Classic Ghost Stories

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Episode 27: The Experiment by M R James Dec 31, 2019

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The Experiment by M R JamesThis is the second story we have read on the classic ghost stories podcast by Montague Rhodes James. James is considered the master of the English ghost story. He is credited with modernising the form by abandoning many of its classic Gothic features. So we are unlikely to find ruined castles. However, we have plenty of old churches, which are arguably the same thing as the Gothic castles.James was an academic and worked at both Kings College Cambridge and later at Eton College. Reading his stories it is obvious that he is an antiquarian with knowledge of looking through old texts. In reading this story I also wonder, as I have done before, whether James dabbled in demonology and necromancy. He has more than a passing acquaintance with this kind of material, even if it is only academically.Why Read The Experiment?When deciding to read The Experiment, I had wanted to find a ghost story specifically for New Year's Eve. However, although the story is titled a ghost story for New Year's Eve and it begins at New Year's Eve that is about all that it has to do with this time of year.Though not considered one of James’s best stories, I think the story is very well structured. It is only at the only at the end of the story is that the details that we've been given as the story proceeded finally make sense. For example, the first news we have is the Squire is dead and we don't suspect there is any foul play until we are specifically told at the end of the story that a wife and her son were hung for the murder of her husband. Then it is very obvious what has happened.At this point we can the significance of James telling us that the Squire’s son is actually is his stepson. We are also told that the poor dead Squire was a generous man who was very generous and unstinting with his stepson. And this of course makes it all the worse to be repaid with such treachery and murder.The whole business of the rapid burial with no ceremony and no coffin, laid outside the church building also becomes only clearly obvious at the end. And it is only when we get the recipe for speaking to the dead – pure necromancy – that we realise the significance of the face cloth, and all the other carryings on that the mother and her son begin once they get the recipes by post from the dead Squire’s fellow sorcerer. The fate of the murderess and her accomplice is pictured in almost an almost Don Giovanni fashion from the Mozart Opera. And here, like there, the monstrous revenant returns accusingly. In The Experiment, the ghost doesn't even have to kill them himself, and instead, he drives them back to where they have come from with pure supernatural terror and they confess everything to the very same Rector that we began the story with, thus creating a neat narrative circle.LinksWebsitehttp://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (Classic Ghost Stories Podcast)Musichttps://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Patronage & Supporthttps://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Donate a Coffee)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become a Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 26: A Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperley Dec 26, 2019

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Rosemary TimperleyRosemary Timperley was an English author born in 1920 who died aged 68 in 1988. She was a very prolific writer and published 66 novels and several hundred ghost and several hundred short stories. She particularly liked writing ghost stories and ended up editing several volumes of ghost stories and choosing other peoples.As well as writing she was a school teacher and taught English language and literature in schools in Essex and London. Very interestingly she also was an agony aunt from 1949 for a popular magazine. Her writing related to ghosts the most famous ghost stories are this one a Christmas Meeting which was published in 1952 and also the Mistress in Black published in 1969.This is a very short Christmas themed ghost story which I thought was appropriate for Boxing Day, or as I note in the audio version of the show notes: St Stephen's Day.I could see the twist in the tail coming for this story and I'm sure that you did also, as we have read a number of ghost stories together now and we can anticipate what will happen.A Christmas Meeting is a very modern story and the writing is modern but I thought that Rosemary Timperley put in some very sweet touches. And I particularly enjoyed her musings and descriptions of Christmas past. But she manages to evoke a lifetime of sweet memories.Though she was only 32 when she wrote the story she has a very sunny outlook on life and I like the way she says the time doesn't exist. Now you can take that anyway you want put on this Christmas holiday period I wish you all a lovely time and many happy memories of Christmases past and imaginings of Christmases future.All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well!LinksWebsitehttp://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (Classic Ghost Stories Podcast)Musichttps://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Patronage & Supporthttps://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Donate a Coffee)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become a Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 25: The Old Portrait by Hume Nisbet Dec 25, 2019

