Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book

Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book is a horror short story by English writer M. R. James, written in 1892 or 1893 and first published in 1895 in the National Review. It is his earliest known horror story and the first (along with "Lost Hearts") to be read aloud to the "Chitchat Society" at King's College, Cambridge, where many of his stories made their public debut. It was subsequently included in his first short story collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), though the malevolent entity is a demon rather than a ghost.^[1]

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-book"
Short story by M.R. James
Illustration by James McBryde
Text available at Wikisource
Original title	The Scrap-book of Canon Alberic
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror short story
Publication
Published in	National Review
Media type	Print (magazine)
Publication date	1895

Plot summary

The story has a detailed and realistic setting in the tiny decaying cathedral city of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, at the foot of the Pyrenees in southern France. An English tourist, Dennistoun, spends a day photographing the interior of the eponymous cathedral and is encouraged by the sacristan to buy a scrapbook of illuminated manuscripts. This, he concludes, had been created c. 1700 by Canon Albéric de Mauléon^{[note 1]}, who had cut up volumes in the old cathedral library. A disturbing illustration of King Solomon and a demon in the back of the book is a key to the story's suspenseful arc.

Publication

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" was first published in the National Review in March 1895 under the title "The Scrap-book of Canon Alberic". It was subsequently collected in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary under its final title in 1904, and in The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James in 1931. It has been anthologised many times.^[2]

Reception

Some have considered James' later story "An Episode of Cathedral History" (first published in The Cambridge Review in 1914 and later included in the 1919 collection A Thin Ghost and Others) to be a sequel or companion piece, as it features a similar creature, obliquely suggested to be the mate of the one encountered in "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book".^[1]

Adaptations

The story has inspired a musical composition by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, St. Bertrand de Comminges: "He was laughing in the tower", first performed in 1985 by Yonty Solomon.^[3]

On 30 December 1987, BBC Radio 4's programme The Late Book: Ghost Stories featured a reading of "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book", abridged and produced by Paul Kent and read by Benjamin Whitrow.^[4]

In 2006–2007, Nunkie Theatre Company toured A Pleasing Terror round the UK and Ireland. This one-man show was a retelling of two of James's tales, "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" and "The Mezzotint".

In 2020, the story was adapted into a full-cast audio drama for the second season of Shadows at the Door: The Podcast.

Notes

1. An invented character, said to be a collateral descendant of the real 16th-century bishop Jean de Mauléon.