Ghosts, trains and trams:
the technologies of transport in the ghost stories
of M. R. James

Ghosts, trains and trams:
the technologies of transport in the ghost stories
of M. R. James

‘Si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te’: ‘If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you’.1
Such is the enigmatic warning conveyed to the unfortunate Mr Sampson in A School
Story, one of the ghost stories of the master of English supernatural fiction,
Montague Rhodes James. The recipient ignores the warning, and a grim retribution
does indeed come to him – and in this respect, he is far from alone among M. R.
James’s characters. James’s beautifully written and immaculately constructed narratives
are full of people meddling with things that do not concern them, being led
astray by curiosity, greed or hubris, ignoring warnings and sound advice, and receiving
the just desserts for their foolish or wicked acts. These celebrated stories of the
supernatural are worthy of close attention, revealing a profound Christian morality, a
deeply ethical commitment to scholarship, a wide and humane learning, and, not
least, a knowledgeable and sympathetic respect for Catholicism on the part of their
firmly Protestant author.

Ralph Harrington

Artificial Horizon

2006

Essay