The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance

by M.R. James, Seth (Illustrator)

Reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve was once as much a part of traditional Christmas celebrations as turkey, eggnog, and Santa Claus.

After receiving word that his Uncle Henry has gone missing, W.R. travels to his town to join in the search, but soon suspects his uncle is already dead. After an unusual encounter with a traveling salesman, W.R. has a nightmare about a terrifying puppet show—and a ghostly clergyman

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Christmas, Mystery, Gothic, Classics, Ghost Stories

52 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1913

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

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the second m.r. james story that seth included in his ghost stories for christmas series (after The Diary of Mr. Poynter: A Ghost Story for Christmas, which is about HAUNTED CURTAINS!!!). this one is equally bonkers. it's a genre chimera most accurately, albeit cumbersomely, described as a found-epistolary ghost story/murder mystery with additional horror elements coming from...puppets.



it begins:

The letters which I now publish were sent to me recently by a person who knows me to be interested in ghost stories. There is no doubt about their authenticity. The paper on which they are written, the ink, and the whole external aspect put their date beyond the reach of question.

what follows are six letters written by a man to his brother concerning his investigation into the disappearance of their uncle henry, the rector of a rural village.

the author of these letters repairs to this village over the xmas holidays to assist in the search for his not-particularly-beloved uncle, as the situation develops from disappearance to suspected death to homicide, offset by appearances of a dickensian innkeeper and his bewildering and irrelevant(?) story about a disagreement about beer that i truly i never understood, partially due to having to parse his (santa?) clause-riddled speeches:

"When I think," he said, "of the language that man see fit to employ to me in this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer—such a thing as I told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a family—though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that I knew at the time, only I was that shocked to hear him I couldn't lay my tongue to the right expression."

He stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. I only said, "Dear me, I'm sorry to hear you had any little differences: I suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?" Mr. Bowman drew a long breath. "Ah, yes!" he said; "your uncle! You'll understand me when I say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that he was a relative; and natural enough, I must say, as it should, for as to you bearing any resemblance to—to him, the notion of any such a thing is clean ridiculous. All the same, 'ad I 'ave bore it in my mind, you'll be among the first to feel, I'm sure, as I should have abstained my lips, or rather I should not have abstained my lips with no such reflections."

he makes several equally chatterboxy appearances, and i have no earthly idea why he took up so much space in this <50-page story, other than to be comic relief against the real selling point of the piece—the narrator's creepy-creepy supernaturally-enhanced christmas eve dream sequence, featuring a punch-and-judy show whose violence is eerily realistic.

The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby—it sounds more ridiculous as I go on—the baby, I am sure, was alive. Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality.

The stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it Punch came and sat on the footboard and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered in so deadly a fashion that I saw some of those beside me cover their faces, and I would gladly have done the same.

this dream will tell him everything he needs to know about his uncle's disappearance, if he knows how to interpret it. 'course, it doesn't matter if he interprets it correctly or not, because anything that can scootch into yer dreams doesn't need a proxy to effectuate their revenge plots, which will soon become clear.

on the first day of christmas, my true love gave to me: several bodies, zero motives, and absolutely no closure on the matter of the beer disagreement.

not as memorable as haunted curtains, but still, a good creepy story for your xmas eve zoom party.



director's cut:



come to my blog!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The weirdness in this story appeals. It wrote as a series of letters from a man who is called to a village on the disappearance of his uncle a verger around Christmas time . The great thing about this story is that it is set at Christmas and although James told his stories at meeting around Christmas only this one is set at Christmas. The joy of this story is in the uncanny. The terrifying dream of a Punch and Judy show as a sense of foreshadowing and foreboding the real Punch and Judy show in the final moments of this story actually gives you that sense of not feeling safe and the supernatural in every day life. Definitely a story of James I enjoyed more and thank God - if you have read my other reviews on James- no Latin.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably one of M.R. James best tales, this is almost certainly his strangest. Even its title seems to go the wrong way (I mean, shouldn’t the “appearance” come first?). Its narrative seems to ramble. Its plot seems disordered too.

At the beginning, the narrator—who describes himself as one who is “interested in ghost stories"—says that the story consists of a series of letters and that “the only point which they do not make clear is the identity of the writer.” Yet you and I both know the real name of the writer: it is Montague Rhodes James. And that is almost the only point of this particular story that is ever clear.

The center of the tale is an extraordinary dream narrated by the anonymous author of the aforementioned letters, who has recently arrived at the town of B—— to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his Uncle Henry, the rector. The dream tells of a Punch and Judy show, and it is the nature of such puppets themselves—those mysterious dead things which pretend to be live things—that make the dream disturbing:

I believe someone once tried to re-write Punch as a serious tragedy; but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him exactly. There was something Satanic about the hero. He varied his methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait . . . . To others he was polite and carneying . . . . But with all of them I came to dread the moment of death. The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby — it sounds more ridiculous as I go on — the baby, I am sure, was alive. Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality.

The stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it Punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered . . . .

Soon our sleeper wakes with a scream, and later that same day encounters another Punch and Judy show. His encounter takes place in reality this time. Or—should we say?—in the flesh.

In the end, everything appears to be resolved, even the matter of Uncle Henry. Yet it is the dream Punch that haunts the reader’s mind.

Fanning himself. Looking at his bloody shoes . . .

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining, creepy, morbid, one-sided epistolary story (with dates of late December 1837) that delves into dreams and the possibility of their psychic nature. It also includes a couple of Dickens references (Boz and Pickwick Papers) which were fun, at least to me.

