Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book

Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book

Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book is a short horror story by M.R. James. It was first published in the December 1894 issue of The National Review. The story follows a young man who visits a small French town and discovers an old book in a local antique shop. The book is a scrapbook of strange and mysterious stories, compiled by a local priest, Canon Alberic. As the young man reads the stories, he begins to experience strange and terrifying events. He soon discovers that the stories in the book are connected to the town and its inhabitants, and that the book is a gateway to a dark and sinister world. The story is a classic example of James' style of horror, combining elements of the supernatural with psychological horror. It is a classic of the genre and has been adapted for film and television.

By M.R. James · First published 1894 · Genre: Horror, Mystery, Fantasy · 4,654 words

First lines

St. Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St. Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a notebook and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.

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Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book is listed on Textopian as a short story by M.R. James, dated 1894 CE.

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ghost story · supernatural · horror · mystery · antiquarian · British literature · 19th century · folklore · paranormal · suspense · literary fiction · short story

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