The Tractate Middoth

by M.R. James

A librarian encounters the cobweb-covered ghost of a man entombed with his books.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Audiobook, Ghost Stories, Mystery

36 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Montague Rhodes James, who used the publication name M.R. James, was a noted English mediaeval scholar & provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18) & of Eton College (1918–36). He's best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal Gothic trappings of his predecessors, replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

M.R.^James

Reviews

[Bionic Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Tractate Middoth is a short ghost story by M.R. James, and published in 1911 in his second collection of ghost stories, "More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary". link here to my review

M.R. James includes some of his favourite themes, such as an old scholar, a musty old academic library, a seaside boarding house, a mysterious visiting stranger, cobwebs and those who spin them, not to mention the sensations of fear, dread, and an overpowering sensation of doom and decay. Regular readers of M.R. James know full well the sort of story to expect. An aged scholar will discover a strange ancient artefact or manuscript, and will pursue investigations connected with this to his ultimate peril. It depends whether the perpetrator has evil or avaricious intentions, or is merely in the pursuit of knowledge, how the story ends. But the message is always the same. Curiosity, whether unwitting or deliberate meddling, will inevitably unleash an unspeakably malicious, supernatural horror.

A difference in this story is that alongside this fingerprint of the author, there also runs a mystery story which is very much of this world; of material things and human jealousies. In fact it could almost be termed a detective story, on the lines of Conan Doyle's. Clearly M.R. James had an amateur detective of the Sherlock Holmes type in mind, for part of this story. Two characters tell their puzzling problem to another character, who by the use of analysis and deduction has the chance to solve it for them.

The protagonist of the story is a library assistant named William Garrett, who is approached by a stranger, John Eldred, when he comes to the library to look for a specific copy of a book called the "Tractate Middoth". Immediately we are into familiar territory, with labyrinthine stacks of books, and abstruse titles tucked away in dusty, cobwebby corners. And dust, blackness and cobwebs are at the heart of this story. The book is not where it should be. It all feels most mysterious, and Garrett thinks he has glimpsed a parson in the stacks, whom he think must have taken the book. But the reader suspects more; our ghost-detecting antennae are twitching as we sense malevolent forces set in motion.

The Tractate Middoth of the title, might sound diabolical, but it is not in fact sinister. "Middoth" or middot is the Hebrew for measurement. So the "Tractate Middoth" is just a tract of the Talmud that deals with the measurements and customs of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It is apparently a very dry academic text, and completely irrelevant to the plot. M.R. James, with his predilection for ancient manuscripts, probably inserted it to add an impishly authentic air to the motif of an old manuscript, which he so often favours in these stories. As provost at King's College, Cambridge he had always been fascinated by medieval manuscripts, and voluntarily undertook to catalogue the vast collection in his own time. Writing these ghost stories was another of his "pastimes".

If you do not know this story, it may be advisable not to click the spoiler tabs which follow, as this review may tell you more than you care to know. Nor would I advise viewing the "blurb" on this site, which although only one sentence still tells you more than this review outside the spoilers does.

John Eldred returns, to be told that Garrett has been taken ill, and is at home recuperating. Suspiciously, "still a prey to anxiety," he seems overly concerned about his book, claiming he feels responsible for the librarian, and asking for his address. At home he is pale and ill,

"When in health Mr. Garrett was a cheerful and pleasant-looking young man. Now he was a very white and shaky being, propped up in an armchair by the fire, and inclined to shiver and keep an eye on the door,"

Garrett has unwittingly unleashed some abominable entity in his innocent search for the book, and when a visiting colleague mentions the "musty smell" and "unnaturally strong smell of dust" he admits that he had seen the parson again. However to to his horror, the "parson" then turned around, and he saw a ghastly vision with eyes that were sunken in. He couldn't see the lower part of the face but described the upper as "perfectly dry", and the deep-sunken eyes were covered with cobwebs. These "streaks of hair across it... much less like hair than cobwebs" are a startling image for the author to convey; a brief but precise moment of terror - the first genuinely horrific part of the story.

