A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories
by M R James
and
The Fens
by Francis Pryor
Two books for the price of one this month!
A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories (First published 1925)
Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1913–15). James's work as a medievalist and scholar is still highly regarded, but he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which some consider among the best in the genre. He redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, his protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story". The reason I have chosen this small book is two-fold, one because of M R James’s association with Cambridge, and two, because “A Warning to the Curious” is a fictional ghost story surrounding the 3 crowns of the East Anglian flag.
You can also find the 1972 BBC film adaptation of the story on YouTube. Why don’t you have a look, if you dare!
The Fens by Francis Pryor (Published 2019)
This book was recommended to me by W Bro John Grevatt. It is a great read and excellent source of historical and archaeological information, which should fire your imagination to produce any number of short papers, which I look forward to hearing in the coming years.
Francis Manning Marlborough Pryor (born 13 January 1945) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain. He is best known for his discovery and excavation of Flag Fen, a Bronze Age archaeological site near Peterborough, as well as for his frequent appearances on the Channel 4 television series Time Team.
Born to a Burke's Landed Gentry family, Pryor studied at Eton College before going on to study archaeology at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Both books are well worth reading, but don’t be distracted from your “Ritual” studies.
Alex Allan
July 2022