We think of James as a teller of unsettling stories of ghosts and apparitions taking place in pleasant English landscapes, but Lost Hearts might more correctly belong to the horror genre – its subject matter is so shocking that I can hardly bear to describe it – suffice to say it can be thought of as a variation of the vampire myth with added cannibalism and the destruction of innocence. It is, like all his stories, a masterfully constructed narrative creating a completely convincing and believable world where the unbelievable happens. From the opening with its attention to the architectural detail of the stately home, to the charming little friendship between Stephen, the young protagonist and Mrs Bunch the housekeeper, and the butler’s brief appearance – a whole community of the house is evoked in a few pages. The moments of supernatural horror are grounded with convincing esoteric knowledge, and there is the typical James trope of the signs of supernatural intrusion being mistaken for something trivial – rats or wild animals in this case. A real masterpiece of a short story.
First published in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, 1904, and now available in Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James, Oxford World Classics 2013. It can be read online here
A Personal Anthology 