Martin's Close

"Martin's Close"
"Martin's Close"
Short story by M. R. James
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror
Publication
Publication date	1911

"Martin's Close" is a ghost story by British writer M. R. James, included in his 1911 collection More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

Plot summary

The story is presented as a report of a trial in the year 1684, before Judge Jeffreys. Squire George Martin has been accused of murdering a young girl named Ann Clark, with whom he had a one-sided romance. The prosecution presents the case that Martin murdered Ann Clark, because she ruined a good marriage proposal for him. During the trial, an event is described in which Martin acted in a guilty manner when confronted with a possible apparition of the girl. In the end, Martin is found guilty of the crime, despite his attempt to have the case dismissed on a legal technicality, and is sentenced to death.^[1]

Adaptations

A version of the story, Martin's Close, adapted by Mark Gatiss, was broadcast on 24 December 2019 on BBC Four as part of the long-running A Ghost Story for Christmas series. It stars Peter Capaldi, Elliot Levey, Wilf Scolding, Sara Crowe, James Holmes, Jessica Temple, Simon Williams, Fisayo Akinade, and Ian Hallard.^[2]

References

^ James, M. R. (1993). Collected Ghost Stories (Repr. ed.). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth. pp. 160–175. ISBN 1853260533.
^ "Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, The Thick Of It, Paddington) will star in Martin's Close, airing this Christmas on BBC Four". BBC Media Centre. 21 August 2019. Retrieved 21 August 2019.

External links

The full text of Martin's Close at Wikisource
An omnibus collection of James's short fiction at Standard Ebooks
Full text of "Martin's Close"
Martin's Close public domain audiobook at LibriVox
A Podcast to the Curious: Episode 14 - Martin's Close
Martin's Close at IMDb

This article about a horror short story (or stories) published in the 1910s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] James, M. R. (1993). Collected Ghost Stories (Repr. ed.). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth. pp. 160–175. ISBN 1853260533.

[2] "Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, The Thick Of It, Paddington) will star in Martin's Close, airing this Christmas on BBC Four". BBC Media Centre. 21 August 2019. Retrieved 21 August 2019.

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v t e Works by M. R. James
Short stories	"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" "Lost Hearts" "The Mezzotint" "The Ash-tree" "Number 13" "Count Magnus" "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" "A School Story" "The Rose Garden" "The Tractate Middoth" "Casting the Runes" "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" "Martin's Close" "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance" "The Haunted Dolls' House" "A View from a Hill" "A Warning to the Curious" "A Vignette"
Collections	Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) More Ghost Stories (1911) A Thin Ghost and Others (1919) A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925) The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1931)
Adaptations	Night of the Demon (1957) Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) A Ghost Story for Christmas (1971–present)