December 1st 2018: "Casting the Runes" by Montague R. James

[Smiley]

Our regular Saturday Evening (time zone dependent) chat will not be held on November 24th because of family activities by most of our American members over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. 

Therefore:

Please join us for our next chat in #readers_corner at 8:30 P.M. (EST) on December 1st, 2018 [01:30 A.M. (GMT), December 2nd], for a discussion of " Casting the Runes"  by M.R. James.  

"Montague Rhodes James OM FBA (1 August 1862 – 12 June01936), who published under the name M. R. James, was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18), and of Eton College (1918–36). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1913–15).  

"Though James's work as a medievalist is still highly regarded, he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story" (Wikpedia)

This story is both an entertaining and interesting one, a bit longer than our usual, but in that we have an extra week to peruse it, should not prove a difficult read.  In addition, several readings of the story are available on Youtube.com.  (The audio versions take longer to listen to than does the reading, but of course you can listen while engaged in other activity.

The story itself has an interesting spin, with the message that those who seek revenge might be better served by accepting the situation with more equanimity.

The story is available on line (html format) at:  http://www.hypnogoria.com/html/castingtherunes.html

It is available as a PDF at:  http://www.folkhorror.com/casting.pdf

and as a streaming audio at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4Jmko_gGQ

Webchat:  http://koach.com/cha...=readers_corner  

mIRC Users:  /server -m chat3.koach.com:6667 -j #readers_corner

I  hope to see you all for the chat.  Don't forget to bring a friend.

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