Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

School of English

Sophister 5 ECTS Module Description Template 2021-22

Full Name: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Short Name: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Lecturer Name and Email Address: Professor Darryl Jones, [email protected]

ECTS Weighting: 5

Semester Taught: MT

Year: JS/SS

Module Content:

In 1904, the Cambridge manuscript scholar Montague Rhodes James published a slim volume of supernatural tales, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. The stories in the volume – spare, austere, learned, terrifying – often arose out of James’s formal academic scholarship, and were often first told as Christmas entertainments to his colleagues and students in King’s College, Cambridge. He is now widely recognized as the foremost writer of ghost stories, and Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is the most important single volume in the history of the genre.

There are eight stories in the volume. We will look closely at one story each week, as well as having introductory sessions on the meaning of the supernatural, on the ghost story as a genre, and on M. R. James’s life and career more generally.

Week 1. Introduction: M. R. James, his life and work.

Week 2: The Occult and the Supernatural.

Week 3. The Ghost Story.

Week 4. ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book’.

Week 5. ‘Lost Hearts’.

Week 6. ‘The Mezzotint’.

Week 7. Reading week.

Week 8. ‘The Ash-Tree’.

Week 9. ‘Number 13’.

Week 10. ‘Count Magnus’.

Week 11. ‘“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”’.

Week 12. ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.’

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School of English

Learning Outcomes:

• Students will be familiar with the genre of the ghost story, and be able to understand its development, particularly in the 19th century. • Students will gain an understanding of the meaning and history of the supernatural and the occult. • Students will be able to offer literary critical analyses of individual ghost stories, and of the collection as a whole.

Learning Aims:

• ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’ offers students an introduction to the most influential single volume of ghost stories, written by the genre’s foremost practitioner. • We will ask questions about the meaning of the supernatural and the occult, and most particularly their significance to genre fiction and the ghost story in particular. • We will read closely and critically each of the volume’s eight stories.

Assessment Details:

• Number of Components: 1 • Name/Type of Component(s): Essay • Word Count of Component(s): 3000 • Percentage Value of Component(s): 100%

Preliminary Reading List:

We will be working from the Oxford edition of M. R. James’s works:

M. R. James, Collected Ghost Stories, ed. Darryl Jones (OUP).