His employers insist on Garrett recuperating properly with a change of air, so he determines to go to the seaside. Escaping from a similar vision of, "a figure so like one bound up with recent unpleasant associations" which he glimpses on the railway station platform, he dashes into the nearest railway carriage. At this point, it appears M.R. James is laughing up his sleeve, as the coincidence about to happen is so blatantly fortuitous.

In the carriage are a Mrs. Mary Simpson and her daughter, the elder being, "a nice-looking old lady", both with smelling-salts at the ready. On perceiving that he is ill, they not only immediately solicitously attend to him, but also invite him to their house in Burnstow-on-Sea, where they have an apartment to let, in order to recuperate. During the course of future conversations it becomes clear that the reason they have to take in boarders is financial difficulties. The mother's uncle, Dr. John Rant, had been a rich, but maliciously misanthropic old clergyman, with "mean sharp ways" and a "soul like a corkscrew". Instead of leaving his estate to one or both of his two possible heirs, he deliberately left two conflicting wills, telling each that he had done so.

The two women are trying to find the latter will left by him, which would name Mary as the beneficiary. He has told both her and her cousin, John Eldred, that he has hidden the revised will in a book, and given clues as to how it can be found. Obviously Eldred, who is in current possession of the estate wants to find the second will to destroy it, whereas Mary Simpson and her daughter want to find it so that they will inherit. Garrett, the librarian, recognises the name of the cousin as being the man who came in search of the "Tractate Middoth". He manages to decode a scrap of paper also given as a clue to the location of the book, which coincidentally happens to be in the very library where he works. He must return to the library to retrieve the book, as the will, written in English but somehow disguised, is somehow hidden inside.

Unusually for a story by this author, the reader witnesses the protagonist turning detective, as the two women tell their tale. It is admittedly a fairly simple mystery to be solved, and after this, the story develops into a frantic race against time. Garrett finds that John Eldred has beaten him to it, and arranged for the "Tractate Middoth" to be sent to his local railway station. Garrett has to retrieve the book somehow from John Eldred, and the way this pans out is a pure, shudderingly horrific ghost story.

Collecting the parcel from the train, Eldred walks back to the estate. Garrett follows him, but as he watches Eldred examining the book,

"Something black seemed to drop upon the white leaf and run down it... a little dark form appeared to rise out of the shadow behind the tree-trunk and from it two arms enclosing a mass of blackness" envelop and smother Mr. Eldred. A neighbour reported him as, "took with one of these fits - face seemed to go all over black."

The will is indeed found written in the book, looking at a glance like a Hebrew inscription, and Eldred's death was not deemed unnatural by the coroner. But the next day, on returning to the spot, Garrett sees,

"something dark that still lay there made him start back for a minute but it hardly stirred... a thick black mass of cobwebs... several large spiders ran out of it into the grass."

M.R. James's stories, written to amuse his friends, had become an annual Christmas event, where all the academics sat listening with fascinated horror to his latest offering. The public too lapped them up. The stories do not present neat endings, often raising more questions in the telling than they answer. Who? What? Why? Often the malevolence is implied, M.R. James creating a chilling and eerie tale of horror to make the hairs stand up on the back of the neck. He does not "spell things out." Yet the horror in this particular tale is more on the lines of Edgar Allan Poe's brand of material manifestation. Poe will usually cause revulsion in his reader, by a literal and graphic description of decay; he does not avoid the visceral. Interestingly however, in this story M. R. James utilises the plot device of of entombment, which is a motif much favoured by Edgar Allan Poe. M.R. James's horrors are usually more of the mind, unsettling his characters for a good deal of the time, rather than presenting an actual danger.