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Hume NisbetHuman Nisbet was a Scottish born novelist an artist. He was born in sterling in Scotland and was trained as an artist from an early age. Nisbet moved to Australia at the age of 16.He spent a lot of time travelling around Australia and New Zealand and then returned to Great Britain.He first went back to London in 1872 but did not achieve great success with his art so went back to Scotland and became an art master in Edinburgh. Nisbet did achieve some success as a book illustrator.As well as his illustration work, much of his income came from writing rather than painting and he published 40 to 50 novels and volumes of poetry.As was in vogue at the time he wrote a number of ghost and horror stories. Again a lot of these were set in Australia where he spent a lot of time.Nisbet wrote vampire stories as well as ghost stories and this story here read out – the old portrait is a clever short story on a vampire theme. Most vampire stories have a Gothic object in which the vampire dwells. Most famously this is the castle in Dracula, but we also see the family castle and the ruins of Karnstein in Carmilla.I think it is legitimate to say that the picture frame in this story is in fact the Gothic habitation of the vampire. Once the narrator has cleaned up the picture frame he sees that the decoration he wants took as being fine art is in fact the exquisite working of worms and other deathlike themes. Very gothic.A nice short Christmas vampire story for you to listen to on Christmas Day!LinksWebsitehttp://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (Classic Ghost Stories Podcast)Musichttps://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Patronage & Supporthttps://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Donate a Coffee)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become a Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 24: Smee by A M Burrage Dec 24, 2019

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Alfred McLelland BurrageBackgroundAlfred McClelland Burrage was an English writer who was born in London in 1889. Both his father and his uncle were professional writers and a relatively young age Burrage began to write fiction to support his family.As well as being a writer , Burrage was a soldier in the First World War. He served in the First World War as a member of the Artists Rifles which was originally founded as a volunteer light infantry regiments. As a point of interest, after Burrage’s time the Artist Rifles became 21 Special Air service regiment one of Britain's elite forces.Burrage wrote a lot of stories but is now primarily remembered for his series of ghost stories in titled some ghost stories. No less and authority than MR James praised Burrage’s books. If we remember MR James had very distinct ideas about what makes a goodstory. James believed that ghost stories should be terrifying as most of his in fact are. James was not such a believer in the amiable ghost story with a happy ending.Burrage’s first ghost story collection Some Ghost Stories was printed in 1927 and his next collection of ghost stories was Someone in the Room was published in 1931.SmeeThis story Smee comes from Burrage’s second collection Someone in the Room from 1931. I think it has all the necessary elements of a good ghost story. In line with M R James’s edict the ghost here is very subtle. There are no screaming jump scares here. Mainly because they protagonist doesn’t know he’s touched the ghost’s knee, though you of course do!The description of wandering around in the dark is a staple of scary stories. In most scary stories you have to wonder why the protagonist is walking around in the dark on the road perfectly good nights. But A.M. Burrage has the craft to give us a very plausible reason why our protagonists are in the dark and unable to see but only feel the ghost.The little twist at the end is one that we should have seen coming but Burrage cleverly misdirects us by giving us the cold dark haired girl whom the narrator Tony Jackson wonders about being one of those women who don't have a high opinion of any men. As if such women exist!We suspect that he’s got it wrong before he does of course.LinksWebsitehttp://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (Classic Ghost Stories Podcast)Musichttps://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Patronage & Supporthttps://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Donate a Coffee)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Become a Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 23: Between the Lights by E F Benson Dec 23, 2019

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I’m fond of E F Benson’s writing and once again like the Room in the Tower this has a dreamlike quality. The horror is produced from some kind of vision that the narrator, Everard, has. He has a vision of antiquity, and a horrible antiquity at that, of little Picts! (My ancestors!!!)It’s a funny story in that it purports to be a Christmas Story and certainly the first part has all the elements: the snow outside, the cosy country house, the fire.Then we go back to a year before and I’m unclear why, because we have Country House at Christmas: Vision: Then October in the Scottish Highlands lost in the mist. There is just a presentiment of horror and in that it is almost Lovecraftian, albeit more subtly. I think this story would be more correctly characterised as a weird tale rather than a ghost story. Certainly there is no ghost as such.The horror is unexplained other than to say he was horrified by the bestiality of the inhabitants even though they don’t harm him. He should live round here.There are folk horror themes in that it references horrid rural people with their vile lives that scare good urban chaps like Everard. The Scottish gillie Sandy (what else!) shows a primitive fear of the little folk.He also has a way of layering clauses within clauses in his writing which makes it hard to read out loud!Proust does that too. I won’t be reading him.So, not my favourite though it is a Christmas Story to be read just before Christmas.Onward!Check out the Website. It’s growing. http://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast (http://bit.ly/ClassicGhostStoriesPodcast)There’s always the matter of support. You can buy a Classic Ghost Stories Podcast T-shirt now via the website. How ‘bout that?And there’s Kofi https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker)And Patreon https://www.patreon.com/barcud (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)I’m off on a boat to Amsterdam tomorrow. You bet your bottom dollar I’ll be looking out for ghosts among the Christmas lights!Tonyhttps://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 22: Saviourgate by Russell Kirk Dec 21, 2019

