The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James
Newsletter (including Subscription Details). 
(September
13, 2007)
Other Haunted Library Booklets in print
(A Bibliography of the Writings of M.R. James,
Tales from Lectoure by M.R. James).
How to Pay: Send payment in sterling (cheques, postal orders or cash) or US dollars ($s cash only). Make sterling cheques and postal orders payable to R.A. Pardoe. No other currency please. Send orders to: Rosemary Pardoe, 36 Hamilton Street, Hoole, Chester, CH2 3JQ, England.
All prices below include postage. Booklets and issues not listed here are out of print.
This Newsletter, which began in 2002, is the successor to Ghosts & Scholars magazine. It is devoted to M.R. James and his writings, along with those amongst his circle of friends and acquaintances who also wrote supernatural stories. It covers not just MRJ's ghostly fiction, but also all the odd mythological, folkloric, ecclesiological, demonological and angelological by-ways he explored from time to time in his scholarly work. The Newsletter contains long and short articles, news, reviews, comment, queries, story annotations and artwork (no new fiction). The hard-copy booklet version is limited to a print run of two hundred maximum. Selections from each issue can also be read on the web site (these are put up some weeks after print publication).
Subscriptions A two-issue (roughly one-year) subscription to the hard-copy Newsletter, beginning with the current issue 12, costs £8.00 inland; £10.00/$20 overseas (the overseas price includes airmail postage). For how to pay, see above.
(September 13, 2007) Special Offer: All new Newsletter subscribers during the rest of 2007 will receive a free extra Haunted Library booklet. You can choose between Tales from Lectoure or A Bibliography of the Writings of M.R. James (see below) - please say which one you want (if you don't say, one will be picked at random).
NEWSLETTER 1 (March 2002): Out of print. (Click here to read the web site edition.)
NEWSLETTER 2 (September 2002): Out of print. (Click here to read the web site edition.)
NEWSLETTER 3 (January 2003): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 4 (August 2003): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 5 (February 2004): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 6 (September 2004): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.).
NEWSLETTER 7 (March 2005): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 8 (September 2005): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 9 (March 2006): "Class War in 'Casting the Runes'" by Mike Pincombe. "Jamesian Notes & Queries" on the pros and cons of "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" and "Two Doctors"; and on the "Adventures of a Jamesian Detective". Plus reviews and letters sections. 20pp. Price: £2.00 inland; £2.75/$5 overseas (airmail). About half a dozen copies left. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 10 (September 2006): Out of print. (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
NEWSLETTER 11 (March 2007): "John Humphreys" by M.R. James: a new transcription of this long story draft with many corrections and new annotations. "The Head of John the Baptist" by Jane Harrison and "Some Remarks on 'The Head of John the Baptist'" by M.R. James: a chance to read in full both sides of this notorious argument between MRJ and a comparative mythologist (reprinted for the first time since its original appearance in 1916/1917). "'The shadow of the occupant of Number 13': A Visit to Viborg" by Helen Grant: the latest in the "Jamesian Traveller" series visits the setting of MRJ's story "Number 13". An Index to Issues 1-10. Plus "Jamesian Notes & Queries", reviews and letters sections. 44pp. Price: £4.50 inland; £5.50/$11 overseas (airmail). (Click here to read selections from the issue, and a full contents list.)
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS
OF M.R. JAMES
A forty-page booklet compiled by Rosemary Pardoe, containing nearly 500 entries listing the first publication of all of MRJ's known writings, as well as selected reprint information; this is an attempt to collate the material from all the previous bibliographies along with the results of new research. The chronological bibliography is accompanied by a full index. Price: £5.00 inland; £6.00/$12 overseas (airmail).
"It seems that in Lectoure and the villages near it some of the
most strange and savage of all folk tales have survived - tales which, though
they have their parallels in times and countries far removed from Gascony
and this century, are in their Gascon form, unique." Thus did M.R.
James describe the stories collected in south-west France by Jean-François
Bladé and published in Contes populaires de la Gascogne (1885).
MRJ was so taken by them that he wrote a two-part lecture in which he translated
and briefly commented on seven of the tales. Now the manuscript of the lecture,
in the Cambridge University Library, has been transcribed for the first
time and is published as a 60-page booklet from the Haunted Library. For
most of the folk stories selected by MRJ, this is their initial appearance
in English translation. Tales from Lectoure contains: "The Young
Man and the Great Beast with a Man's Head", "Golden Feet",
"The Chastisement of the Queen", "The Green Man", "The
Sword of St Peter", "The Prince of the Seven Gold Cows",
and "The King of the Ravens". The text is introduced and annotated
by Rosemary Pardoe; and there is a detailed afterword by Jacqueline Simpson
which examines the folklore aspects of the tales. Cover illustrations by
Nick Maloret. Price: £6.00 inland; £7.00/$14 overseas (airmail).
For a review of Tales from Lectoure on the Green Man Review web site,
click
here.
Last altered: September 13, 2007
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