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Ghosts and Scholars
Sep. 16th, 2009 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joysilenceI've been a fan of M R James for decades now, and have always sought after stories by other authors that embody 'Jamesian' literary values. So imagine my excitement when I finally landed a cheap copy of Ghosts and Scholars: Ghost Stories In The Tradition of M R James. This 1987 anthology, edited by Richard Dalby and Rosemary Pardoe (editress of the original G&S magazine that inspired the collection), is now cruelly out of print, and had over the years acquired a semi-mythical status in my eyes as I strove in vain to find a copy - any copy - for under £70. Last month, my luck finally turned, courtesy of a second-hand book dealer who generously parted with a copy for only £7.00 (possibly due to a typo with the decimal point. I didn't hang around to ask.) So obviously I am dying to spout my thoughts on this scarce collection all over the internet, now I've finished reading it.
( A Pleasing Terror )
All this can only mean one thing: we need a revised and updated second edition! It's criminal that Ghosts and Scholars should still be out of print. On the bright side, if you can't get your hands on a copy, many of the stories featured here have reappeared on the shelves in miraculously cheap paperback form recently! Wordsworth Press, for instance, do a collected Caldecott, and Penguin do a paperback Sleep No More, a cracking LTC Rolt anthology. And there's always the internet...for those of you who don't mind reading off a screen (or a print-out), there's plenty of E.G.Swain and Benson stuff at Horrormasters.com. G&S magazine has also made available online versions of Arnold Smith's The Face In The Fresco (a must-read!) and B's The Stone Coffin. And as time goes by, more and more of these authors should start appearing in the public domain, so all is not lost :)
( A Pleasing Terror )
All this can only mean one thing: we need a revised and updated second edition! It's criminal that Ghosts and Scholars should still be out of print. On the bright side, if you can't get your hands on a copy, many of the stories featured here have reappeared on the shelves in miraculously cheap paperback form recently! Wordsworth Press, for instance, do a collected Caldecott, and Penguin do a paperback Sleep No More, a cracking LTC Rolt anthology. And there's always the internet...for those of you who don't mind reading off a screen (or a print-out), there's plenty of E.G.Swain and Benson stuff at Horrormasters.com. G&S magazine has also made available online versions of Arnold Smith's The Face In The Fresco (a must-read!) and B's The Stone Coffin. And as time goes by, more and more of these authors should start appearing in the public domain, so all is not lost :)
