Casting the Runes (Fantasy and Horror Classics) by M. R. James

by M.R. James

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, now credited with having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. 'Casting the Runes' is one of his most famous tales, and was adapted into a film in 1958. Many of the earliest occult stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Audiobook, Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Montague Rhodes James, who used the publication name M.R. James, was a noted English mediaeval scholar & provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18) & of Eton College (1918–36). He's best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal Gothic trappings of his predecessors, replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

M.R.^James

Reviews

[Adina · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

I guess this writer leaves me cold. Not scares at all by his horror stories. Only slightly bored.

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

A researcher for the British Museum has read and rejected a paper about the history of witchcraft. When the researcher finds a paper with runes on them, he learns that he was cursed by the author he rejected.


The concept of this story is good. The plot is a very short and quite subtle, but it’s a solid cat and mouse game with an interesting ending. The antagonist is quite good too. The writing style just isn’t my cup of tea unfortunately, which is why the story had trouble keeping my attention. Still, this story has some good things to offer. So don’t be afraid to try this classic short horror story should you be interested.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story, from James’ More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), is one of the master's finest and most entertaining tales. If it is not quite the scariest, it is still very scary indeed, and it has other surprising pleasures not often found in James’ ghostly tales: 1) a suspenseful ending, involving a deadly, time-sensitive game of tag, and 2) a memorable, first-rate flesh-and-blood villain.

This is the heart of the story: our villain, the occultist Karswell, manages to pass to our hero Dunning a small piece of paper inscribed with runes. If Dunning cannot return the paper to Karswell—who must be made to freely (although perhaps unwittingly) accept it—Dunning will be dead within three months. The reader’s interest lies in the passing—and re-passing of this piece of paper, and James’ sustains that interest with great skill.

The best thing about the story, though, is the villain Karswell, who is sort of a second-rate, countrified Aleister Crowley. Although he is an accomplished magician, he is petty and vain about his occult writings (for which he fails to obtain recognition, both because they smack of pure evil and because they are poor examples of literary style), the kind of man who stoops to playing hateful pranks on his neighbors, such as frightening a crowd of local children with an improper lantern-slide show. Yet, for all that, he is a man greatly to be feared, a man capable of sentencing a man to death for writing a bad book review.

Here is the account of Karswell’s lantern-slide show:

He began with some comparatively mild things. Red Riding Hood was one, and even then, Mr Farrer said, the wolf was so dreadful that several of the smaller children had to be taken out. . . . All the slides he showed, Mr Farrer said, were most clever; they were absolutely realistic, and where he had got them or how he worked them he could not imagine. . . . At last he produced a series which represented a little boy passing through his own park — Lufford, I mean — in the evening. Every child in the room could recognize the place from the pictures. And this poor boy was followed, and at last pursued and overtaken, and either torn to pieces or somehow made away with, by a horrible hopping creature in white, which you saw first dodging about among the trees, and gradually it appeared more and more plainly. Mr Farrer said it gave him one of the worst nightmares he ever remembered, and what it must have meant to the children doesn’t bear thinking of. Of course this was too much, and he spoke very sharply indeed to Mr Karswell, and said it couldn’t go on. All he said was: “Oh, you think it’s time to bring our little show to an end and send them home to their beds? Very well!” And then, if you please, he switched on another slide, which showed a great mass of snakes, centipedes, and disgusting creatures with wings, and somehow or other he made it seem as if they were climbing out of the picture and getting in amongst the audience; and this was accompanied by a sort of dry rustling noise which sent the children nearly mad, and of course they stampeded. A good many of them were rather hurt in getting out of the room, and I don’t suppose one of them closed an eye that night.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casting the Runes isn’t exactly a horror story, in that it doesn’t necessarily inspire horror. But it is a most effective suspense story, with supernatural overtones, and definitely conjures a sense of dread. The absurdity of the situation builds that dread — a bad review and a routine academic rejection inspiring out of proportion, murderous revenge. Karswell, the tale’s villain, is vainglorious and ill-tempered, a terrible academic but apparently a competent alchemist. The idea that such nasty, petty men as he are willing to extract murderous revenge over minor slights provides this tale’s chills.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very short story that is usually a part of an anthology of classic tales of horror but I found a stand-alone copy in a bargain bin. I have seen the British made 1957 film on which this book is based although they chose to title it with the unfortunate name "Night of the Demon. An excellent film that usually shows up on cult or little known film classic lists. The book is obviously not as fleshed out as the film but that is not a problem. M.R. James was a popular writer early in the 20th century and this chilling little tale needs no additional story line beyond what the author has provided us. I am not even going to give you a plot synopsis since that would be giving too much away in such a short story. Just let it be said that it is well worth finding. I seldom read books of the genre but this one stands as a classic. Good stuff.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest this story did not hold my attention. A good start but just some what lacking for James in atmosphere

[Heidi Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite spooky stories. I read it as a kid, and it's followed me into adulthood. Could be the reason I loathe people handing me flyers. One never knows.