In this one the ending is more literal, and afterwards the reader sees the cause, although it is still not explicable in scientific terms. Plus we are also unsure why the malevolent entity struck who it did. Perhaps such randomness is a necessary prerequisite with malevolent entities, but usually in an M.R. James story, there is a moral dimension. The relationships of the characters in the story within a story are also a little ambiguous. We are clearly told who we should be rooting for, but do not really know why. Is the "baddie" in this story an innocent party happening to stand in for his ancestor's evil plans? And why wasn't he as terrified of the malevolent entity as the main character? If he had already been pursued by it for twenty years, one might expect a certain amount of dread. There is also a sort of romantic ending, a wry joke, in the final sentence, but again, it seems to come out of nowhere.

The mysteries in this story are more frustrating than in others by this author. It may be that because he has departed slightly from his chosen "formula" of ghost-horror and dabbled with crime-mystery, the reader is more inclined to challenge ideas which seem half-baked. With horror fiction our brains come into play rather less than our emotions and guts; we are entranced by powerfully horrific implications, and masterly atmospheric descriptions. With M.R. James, it is important to appreciate his particularly understated English style, of leaving more to the imagination than his American counterpart, Edgar Allan Poe. But in a story with a detective element leaving questions unanswered merely seems frustrating rather than imaginative.

Although The Tractate Middoth is one of M.R. James's most popular tales, it is so tongue-in-cheek as to not be one of his best. Possibly the attraction lies with the title, which is so admirably esoteric and abstruse. If we remember it, we will certainly remember who wrote it! And in that may lie the story's attraction. Although short, it lends itself well to adaptation, perhaps better than some of M.R. James's more atmospheric pieces. It has been dramatised twice on British television, both expanded versions but true to the basic text. Once was in 1966, plus a recent dramatisation in 2013, and it was the basis of an American television drama in 1951.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in More Ghost Stories (1911), “The Tractate Middoth,” although lacking the sustained intensity of Jame’s very best tales, still possesses moments as chilling as anything in his oevre. It is an adventure tale too, and a bit of a romance. Altogether, a satisfying read.

I’ll give you the first of these memorable moments, but the context here is important. William Garrett, a young assistant librarian, had entered the stacks the day before to fetch “The Tractate Middoth”—an old Rabbinical text—for patron John Eldred, and there saw “an old parson” standing in the shadows who seemed to have taken possession of the very book he sought. Later, he is surprised to see that the book is still there, and so when Eldred comes around the next morning, on the chance the the tractate has been returned, Garrett returns into the stacks once more.

Here is how William Garrett describes what he saw, the thing that caused him to faint and left him “very white and shaky.”

This time, if you please—ten o’clock in the morning, remember, and as much light as ever you get in those classes, and there was my parson again, back to me, looking at the books on the shelf I wanted. His hat was on the table, and he had a bald head. I waited a second or two looking at him rather particularly. I tell you, he had a very nasty bald head. It looked to me dry, and it looked dusty, and the streaks of hair across it were much less like hair than cobwebs. Well, I made a bit of a noise on purpose, coughed and moved my feet. He turned round and let me see his face—which I hadn’t seen before. I tell you again, I’m not mistaken. Though, for one reason or another I didn’t take in the lower part of his face, I did see the upper part; and it was perfectly dry, and the eyes were very deep-sunk; and over them, from the eyebrows to the cheek-bone, there were cobwebs—thick. Now that closed me up, as they say, and I can’t tell you anything more.’

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the scarier of M R James short stories in my opinion. I’m an avid reader so to set this book mainly in a library was not only the change of scene for James but also haunting for me remembering old libraries I had visited. Garratt is one protagonist that feels relatable and rational which is a change from the usual academics.
David Suchet reads the audio book on audible which is also worth a listen. A good Christmas ghost story.

[Maliha Tabassum Tisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oooh, I love a good M.R. James ghost story. Other writers may pile on the gore or strive too much for the ghoulish obvious, but James wrote stories that betrayed seemingly innocent pastimes by infusing a sense of dread. Real ghost stories. Simple walks or simple railway excursions or simple trips to bookshops will become haunted. Perfect for the Autumn season.