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There’s something quite Dickensian about this story. A man is shown his fate by a friendly ghost in a pub over a whisky soda or two. It transpires that he has not yet died, though he is on the cusp of it. For one thing he has considered suicide. But the ghosts Ralph Bain and the Canon don’t bother showing him the mistakes of his life, instead they engage him him metaphysical discussion.I don’t know enough of Kirk’s writing to know where he stood on Christian dogma. By instinct he was a Catholic and spiritual so he definitely believed in a spiritual dimension and from this story we might guess that at the very least he had a hope of an afterlife.There is something reminiscent of Henri Bergson, the French philosopher’s ideas on time and duration. Timeless moments!It is quite comforting to think that we can go back to that cosy pub on Christmas Eve and listen to the church bells peal in as they have done on that night since time out of mind. And we drink our whisky sodas and enjoy a wonderful sense of conviviality. Of course I’d be drinking IPA.The Canon tells Finlay that this eternal moment in the Cross Keys pub (I wonder whether he chose the Cross Keys as the name because crossed keys are associated with the church?) is a sign that he may experience grace in death.But the story has a moral purpose. The message, like Dickens’s message to Scrooge is, I think, don’t give up on life. Keep on going while you have it because things that appear not to be worthwhile can turn out to be rewarding with a little persistence and effort.Something might be accomplished however, given will, given spirit, given grace!A bit like this Podcast maybe!At the end Finlay has his choice sleep in the restful bed for eternity or struggle through the cold night in the hope, but not certainty, that he will accomplish something and not let his wife suffer alone.I think I know which choice we’d all make.Anyway, enough of that. More Christmas Stories to come before Christmas.https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 21 Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper Dec 13, 2019

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Christmas Eve on a haunted hulk by Frank CowperFrank Cowper was born in 1849 and died in 1930. He was an English yachtsman primarily famous for his pioneering work in developing the whole business of modern cruising. He was primarily a sailor but gained fame with his book /Sailing Tours/ which described his voyages in his yachts.He clearly also was an accomplished writer as we see it in this story /Christmas Eve on A Haunted Hulk/ has a very realistic style. The vividness of the description of his foray through the marshes shows he was very familiar with this kind of terrain. One incidental gem of this story is the picture he gives of the provincial life of educated gentlefolk amongst the Victorian peasantry. I have no doubt that this was drawn from Frank Cowper’s actual experience. I suspect that the being stuck under his bed after falling out in the night is also an actual incident from his life.I read this particular story as part of my series of Christmas themed ghost stories leading up to Christmas this year. I have done /The Snow/ by Hugh Walpole and I anticipate doing a couple more Christmas stories before tackling Charles Dickens is /A Christmas Carol/. However there is many a slip twixt cup and lip and it may be that I do not get round to reading a Christmas Carol as I have rather a busy schedule between now and the winter festival itself.I am sitting alone here editing this audio file and trying to get it done before bed. I hope then you will forgive that I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about this story.In some ways it has elements similar to last week’s story /The Kitbag/ by Algernon Blackwood. In both tales, we have the sensory description of something going on that frightens yet does not actually touch the protagonist. Frank Cowper’s description of the cold and damp of the abandoned hulk was very convincing. The only other point I want to make is that it is not particularly Christmassy in tone. For one thing there is no snow! However this dreary cold rainy weather is far more characteristic of an English Christmas than the picture postcard snowman and Santa Claus we would like to believe in.Many things have happened since I last spoke to you however we now have a website. Please check it out. http://www.classicghoststories.com (Www.classicghoststories.com)As always, I beg you to share, rate and love the podcast. Let us grow strong!https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 20: The Kit-Bag by Algernon Blackwood Dec 07, 2019

