Thursday, December 23, 2004

MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES is well known for his ghost stories, classic dramatizations of which are currently being shown on BBC4, as pointed out by Mark Goodacre. Mark notes his Apocryphal New Testament, but James was also a major contributor to the recovery and publication of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I cite his editions a number of times in The Book. Bob Kraft has some interesting information in Reviving, Refurbishing, and Repurposing the Lost Apocrypha of M.R. James page. And here's a page by Rosemary Pardoe (whom I don't know) on M.R. James and The Testament of Solomon, which includes some of James's work on the T.Sol. In June I linked to James's translation of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities.

As for his ghost stories (some of which you can find here), I agree with Mark that they're a great read. When I read them years ago, I remember being convinced that one was set in St. Andrews (which has a perfect Lovecraftian atmosphere for such things), although I can't remember which one now. The whole collection is available in Britain in a cheap paperback, although it seems to be out of print in the USA.

UPDATE (28 December): More here.

No comments:

Post a Comment