[Aishu Rehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sense of unease and the growing feeling of horror are more than enough. The author doesn't make the mistake of spinning out his story. A true horror story.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This review is only for the story "Casting the Runes" as I purchased this as a stand alone book. I am also reading a collection of M.R. James' work called Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories and will review that collection separately.

Casting the Runes is a good story, very well-written by M.R. James (as I think James was a superb writer and his stories well crafted). While I liked the story, as a horror story it does not completely succeed. My biggest grip with the story is that the horror element is just not very scary and I read horror stories to experience a sense of dread. Some of M.R. James' other stories (the Mezzotint and Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book) did a much better job of providing what I would call the "spine-tingles" than this story.

That said, this is still worth reading as the writing is superb and the technical detail excellent. I just prefer some of James' other stories more than this one.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

And I usually don’t need a spoiler tag, but I have questions. Karswell was handing out runes to all those who slighted him, and he knew the results. So why, after having knowingly cursed Dunning with the runes, would he accept ANYTHING from the hand of Dunning? Perhaps it was hubris: Karswell believing no one could ever have figured out his little game.

I really love the matter-of-fact delivery of James and the style of writing: clean, crisp dialogue and a lovely use, and respect of, the English language. While this story, didn’t scare me, I enjoy it thoroughly every time I visit. If you haven’t seen Night of the Demon (1957 aka Curse of the Demon), please treat yourself. Also, the film, Cast a Deadly Spell, includes a nice casting the runes storyline.

[Lee Foust · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellently plotted, longish tale of revenge among the scholars and crackpots who write about the occult. Besides the thrilling plot, a nice theme or juxtaposition develops around those who write on such matters from a skeptical perspective, more like historians of a cultural anomaly, and the true believers who embrace the supernatural, as the story suggests, out of a taste for evil. As a scholar of medieval literature and a specialist on Dante and thus very interested in the poetics and literature of the topos of the otherworldly journey, I've certainly seen these two types at work: the skeptical scholar and the curious or creative or even gullible mind straining to find some spiritual secret in texts that describe the impossible beyond the veil. Usually the scholars are on one side, and the writers that they study on the other, but there has been the odd New Age book on Dante's Commedia hoping to unlock its spiritual rather than textual secrets. Well done, Mr. James. Might be fun to seek out Jacques Tourneur's film version again, see how it compares, I certainly haven't seen it as often as his early Val Lewton horror masterpieces and noirs.

[Andrew “The Weirdling” Glos · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Casting the Runes” is one of M. R. James better known stories. It is often grouped together with his ghost stories, though there is no ghost in this one. The villain is an all-too-human knock off of Alastair Crowley bent on revenge for a petty academic slight. The villain uses a type of runic magic which results in a sort of cat-and-mouse game to the death. The story is clever, fun, simple, and an excellent example of there sorts of dark tales James was most famous for. This is a quintessential example of the lesser known tradition of British Weird Fiction. Great fun!

[Jo Berry ☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. David Suchet breathed as much life into this story as possible with his narration. Unfortunately, the story is rather slow and lacks tension or atmosphere. That’s a shame, because I liked the general idea, it was just let down in the telling.

[✨The Sleepy Book Elf ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this short story narrated by the amazing David Suchet..perfect short ghostly read for cold winter nights.

[Skylar Phelps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Not as weird or supernatural as I would have liked, in fact it was very mild. But the story was satisfying.
3.5 Stars

[Plateresca · Rating 4 out of 5]

M.R. James's patent understated humour on the subject of a creepy evil magician. Some parts of the story made me think of The Green Man (I do not know if this short story could have been one of the inspirations for this novel). I cannot say I was terrified to the point of having nightmares, but I did enjoy the story, and what I like about M.R. James is this: his endings are almost never sad, I think.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A researcher into black magic is miffed when his work is passed over by an academic society. Luckily, the object of his ire has a bad feeling about the whole thing (after all the researcher is known to be an ill-tempered man who delights in terrifying children). In a continuing stroke of luck, the academic oh-so-conveniently just happens to be able to consult with the brother of the last person who crossed this magical expert. They hope to be able to turn the tables on a curse...

