his father. He died.

Later Stainton meets the sister, his cousin, now grown to a beautiful woman. He figures to let the ghost see his sister, the object of his searching, and allows her and her aunt to visit inside the house. This accomplishes half the deed. Only when Stainton uncovers that the children were robbed of their inheritance, does he give the money and the newly renovated house to his cousin Mary. But not for long. The two marry and all is fine as the story ends with the child’s ghost looking at Stainton:

“There was no sorrow or yearning in his eyes as he gazed–only a great peace, a calm which seemed to fill and light them with an exquisite beauty.”

Happy Endings

Wow. How un-M. R. James is that! Only Seabury Quinn could produce happier endings in a horror story. The tale bears some similarity to James’ “Lost Hearts” in which a sorcerer is haunted by long-nailed ghosts of the children he murdered to maintain his spell of youth. James’ tale has no sentiment, only cold, angry revenge. And this is the break that I mentioned at the beginning. The ghost story in the age of Dickens, Amelia B. Edwards, Mrs. Riddell, before the turn of the century, was usually a supernatural mystery story in which a good person helps a tortured soul to find peace. Or in the case of John Kendrick Bangs, the specters are vehicles of humor.

Enter James

Then the 20th Century arrives, and the don from Eton published Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and the world of ghosts changes. Perhaps even more important than the book was the telling of these stories at Christmas to an audience. The listeners were inspired to follow in James’ footsteps, a bunch I have called The James Gang. many were not as good at creating creepy stories, but the attitude is there.

James wrote in Ghosts and Marvels: “Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo… Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story.”

The 20th Century is Broken

Here is the break. No longer are ghosts to be likeable or relatable. They are cold, evil and nasty. Now, there were examples before James but they are few. Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Tale” works for me. The ghost is not a long-nailed phantom like the children in “Lost Hearts” but a loving old nurse. Unfortunately, her embrace is deadly. It is love that makes her kill her victims. The sentiment is flipped and used against the children she claims. Rhoda Broughton also produces occasional real horror.

An example of the opposite, a post-James tale that doesn’t work, is E. F. Benson’s “How Fear Departed the Long Gallery”. The set-up is brilliant and terrifying, the twins who kill you if you meet them. Benson ruins this by having the protagonist show love to the ghosts and having fear depart. It is half a good story, ruined by sentiment. And let’s not forget the commercial side of things: Riddell and Dickens and the All the Year Round lot were offering a thrill (very tame by today’s standards) but also warm Christmas sentiment. The reader expected both. James’ 20th Century cruelty would not have found many buyers in 1865. That Benson went that way in December 1911 for the Christmas issue of The Windsor Magazine probably was a similar market need. Benson, by this time, was little more than a Pulp writer.

Conclusion

M. R. James did not write for a living. He was a medieval scholar and wrote his story for his own pleasure. They were collected in books but again, no editorial pressure was given to change them or soften them. Because of this we have what I consider the finest ghost stories ever written. These tales truly reflect a 20th Century attitude towards horrific fiction. The modern writers of horror, the ones who came after the James break, the really good ones like H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, H. Russell Wakefield, Richard Matheson, Fritz Leiber, Ramsey Campbell and Shirley Jackson, had James’ attitude lurking underneath. There are no happy endings, no spiritual visitors to make everything right. The purpose of the weird tale (ghost story or otherwise) is not a rosy, holiday lovefest. It is a dark frisson, a hint of the nether forces awaiting us all. This is why Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost” is equivalent to “fairy tales or in local legends” and not a masterpiece of terror. That is why “Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook” is no mere tale of old books and hairy monsters. The narrator is doomed, haunted by the specter of elder things. And what could be more Christmasy than that?