Antiquarian Horror

“An almost diabolical power of calling horrors by gentle steps from the midst of prosaic daily life” – H.P. Lovecraft, describing M. R. James’s stories

M.R. James (1862-1936) abandoned many of the tropes used in Gothic novels of his predecessors, but heralded a new age of quiet horror. The vulnerable female victim was replaced with male scholars, often in an academic setting. While there were no villainous aristocrats, the supernatural, usually involving cursed antiquities, played a key role in his ghost stories.

James gradually introduced ominous things into the daily lives of his characters, building the atmosphere slowly. In Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You, My Lad the protagonist, Parkins, experiences a series of unsettling events after he discovers a medieval whistle.

Queer theorists have highlighted the “queer atmosphere” and sense of sexual transgressions within James’s tales. In this short story Parkins is presented as a feminised hero, “something of an old woman – rather henlike, perhaps, in his little ways”. When the ghost summoned by the whistle confronts Parkins in his bedroom, the ghost’s proximity, and Parkins’s fear of physical contact, has been read as Parkins’ internalised homophobia and fear of his own repressed sexuality.  

You can find the collection of M.R. James's ghost stories on audible here