This short story from 1911 starts off rather airily. An older gentleman walks into a lending library and makes a simple request for a book. It’s an older book, supposedly in Hebrew. The librarian sends a young clerk to find the book and that clerk bounces away, sure to complete the task rather quickly. Except he can’t find the book. It appears that someone else had taken it off the shelf and was reading it. The young clerk tells the customer to come back the next day, as he’s sure the book will be back on the shelf. But when the customer returns, the same process takes place…no book to be found. This time, the young clerk doesn’t return and is eventually found on the floor, having fainted. Evil lurks among the bookshelves and it’s not good. Especially when a cloud of spectral dust seems to form whenever the malicious presence is around.

I saved this story as my Halloween/Day Of The Dead read for this year and only read it at nighttime. Good for the ambiance, not good for my nerves. Again, James doesn’t force anything on the reader, he simply lets the tale gently unfold, but not in the initial direction I thought it was going. Those old libraries are full of drying parchments and dark aisles and cobweb-laden corners. That alone sets the tone for what is to come.

If you prefer to watch rather than read, the BBC did a very nice production starring John Castle and Sacha Dhawan for their 2013 Christmas ghost story series. I think it’s even better than the story, which is very good, because an additional element of fear and looking over shoulders has been added. Whether by page or by tube, it’s a great ghostie.

Book Season = Autumn (sickening qualms)

[Natalie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

June 2023
Audiobook edition
42m (1.3x speed)

Nothing like an accidental ghost story first thing in the morning. I did guess by the cover it would be a ghost story, but it was the next one on the list. Under 3hrs from the audible plus library. This one took customer service to the extreme. A specific library book being requested and an assistant out to do his job.
It was curious how this story went. The book turned out to be more than it was. I did wonder why the assistant went out of his way to track the book and what would be the point of him doing so. It was pretty clear at the end. I think maybe John broke the rules of the game, that was why he died. It was interesting. I'm glad the assistant got a happy ending.

[ناني ماكفي · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it 🩷❤️

[Oziel Bispo · Rating 4 out of 5]

O Dr. Rant ao morrer deixou dois testamentos . Em um ele deixa tudo para seu sobrinho John Eldred. No segundo testamento ele tira os direitos de John e deixa todos os seus bens para sua sobrinha Mary Simpson. Só que o maligno do Dr Rant diz que o segundo testamento estaria escrito dentro de um livro que fora seu, mas já não estava mais na casa. Então começa o jogo maligno da procura do testamento, John querendo o testamento para não perder seus direitos, e Mary para obter seus direitos. É aí que entra em cena um ajudante de uma biblioteca , William Garrett, que vai tentar encontrar o livro para Mary.

Um conto onde as forças do mal estão sempre a assustar nos corredores escuros da biblioteca, e o pó do maligno Dr Rant a sufocar a todos.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many stories from the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, seem to be about the will of some deceased person, with supernatural circumstances surrounding it. But for what it's worth, this was quite a good one, where two wills for two estranged siblings are placed inside the pages of two random books, which could be anywhere in any library in any part of the world.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic supernatural mystery that manages to be charming yet creepy!

[Violet-May Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the story to be very interesting and agree that M.R. James most definitely changed the idea of what is to be a ghost. The language and storytelling was also brilliant. I would 100% recommend.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming story, this one. Initially I had found it to be excessively wordy. But slowly, as the delicious terror and the dark humour hidden within the lines took over, it became enjoyable.
Recommended.

[Amy Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-crafted tale, though some bits lean a bit too heavily into telling rather than showing. Mystery/Supernatural nonsense centered around a book, not for the book's own contents, but for what someone hand-wrote into it. Also, the book appears to be haunted by The Web.