[Adam Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I normally love MR James ghost stories but this was a bit of an odd one. A missing Rector, suspected dead, a ghostly dream and a Punch and Judy show…

[Plateresca · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of M.R. James's scariest, even if, like many of his later stories, massively underexplained.

[Joey Shapiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruuuuules, i love M.R. James ghost stories and this has an extremely upsetting nightmare sequence that feels almost too grotesque for the time period it was written in. 🤩 Some vocab required googling but a small price to pay to be SPOOKED!

[John Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly nothing more terrifying than a puppet show.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really love the way this story by James reads. There's nothing quite like a Victorian ghost story.

[Lynsey Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing that I have learnt from plumbing the depths of MR James ghost stories is that my perception of them all being very similar stories about antiquarians and ghosts is actually quite wrong as they are all pretty different.

This here being a case in point.

Very strange and distant this one, almost dream like in it's telling (which makes sense as a part of it is set in a dream) the narrative is quite complicated but drags you along so you need to know what happened to the missing man. However the mystery around his disappearance is never really solved, did the Punch and Judy people kill him? Was it some kind of evil monster ghost type thing that got him? We shall never know.

I would like to know though, so please send all ideas on a postcard.

[Ryan Jantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this a bit dry and (purposefully) unclear, but does contain one of the more vivid and accurate depictions of what a dream feels like. This section was the highlight by far - it comes out of nowhere and feels both unsettling and modern, and firmly plants this story in the weird fiction camp.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story told through correspondence between two people about a missing uncle and the supernatural twists which reveal his fate.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

What happened here?

This story had quite some potential to be genuinely scary, the imagery used when describing the harrowing Punch & Judy dream sequence was chilling, I find Punch & Judy to be quite creepy at the best of times, now imagine a hyper-realistic Punch & Judy... baby and all... with blood, screams and the grotesque sounds of skulls being crushed... yeah.

But unfortunately the story is full with plot points that ultimately go nowhere, very little is explained, I understand that horror can often be left to the imagination of the reader, but there wasn't really anything to go on here, it's like an anecdote where the teller misses out key points and leaves the listener confused.

[Lady Megan Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a story told through letters, which I'm always happy to read. The letters are all written between December 22nd and. 26th, so most of the action here does indeed happen at Christmas.

The narrator, W.R., receives the upsetting news that his uncle Henry, a clergyman, has gone missing. W.R. goes to join in on the search, and eventually comes to accept that his uncle is dead. But what happens from there is so strange and gruesome, well, you'll just have to read it -- but be forewarned, there is of course a ghost, but also a rather terrifying puppet show.

It’s not my favorite ghost story, but I did find it to be pretty effective and original.

[Samantha van Buuren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Over written an mostly boring, this one is my least favourite of the set so far, so I'm glad it was also the cheepest!

I enjoyed the Punch and Judy show element but it's lost inside sentances with way to many words. It's to be expected of a story written around 100 years ago so while I understand the writing style, that understanding didn't help me enjoy the story.

The ghost element is also basically missing. Not great for a ghost story.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed some of James' ghost stories, but cannot number this among them. It's a bit confusing and I rarely enjoy recounts of someone's dreams. The device of the plot unfolding through letters one brother writes to another is effective, though, but the dialogue of the barman is not. In the Biblioasis edition the text covers 36 pages, the rest being Seth's so-so drawings and publisher information.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Penguin Books] (2020). SB. 52 Pages. Purchased from Amazon.co.uk.

An epistolatory chiller with a disturbing dream sequence and some masterful imagery.

The drab, naive drawings by “Seth” (Gregory Gallant (1962-)) bring nothing worthwhile to this book. Additional contextual information, for instance a more detailed biographical sketch of the author*, would have been a welcome substitute. (*A mere six lines… but ten for the illustrator…)

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dream sequence was what saved me from actually disliking the story, but like the rest of the story it doesn't really go anywhere. Yes you find out what happened to the uncle but you don't really care as it's treated like an afterthought. I have enjoyed several others by M.R. James but this one just wasn't his best in my opinion.

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 3.5-star rating rounded down because I was hoping for just a wee bit more. That being said, I did enjoy this ghost tale and the karma that it offered. I appreciated that it brought to mind the novel Silas Marner which happens to be my personal Christmas read but which I did not get to this year due to all that was happening in my life.

[Vidhi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

A murder mystery written in the form of letters, I loved the style but it’s hard to like a story when the conclusion leaves you confused. To be fair, the writing was wonderfully done until the end. But unfortunately this little horror short story didn’t leave me feeling too satisfied.

[Persy · Rating 2 out of 5]

“A man is not always master of himself.”

The most interesting part of this tale is the somewhat unreliable narrator of the letter writer, though the ramblings of each letter did more to bore than to entice.

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Close to a 3-star. I really liked Seth's decorations in this one. The story lost me past a certain point with its depictions of odd nightmares and dreams about a Punch and Judy show. I liked the found footage epistolary form used, found letters.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Audible edition, narrated by Derek Jacobi. This was very underwhelming.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Jibbu · Rating 1 out of 5]

horrible.

[Per · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

[David Abrams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick and chilling. That Punch and Judy show is the stuff of nightmares. Literally.

[E G Melby · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I was 2 days late... still a creepy good read

[Gentry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Other than one quite chilling scene, this story was very forgettable.

[Madison McSweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd, uncanny tale that uses nightmare logic and the recurring image of a Punch & Judy show to good affect