Friends and Spectres

Cover art by John Coulthart
Selected and introduced by Robert Lloyd Parry

Friends and Spectres is a companion volume to Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (2020), an anthology of ghost stories by authors who had been members of the Cambridge University Chit-Chat Club along with M. R. James. Here the associations with MRJ are less formal, but stronger and more enduring: for it is the bond of genuine friendship that ties these writers to him.

The majority of pieces here were originally published under pseudonyms, and over half appeared first in amateur magazines or local newspapers. All deal with the supernatural, and several of the stories are themselves spectres—or more properly “revenants”, only now re-emerging into the light after decades of oblivion. There are rediscoveries here of “lost” tales by Arthur Reed Ropes, E. G. Swain, and the enigmatic “B.”

Contents

“Preface” – Robert Lloyd Parry

“M. R. James (1862-1936)”
“A Night in King’s College Chapel” – M. R. James
“A Night in King’s College Chapel (Early Fragment)” – M. R. James

“F. Anstey (1856-1934)”
“The Wraith of Barnjum” – F. Anstey
“The Breaking-Point” – F. Anstey

“Arthur Reed Ropes (1859-1933)”
“A Midnight Fantasy” – Arthur Reed Ropes
“Seraphita: The Story of a Spook” – Arthur Reed Ropes

“ ‘B.’ (1862-1925)”
“When the Door Is Shut” – “B.”
“Quia Nominor” – “B.”
“The Sparsholt Stone” – “B.”

“E. G. Swain (1861-1938)”
“The Man with the Roller” – E. G. Swain
“The Greenford Ghost” – E. G. Swain

“R. H. Malden (1879-1951)”
“The Collector’s Company” – R. H. Malden
“The Sundial” –  R. H. Malden

“Appendix: A Theory of Black Cats”
“A Theory of Black Cats” – αίλουροφόβος

“Sources”
“Acknowledgements”
“About the Editor”

Limited to 500 hardcover copies