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00:00:00 Presentation
00:01:28 Album of Canon Albéric
00:36:10 Credits, thanks and additional listening
Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medievalist and scholar, and is probably the best-known and most famous English ghost story writer of the 20th century, although he actually began composing tales supernaturals in the late Victorian era, beginning with "Canon Alberic". Scrapbook" and "Lost Hearts" (both 1893). He was born in Kent, but spent most of his childhood in Suffolk, a county which features prominently in several of his stories, including "Oh , whistle, and I will come to you, boy'. Several of James's protagonists also reflect his own antiquarian interests, with academics and historians regularly featured. “Ghost Stories from an Antique Dealer” (1904), “More Ghost Stories from an Antique Dealer” (1911), “A Thin Ghost and Others” (1919) and “A Warning to Curious Stories and Others” ( 1925).
During a long academic career which encompassed several appointments at King's College, Cambridge and Eton College, Mr. R. James developed a tradition of reading his ghost stories aloud to a group of friends, notably on the eve of Christmas, and the majority of his published stories were heard for the first time in this context.
“The Album of Canon Alberic” is generally considered to be Mr. R. James's very first ghost story. In fact, it was first heard alongside "Lost Hearts", when both stories were read aloud by James himself at the Chit Chat Club in Cambridge, on the evening of Saturday 28 October 1893. It is not known for certain which story was read first, but "Canon Alberic" was placed first in James's 1904 published volume, "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary", and subsequent collected editions followed the same order.
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