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Algernon BlackwoodAlgernon Blackwood was an English writer born in 1869 who ended up as a broadcaster on the radio and TV. His writing was very well received at this time and critics loved him. Even the great American author of weird tales HP Lovecraft cited Blackwood is one of the masters of the craft.Blackwood came from a well-to-do family and was privately educated despite that he was quite an adventurous man. He was interested in Hinduism as a young boy and his career was varied. For example, he ran a dairy farm in Canada and also hotel in the country. It became a newspaper reporter in New York City and was also a bartender and a model and also a violin teacher!All of this time, though he was always writing. He liked being outdoors and his stories often feature the outdoors. He was also interested in the occult and was a member of the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn along with such other characters is Arthur Machen and WB Yeats and Alisteir Crowley.I chose this story The Kitbag because it fitted in with the Christmas period we are approaching but the kitbag is not Blackwoods most famous story. His two most famous stories are The Willows which features a trip down the River Danube in central Europe and The Wendigo which is set obviously in North America.The Kitbag is a simple story in terms of its structure. In this case rather than the protagonist being the victim of his own wickedness as is often the case in horror stories Johnson here is a complete innocent. His only crime is to have partaken in the trial of a notorious murderer. Blackwood portrays Johnson as a likeable if somewhat naive chap who has been shocked by the horrible things he has heard. He has a good relationship with his boss whom he asks to lend him his kitbag when he plans a very innocent and refreshing Christmas break in the Alps skiing in the bright frosty air and dancing with red cheeked girls in the apres-ski.By an unfortunate error Johnson’s boss has sent the wrong kitbag and instead of the fine new one, he is given the exhibit that the murderer cut up the victim and stuffed them into. Johnson ends up with this stained monstrosity, which he only seems to find dirty and odd after he has long packed his socks and skates. It seems that the spirit of the murderer comes with the kitbag. We find out at the end that the supernatural happenings only occurred after the murderer. unbeknownst to Johnson, killed himself.The story is very simple but what Blackwood does very well is ratchet up the mounting tension of the old monster in the house scenario. We hear, and we become aware that something threatening is there but we never quite get a glimpse of it until the very end.The great ghost writer MR James ,who was also an admirer of Algernon Blackwood, talked about the importance of subtlety in ghost stories. James is very much against being too blatant and showing too much. I think we see this still in modern horror stories and I'm aware that the movie alien use this to great effect at the beginning and a different part of that movie series where by the monstrous alien is suspected and heard but not directly seen. I recently watched a film called The Ritual set in a forest in Norway and again until quite late in the film we went we didn’t see the monster. When the monster is just in your imagination it is far more terrifying than when it is portrayed on the screen.That’s it for this week. More Christmas ghosts to come.https://tonywalker.substack.com/ (Sign up to Our Blog For Free Stuff PLUS Exclusive Episodes for $5 Subscribers)Support the show

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Episode 19: The Snow by Hugh Walpole Nov 30, 2019

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Hugh Walpole was an English novelist born in New Zealand in 1884 and died in June 1941. His father was a clergyman and he was intended originally for a career as a clergyman but he preferred writing and wrote his first novel in 1909. He was a prolific writer and wrote a novel a year. In common with many writers of ghost stories he was actually gay. He ended up living in the English Lake District not far from where I am now. And I often drive by his house. I have a particular tradition of driving on that side of the lake on New Year's Eve and looking down at the Christmas lights from the heights. The house certainly has a wonderful view and I would quite like to live there though I could never afford it. He ended up living with a policeman at the time when such things were illegal in England.Reading The Snow particularly after reading a number of Victorian novels, I found the style refreshingly modern and so it was actually quite easy to read. It presents a snapshot of upper-class English life in the provinces. Walpole settled in Cumberland and though he gives his Cathedral town a made up name I can't help but see the Cathedral precincts of Carlisle Cathedral when he's describing the scene.Alice Ryder seems a vain, selfish, cruel woman, and certainly the first time I read the story, I thought she got her just deserts. But then when editing the audio, I came to the part where she speculates that the ghost of Elinor might in fact be there hovering about, and causing her to lose her temper with Herbert. And then I gained a little sympathy for her.Then again, the ghost warns her not to lose her temper with Herbert because if she does, it will be for the last time. And what do you know - she goes on and loses her temper. Herbert maintains his quiet dignity and is rather a sympathetic character. Though Alice Ryder is portrayed as quite the bitch, the first Mrs Ryder was no saint either. Herbert tells Alice that his first wife Elinor would never let go and though she adored him, he hinted that her tenacious fidelity was a bit overbearing.So which of the Mrs Ryders is the real villain here? Is it the young, vain, bitchy Mrs Ryder or the controlling unforgiving elder one?This week’s story was quite short compared with usual and recent ones but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I have been very busy in my life and I know that this week coming up I will be in London for three days so I wanted to get this in the can. One of the things we're going to do when we are there In London is to see the adaptation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Stories_(play) (Ghost Stories )which is supposed to be very scary and is the talk of the West End. I'm not sure it has been to Broadway but I'm sure it has. It premiered in Liverpool.So that's it for this week remember the music is by the heart Institute and I'll put a link to that just below. You can buy me a coffee to the coffee app or you could just write and like the podcast on Apple podcast or stitcher or which ever podcast server you use.Go listen to music by http://bit.ly/2OvcmPO (Heartwood Institute)You could by me a http://bit.ly/2QKgHkY (Kofi)We also have some merch now!https://ebay.to/2XD0wYh (A mug!)http://bit.ly/2XD11l0 (Two T-shirts)Or you can rate, review and share the Podcast!Ta.Tata for NowTonyhttps://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 18: The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell Nov 23, 2019

