June 12, 1936

Research in a university archive leads to a personal diary kept by the successor to the archdeacon of Barchester Cathedral, who died in 1810, tripping on a stair step. The story about an antiquarian, was written by an antiquarian and author of some renown-- M. R. James (August 1, 1862 to June 12, 1936). What could go wrong with a narrative that appeals to antiquarian, Anglican, academic, and anglophilian interests. Nothing. It's a perfect story: including even "...a cat, whose crouching posture suggests with admirable spirit the suppleness, vigilance, and craft of the redoubted adversary of the genus Mus."

You can read it here, or continue with my writeup first, to make sure your cup of mystery is steeped just right.

The link is to an anthology titled Famous Psychic Stories, (1920) Most introductions clear things up, but this one here seems to reflect cultural assumptions which are opaque, though written less than a century ago. The editor, J. Walker McSpadden is concerned to define the genre the title advertises "psychic stories."

A certain bond exists between this book and "Famous Ghost Stories," [which he edited in 1918]  in that both rest their appeal for recognition upon the general love of the mysterious and supernatural. There is, of course, a distinction and a difference between ghosts and psychic manifestations. In the "Ghost " volume the old-fashioned spook, predominates — the spectral visitant whose principal business seems to be to arouse fear or horror. Your psychic guest is more refined. He usually comes because especially invited....

Let us state frankly, however, that the present collection of tales is not psychic in the literal or scientific sense of the word. Instead, it is almost wholly fiction of avowed type, whose purpose is to entertain. The central thread, nevertheless, is psychic which defined broadly means the connecting cord between the natural and the spiritual worlds....

"The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," by Montague James, is again different from any of its
mates. It is a tale of malign influence which extends even into the precincts of a church and lays hold impartially of any wrongdoer who may chance to fall under its sinister power....

What interested me in the above is the use of the word 'psychic.' Still don't get his meaning. 

But on to other mysteries: The cat in the story is a cat is carved in wood in a church stall.

August 1, 1862

M. R. James, (August 1, 1862 to June 12, 1936), was an English scholar who specialized in medieval studies. He was a don at Cambridge, and many of his publications reflect his antiquarian interests. He was Provost at King's College, and later Eton. Here is a small  sampling of his many titles:

Lists of manuscripts formerly owned by Dr. John Dee, with preface and identifications
by Dee, John, 1527-1608. Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. 1820-1889. James, M. R. 1862-1936.
(1921).

Henry the Sixth, a reprint of John Blacman's memoir, with translation and notes by M.R. James.  by Blakman, John, 15th cent. James, M. R. 1862-1936. Rogers, Bruce, 1870-1957.
(1919).

The Western manuscripts in the library of Emmanuel College. A descriptive catalogue by Montague Rhodes James. ( 1904).

A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts other than Oriental in the library of King's college, Cambridge.  James, M. R. (1895).

The life and miracles of St William of Norwich, by Thomas, of Monmouth, 12th cent. James, M. R., Jessopp, Augustus, 1823-1914. (1896).

Tolkien, one is sure, consulted some of these publications. But we remember M. R. James as the author of ghost stories, stories which often reflect his scholarly milieu. 

Ghost-stories of an antiquary (1920, a reprint of a 1904 book) is one of his collections of such tales.

From "The Ash Tree,"a story in this book,  we quote what happened after a house party finds

....Sir Richard, —dead and black in his bed! A pale and silent party of guests and servants gathered under the window when the news was known. Italian poisoners, Popish emissaries, infected air—all these and more guesses were hazarded, and the Bishop of Kilmore looked at the tree, in the fork of whose lower boughs a white tom-cat was crouching, looking down the hollow which years had gnawed in the trunk. It was watching something inside the tree with great interest. Suddenly it got up and craned over the hole. Then a bit of the edge on which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in. Everyone looked up at the noise of the fall.

It is known to most of us that a cat can cry; but few of us have heard, I hope, such a yell as came out of the trunk of the great ash. ....Lady Mary Hervey fainted outright, and the housekeeper stopped her ears and fled till she fell on the terrace.

Well, that is enough to demonstrate the prose skills of M. R. James. You can read the whole story, and others, free, at Hathitrust.