[Ⰰⱃⰿⰰⱀⰴ Ⱆⰾⰴⰵⱃⰻⰽⱁ Ⱅⰵⱄⰾⰰ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The language in this story is not so addicting as it is usually the case in mister James work. Some elements of the text were atmospheric but a large part of the text was just not as sharp and atmospheric as one would expect.
The content is not so interesting, kinda boring, an occultist who uses magic to kill other people.
This is a rare occasion when a film would be better than a novella, and I mean a science fiction film from the thirties. I have read that there is a film based upon this novella but it is from 1958. As a thirties hipster I find it quite suspicious is this film good. I did not watch the film, probably I will one day. Maybe when socialism ends in Croatia, meaning in a far, far distant future.
Because of the thrill and chase for the occultist killer this novella has a Conan Doyle flavour to it.
Read this only if you are truly into M.R. James.
¡Hasta luego!

[Maliha Tabassum (back from hiatus) Tisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Kjsbreda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this story shortly after reading Somerset Maugham's The Magician (which is based upon real life occultist Aleister Crowley). Halfway through reading this story, I became convinced that it was also about Aleister Crowley. It turns out that I was wrong. The story was written before Crowley developed many of the similarities to the occultist Karswell. However, the existence of so many coincidental similarities (for example, Karswell writes fiction poorly, develops his own religion, is fat, arrogant and vindictive as well as being an occultist -- qualities shared by Crowley) made this story all the more chilling.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - 15 Minute Drama:
by the master of the ghost story, M.R.James. The tale of a curse passed on by a curiously inscribed slip of paper.

dramatised by Neil Brand

M.R. James ..... Mark Gatiss
Dunning ..... John Bowler
Karswell ..... Ewan Bailey
Gayton ..... Paul Heath
Mrs. Gayton ..... Saffron Coomber
Harrington ..... Ronny Jhutti
Assistant ..... Lewis Bray

Director: David Hunter

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...

[Doug Swicegood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dunning gets revenge

A warlock, Karswell, passes a strip of paper, an ancient runic curse, to those who critique his treatise on demonic use of Alchemy.

The first was Mr. Harrington some years ago and now The angry Warlock tries again. His latest victim is young Mr. Dunning, an editor, who reads Karswells new draft and after still considers the work hopeless.

Karswell secretly passes a new strip of paper to Dunning who, now, after realizing the paranormal warning is a deadly reality researches Harrington's untimely death.

At finding the cursed paper passed to him, he realizes his own death is near. Dunning's only recourse is to return the paper back to Karswell before it's too late. It's a race to the death that will be carried out by Karswell's conjured demon from hell.

When time runs out the one mutilated by the fast approaching demon will be the one holding the script!

The 1957 British film 'Night of the Demon' is based on James' 1911 'Casting the Runes.' One of the early transitions to modern horrors.

Review by D.L.S.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story concerns a character named Dunning, who is the researcher for a learned society and is responsible for the rejection of Karslake's manuscript on The Truth of Alchemy. Karslake who is both a very potent magician and alchemist is also a madly vindictive person who exacts a supernatural revenge by casting the runes on Dunning. Dunning learns that a previous reviewer of Karslake, John Harrington, has died bizarrely three months after rejecting a book of Karslake's on witchcraft and after receiving a piece of paper marked with symbols of runes on it. Karslake plants a piece of paper suitably marked with runes on Dunning. Fortunately, for Dunning, John Harrington's brother, Henry and Dunning deduce that the curse, once cast will cause the bearer to die horribly in three months and to combat this curse of the runes one must somehow send the piece of paper back to Karslake in time.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of the film Night of the Demon and have wanted for a long time to read this short story that it's based on. It's a good, tight, creepy story as I expect from MR James.

I was surprised by how much of it makes it into the film. The movie gender-swaps a character and expands on the main character's investigation, but the skeleton of the plot is the same and the movie hits all the major beats of James' tale.

Glad to have read it. I really need to get a serious collection of James' work instead of hitting it piecemeal like I've been doing.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another pretty good story. The narrator's voice really adds to the atmosphere of the story.

[Ryan McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/09yGyNJs9SE?si=Noyvz...

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good short story. "Curse of the Demon" did this one good.

[T. Sendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3/5 of the M.R James short stories selected by my “Twentieth Century Gothic” professor.

This one’s my top favourite out of the five!

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Supposedly based on Crowley, and you can see yet another example of an evil BLACK MAGIC working lunatic here. Very similar in theme to H.R. Wakefield's 'He Cometh and He Passeth By' - but I enjoyed this slightly more.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the uncanny that gets you.