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This story was written by Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell was born in 1810 in London and died aged only 55 in 1865 in Hampshire. She was an accomplished novelist and with many successful novels in her time, but we are most interested in her ghost stories.She is one of the earliest writers that we have featured and I think you can tell that in the writing which seems a little archaic at times. An Old Nurse’s Story was published in 1852 and it is part of the Victorian tradition of Christmas ghost stories where the family would sit around the fire by candlelight and listen to ghost stories at Christmas. I think that is quite a delightful tradition and one that I would like to bring back.The Old Nurse’s Story features a lot of the Gothic tropes that we are familiar with. We have the castle or the grand old house which is so big and part of it uninhabited. It is set in a remote area. We've seen that Bram Stoker uses Transylvania while Joseph Le Fanu uses Styria in Austria. Even the far more modern Russell Kirk uses the backwoods of New England. What is amusing to me is that the remote trackless area that Elizabeth Gaskell uses is in fact my home region and I'm very familiar with the fells of Cumberland and Westmorland and Northumberland.It's ironic that I was more self-conscious of doing the accent and I think rather than having my own native Cumbrian accent I sounded a bit Yorkshire.It is actually quite a magnificent story and in common with many of the Victorian ghost stories Elizabeth Gaskell spends a lot of time describing the scenery. So we have a very clear picture of the huge and gloomy mansion. We have very romantic ghosts and in common with many ghost stories this is a moral tale. The older lady Miss Furnival pays in age for the sins of pride that she committed when she was young.The story winds towards its ending in quite a direct way but there wasn't any time when I was reading it that I thought that any part of it was surplus.I plan to do a series of Christmas ghost stories as we get closer to Christmas. This one isn't technically a Christmas ghost story but it is very wintry with snow and cold.In terms of what I'm up to at the moment. We are quite busy with our ghost story evenings tour around in about the place. I am also editing an audiobook of my own which is the Cumbrian ghost stories, although this podcast gets in the way of doing that. I have a small volume of Christmas ghost stories out on Amazon which is selling quite well. It's a slim volume of three stories and there is an audiobook to go along with it if you fancied getting a copy of that from Audible.It seems the podcast goes from strength to strength and a number of listeners is increasing which is great news. We had another anonymous five star review on Apple podcasts but I'm not complaining because it was anonymous. In fact, thank you to the anonymous person who wrote thatAs always I wouldn’t treat you to like share and rate the podcast however you choose to listen to it.You can always support the podcast via https://www.patreon.com/barcud (Patreon) and I’ve got a new link to https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Kofi) so you can buy me a cup of coffee and there is no ongoing payment involved or commitment.I'm still looking for suggestions for stories to read after Christmas so please drop me a line through Twitter. On Instagram also. The music is by the Heartwood Institute so go and get copies of that on https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Bandcamp)Here’s my Twitter @classicghostst1Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/classicghoststoriespodcast/ (Classicghoststoriespodcast)You can buy Support the show

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