A Geography of Horror
Alan Murdie
The Ghost Stories of MR James and the Suffolk Landscape
Simon Loxley
Lavenham Press 2021
Pb, 160pp, £15 + £2.67 p&p from simonloxley.com
The classic collections Ghost Stories of An Antiquary (1904) and
A Warning to the Curious (1925) by MR James (1862-1936) are rated by connoisseurs as containing the best ghost stories in the English language. Simon Loxley, who lives in Suffolk, is a devoted admirer of them. In this amply illustrated book he shares his passion, exploring those stories either set in the county or influenced by its landscape.
James grew up at an old rectory in the still largely unspoilt village of Great Livermere, just north of Bury St Edmunds, a family connection that endured for many years. A bachelor scholar and mediaevalist of great distinction, James’s entire career was spent first at Cambridge University and then as provost of Eton College. Loxley provides a respectful biographical account, explaining how this background and environment intimately shaped the plotting, characterisation and screen adaptations of some of James’s finest tales.
He then takes us on a reverential pilgrimage into Suffolk to explore real places mentioned or implied in the stories, beginning with Great Livermere itself, the likely setting for “The Ash Tree”. Three stories, “O Whistle and I’ll Come to You”, “A Warning to the Curious” and “Rats” are set on the Suffolk coastline and “Count Magnus” features the Suffolk/Essex border in its denouement.
Loxley then makes a case for “The Tractate Middoth”, which centres on the old Cambridge
University Library, also encompassing two Suffolk locations. With “Casting the Runes” Loxley argues the fictional Lufford Hall (placed in Warwickshire in the text) was really inspired by a nowdemolished mansion situated at Ufford in Suffolk. Finally, Loxley returns to Great Livermere and reviews James’s posthumously published story “A Vignette”, suggesting it was based on a real experience, precise nature uncertain.
With his close matching of text and landscape, Loxley provides an absorbing read for James aficionados and a handy companion for any mildly adventurous traveller comfortably straying into antique churches or roaming lonely heaths or beaches, who wishes to pay homage by re-treading the footsteps of the acknowledged master of the ghost story genre.
My only gripe is the title; the Suffolk countryside described is not horrific, nor really are James’s stories. However, if it draws in a new class of reader, hitherto unfamiliar with either James or the Suffolk landscape, the author’s admirable purposes will be accomplished.
★★★★