Robert Lloyd-Parry

Illustration: The laws of shadows

In May 1904 a young artist called James McBryde wrote excitedly to his great friend M.R. James. ‘I don’t think I have ever done anything I liked better than illustrating your stories. To begin with I sat down and learned advanced perspective and the laws of shadows...’

issue 30 October 2010

In May 1904 a young artist called James McBryde wrote excitedly to his great friend M.R. James. ‘I don’t think I have ever done anything I liked better than illustrating your stories. To begin with I sat down and learned advanced perspective and the laws of shadows…’

In May 1904 a young artist called James McBryde wrote excitedly to his great friend M.R. James. ‘I don’t think I have ever done anything I liked better than illustrating your stories. To begin with I sat down and learned advanced perspective and the laws of shadows…’

The illustration (right) is one of four that McBryde made for James’s first collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, and it depicts one of the most chilling moments in supernatural literature: the climax of Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad. Professor Parkins, of Cambridge University, holidaying alone one blustery Christmas vacation beside the sea in Suffolk, is attacked by a bed sheet in his hotel room in the middle of the night.

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