M.R. James' Commentary on a Ghost Story Competition

M.R. James' Commentary on a Ghost Story Competition

Here, James details his personal qualifications for writing a worthy ghost story. He holds in high regard one's ability to create a setting that is utterly normal and strikingly mundane. It is unsurprising that this qualification tops James' list, considering his own trademark of transforming the most humdrum settings into the backdrops of phantasmagorical works. In James' opinion, it is this very juxtaposition that allows ghost stories to harbor a chilling verisimilitude, influencing readers to pause and think "'If I’m not very careful, something like this may happen to me.''" That moment of irrational fear is precisely what James considers the essence of a successful ghost story, and offers a lens through which one may view his authorial choices in his own body of work.

James, M.R.

The Haunted Library

The Spectator

December 1930

Originally appeared in The Spectator, a British periodical

Commentary on a ghost story competition, published in The Spectator