Show Notes
Seasons greetings listeners! For this special festive episode Mike and Will turn off the lights and dive into the wardrobe for a game of hide-and-shriek, courtesy of A.M. Burrage’s Christmas classic ‘Smee’!
Big thanks go to our reader this week Kirsty Woodfield.
Also mentioned in this episode were ‘The Dead Room’, the new Mark Gatiss ghost story due to air at 10pm on BBC4 this Christmas Eve. Also Robert Lloyd Parry, who is going to be live-streaming a performance of an M.R. James ghost story on Facebook this Christmas Eve at 7pm.
Last but not least, don’t forget to test your M.R. James knowledge with Monty’s Quiz, our brand new (and 100% free) quiz game with over 300 M.R. James-based multiple-choice questions!
Show notes
A.M. Burrage (wikipedia)
Smee by A.M. Burrage (original version)
The easiest way to get hold of the original/full version of this story is to shell out for the ebook from Burrage Publishing.
Smee by A.M. Burrage (abridged version)
This is the abridged (and free-to-read) version of ‘Smee’ that seems to be doing the rounds online, masquerading as the original story. We believe it has it’s origins as a simplified version of the story intended for those learning English as a foreign language!
Who was A.M. Burrage? (greatwarfiction.wordpress.com)
This biographical essay focuses on Burrages life rather than his ghost stories, but features a wealth of information about the man himself.
A Review of Smee (booksofdaniel.com)
This interesting essay explored how ‘Smee’ fits in to the wider tradition of Christmas ghost stories.
A Game of Bear by M.R. James (Ghosts & Scholars)
The framing of ‘Smee’ bears (ahem) similarities to an unfinished M.R. James story draft, which also makes reference to the hidden terrors lurking in party games that “entail stealthy creepings up and down staircases and along passages, and being leapt upon from doorways with loud and hideous cries.”
Deadly Game or Hide and Seek (seeksghosts.blogspot.com)
This blog post explored the ‘Mistletoe Bough’, a classic German ghost story dating back to the early 19th century which features an unfortunate bride whose wedding day game of hide and seek turns deadly! The story inspired one of the first celluloid Christmas ghost stories in 1904.
More from A Podcast to the Curious - The M.R. James Podcast
This episode Mike and Will examine Curfew by Lucy M. Boston, a childhood tale of haunted bells, unearthed coffins and post-Jamesian highjinx aplenty.
M.R. James said that sex had no place in a ghost story. But was he right? This episode we attempt to answer this question and more, as we cover The Nature of the Evidence by May Sinclair, a tale from 1923 about a couple who just want to enjoy their wedding night. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes.
Hold on to your mummy! This episode Mike and Will discuss Mark Gatiss’s recent Ghost Story for Christmas TV adaptation Lot 249, as well as the Arthur Conan Doyle short story it is based on.
This episode, Mike and Will grab their literary toboggans and gallop joyously out into the snow, only to be hit in the face by a terrifying fictional snowball in the form of Louisa Baldwin’s The Real and the Counterfeit!
Who would win in a fight between a man and a bed? Find the answer to this question and more in our new episode on The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin! Also, if you like emotionally-repressed Victorian husbands, you will not leave disappointed.