The Ash-Tree | A Ghost Story by M. R. James | A Bitesized Audiobook

Опубликовано: 20 Ноябрь 2024
на канале: Bitesized Audio Classics

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A classic ghost story by the master of the genre, M. R. James, set in the author's native Suffolk in the aftermath of the "witch-finding" mania of the 17th century. Sir Matthew Fell inherits Castringham Hall in 1735 and has ambitious plans to improve it; but his ancestor's involvement in a notorious local witch trial 45 years earlier casts a long shadow... The story starts at 00:01:08

Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):

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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:08 The Ash-Tree
00:37:26 Credits, thanks and further listening

This is one of a series of the ghost stories of M. R. James I've narrated for this channel; you can hear the others on this playlist:    • M. R. James Ghost Stories
Or for a selection of Victorian ghost stories by various authors, including Charles Dickens, Amelia Edwards, Edith Nesbit, H. G. Wells, and many more:    • Victorian Ghost Stories

About the author: Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medievalist and scholar, and is probably the best known and most celebrated English ghost story writer of the 20th century, although he actually began composing supernatural tales in the late Victorian era, beginning with 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook' and 'Lost Hearts' (both 1893). He was born in Kent, but spent most of his childhood in Suffolk, a county which features prominently in many of his stories, including 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'. Several of James's protagonists also reflect his own antiquarian interests, with academics and historians featuring regularly. James published four volumes of ghost stories in his lifetime: 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' (1904), 'More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' (1911), 'A Thin Ghost and Others' (1919) and 'A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories' (1925).

During a long academic career which encompassed several positions at King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College, M. R. James developed a tradition of reading his ghost stories aloud to a group of friends, most famously on Christmas eve, and the majority of his published stories were first heard in that setting.

'The Ash-Tree' was the fourth story in James' 1904 collection 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'. The exact date of composition is unclear, but it was almost certainly read aloud at a meeting of "the Chit-Chat club" at some point in the late 1890s.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2024.