It’s the Season for Ghost Stories... and Quizes!

December 24, 2018 1:00 PM

The hosts of A Podcast for the Curious have a quiz to test your knowledge of the stories by the Master of the Christmas Ghost Story.

Each quiz session gives you 20 random questions of varying difficulty from a bank of 300. You can play with a timer or not, as the Christmas spirit moves you.

posted by GenjiandProust (23 comments total)

Who is this M. R. James and what has he done with Charles Dickens?
posted by Going To Maine at 1:19 PM on December 24, 2018

Beat him like a rented mule in the ghost story game, although much more politely than that simile suggests.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:31 PM on December 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

I give up! I don’t know anything!
posted by thelonius at 2:34 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love M.R. James (and the podcast)! Thanks for posting this holiday treat. (11/20 on my first try, but it's been a while and I haven't yet read all of James's stories).
posted by obloquy at 2:35 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I noticed recently that someone has helpfully made a YouTube playlist of all of the episodes of Christopher Lee's "Ghost Stories for Christmas", including his reading of James' "A Warning to the Curious".
posted by ryanshepard at 3:20 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would like to make it clear that my comments should not be taken as an endorsement of the maltreatment of working mules, who are, as a whole, thoughtful and peaceable animals.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:59 PM on December 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

14/20 and some of those were guesses - I really thought I knew MR James better! I obviously have to spend Christmas rereading ghost stories of an antiquary and catching up on this podcast.
posted by the cat's pyjamas at 4:04 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

For people who aren't familiar with him you can read tons (all?) of his stories for free on Gutenberg.
posted by the cat's pyjamas at 4:07 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've exhausted my collection of M.R. James this year, and am on to J. S. Le Fanu. A different flavor from James, for sure, but good Yuletide reading in any case.
posted by salt grass at 4:09 PM on December 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, these annual MeFi Christmas Season Ghost Posts have become something I look forward to.
posted by salt grass at 4:10 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also, these annual MeFi Christmas Season Ghost Posts have become something I look forward to.

The Guardian has also reupped their 2017 Simon Callow reading of James' "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad", with an introduction by Penelope Lively.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:38 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

If I may blow my own whistle, here’s a Jamesian round up from 2015, with more stuff in the previoudlies and comments.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:44 PM on December 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

A warning to the, uh, curious: this BBC rendition of Lost Hearts is hilariously campy, as I learned last night.
posted by salt grass at 5:15 PM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

12/20 and everything was a guess, because I had never heard of MR James. Perhaps a ghost moved me.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 5:21 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Looks like there are some audiobooks on Librivox as well, though the quality is likely to be erratic.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:24 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Going to Maine, I find the Peter Yearsley readings on Librivox to be excellent.
posted by obloquy at 5:39 PM on December 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: should not be taken as an endorsement of the maltreatment of working mules, who are, as a whole, thoughtful and peaceable animals.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:06 AM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

A challenging quiz. Ah, I need to get my books out of storage.
In the meantime, back to etexts.
posted by doctornemo at 3:21 PM on December 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

M.R. James on the BBC this year:

The Haunting of M.R. James: Ghost Stories - radio adaptations of 'The Mezzotint', 'Casting the Runes', 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral', 'A Warning to the Curious' and 'Rats'

Slightly confusingly there's a separate radio play called The Haunting of M.R. James that weaves fact and fiction around James' life and stories.

All the above feature Mark Gatiss as M. R. James. Gatiss also wrote the Jamesian (but slightly dissapoiting) ghost story drama The Dead Room that was shown on BBC4 this Christmas Eve

The Dead Room was followed by repeats of the old adaptations of 'Lost Hearts' and 'The Ash Tree' Which, whilst showing their age - and campness, were still marvelously entertaining.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:14 AM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was a child when the BBC adaptations were on, way after my bedtime, even at Christmas. So I assumed his name was pronounced "Mister James", and that he was an errant companion to Basil Brush.

Only four of us on the whole of Metafilter will understand all of that, and I'm the only one who thinks it's funny.
posted by Grangousier at 3:24 AM on December 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

"There! something drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash"
posted by doctornemo at 10:41 AM on December 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

Inspired by this thread I made my family watch this adaptation of The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral on Christmas day. It got an okay reception? I genuinely like this version, particularly the performance by Clive Swift, aka Hyacinth Bucket's husband.
posted by the cat's pyjamas at 1:21 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I realise if I'd read at least one of the links above there would be an explanation, but... Barchester? Why is it set in the Trollope-verse?
posted by Grangousier at 2:35 PM on December 27, 2018 [1 favorite]