A few words on “The Victorian Stephen King? Why MR James continues to haunt us” (The Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2023)

Ok, to make it perfectly clear: I was one of those who participated at crowdfunding for the M.R. James’s letters project (i.e. “Casting the Ruins” edition), and unlike my other peers and as a former archivist (although, as I always say, there is no such thing as “former” in this case), I do think that a body of work in all its entirety matters, including the author’s memorabilia and his ego-documents, such as memoirs and letters (see HPL’s heritage as an example).

What I find especially unconvincing in this article is that weird condescending tone of it and a fairly odd comparison made below:

James was undoubtedly a great storyteller but not perhaps a great writer – a kind of late Victorian Stephen King [?!], with whom he shares a number of characteristics. King occasionally offers more than a nod and a wink in his fiction towards James’s inspiring example but it was that other master of the weird and the not-so wonderful, HP Lovecraft, who truly understood James’s secrets: “MR James joins the brisk, the light, & the commonplace to the weird about as well as anyone could do it […] The most valuable element in him – as a model – is his way of weaving a horror into the every-day fabric of life & history – having it grow naturally out of the myriad conditions of an ordinary environment.” Correct, HP.

Firstly, it’s a false juxtaposition (M.R. James vs King), because there is literally none of the characteristics were mentioned, except the mere assertion that there might be plenty: a big “no” in a literary research, which, I suppose, an author of a column for the big media outlet should follow.

Secondly, the author surprisingly misread HPL’s paragraph (whom he “of course” call “not-so wonderful” accordingly) about M.R. James, noting that the latter “was not perhaps a great writer”—where exactly did that come from? Lovecraft’s quote doesn’t say anything remotely close to this assumption.

Thirdly, naming a new edition “not exactly academic enough” and ”idiosyncratic“ doesn’t add anything particularly significant to the review: it’s rather a personal take, which most of us, literary scholars and also the ordinary readers of M.R. James, aren’t interested in.