While this was a satisfying listen, afterwards I find myself wondering what the old guy's deal was. Let one person inherit with the filed will, but have a separate hidden will that would make the other inherit? Okay, if it had resolved quickly, there could have been a "give X everything, then take it all away" vibe, but after 20 years? When the original heir dies from shock? Maybe it makes sense to The Web. * shrugs *

UPDATE: Amazon has a live action version of this. Quite well done, but suffers from the same issues as the story itself.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another bit of a treasure hunt story with the treasure being found inside of an old book, and it comes complete with a horror ending.

[Amy Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rate this a 3.5⯪star read which is great but not excellent. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying the mystery in this short Victorian ghost story. I think the appeal comes from my love of esotericism. I learned later that M.R. James was a medieval scholar and antiquarian which explains all the obscure elements. However, these elements were not central to the stories telling.

This story is about the human element of greed and a race to right wrongs. Each character had purpose in the story with our main character, the librarian Mr. Garrett, falling into the mystery that began decades before his time. Not all threads were tied at the end, but this didn't hurt the resolution for me. It might have had higher ratings had it been longer than a short story to fully realize its potential. But upon speculation, perhaps being left in the dark aids further into its curious nature and timeless spirit. I would not describe this book being dark or edgy but more subtle and sophisticated with a hint of deeper disturbances. Had the characters been more memorable, I would have rated it higher, but the plot was the focal point in which each character had a role to play vs a personality to portray.

It's amazing how the want of one character can captivate your attention so quickly. There is more to learn about story telling in this short story than I've read in some 700 page novels. Brilliant execution! The narrator for the audiobook, David Suchet, was a perfect fit!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another M.R. James ghost story ticked off the list! I’m really enjoying the length of some of these stories because they are perfect for getting a block of listening done and then you can tick another book off the list! Win win!

This one feels very different to how some of his other ghost stories have gone, it was a little bit more psychological than some of the others that I have listened to but there was a definite spooky element at the end.

It’s also definitely the right time of year to be listening to these sorts of stories. And these are gently enough that they won’t keep you up all night but they’re enough to send a little shiver down your spine.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story about a man who helps another man look for a book that has a will (one of two) written into it (not strange at all) by a woman's late husband (another man) so the second man can destroy it because he looks to inherit instead of the niece Mary (because everyone was named Mary then).

So the first man attempts to get the book for the second man but the dead man is sort of hoarding it in the public library (how'd they get it?). In the end, the second man doesn't get the book. The end.

Wasn't impressed. Maybe I wasn't in the mood but this was not one of my favorite M. R. James stories. Would probably make a nice film though. Hear the BBC have taken a swing at it.

[Jacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. This short ghost story is a classic, featuring Mr Garrett, a librarian who, while searching for a book requested by John Eldred, encounters a black-clad mouldering clergyman, so strange it causes him to pass out and be given recovery leave. On the train to the seaside he meets the Simpsons, a mother and daughter, who offer him lodgings. He learns that they are in an inheritance struggle over the missing will of a clergyman called Rant, and Garrett pieces together their story with John Eldred's search for a very particular book, and the spectre of the long-dead clergyman. Beautifully read, as might be expected, by David Suchet.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do enjoy a ghost story and one of the true masters is M.R. James.

Having enjoyed a day of ghostly tales yesterday while Tania was painting and while I was working we decided to carry on today along the same theme.

Here David Suchet narrates a mysterious tale of a much sought after Hebrew book, a missing will, and of cunning plans.

A lovely way to spend a dark and damp September. Another 5 stars.

[Pamela Fernandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice lovely read. So good that the audiobook put me to a lovely sleep at the end. A man working in the library meets a lovely chap who wants a book in Hebrew. He encounters a parson whose face is made of cobwebs. He soon finds the lovely chap isn't so lovely at all. Lovely read, Detective feel but nice ending.

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mysterious story about a book and a will hidden in it, and when someone gets a hold of it, they have taken their last breath. It did not leave me with many creeps but an interesting short story regardless.

[JPT · Rating 5 out of 5]

*
*
*
Audiobook
Story: A-, Narration: A

Not a review, just some thoughts for personal reference.

The MR James short tales of the supernatural, narrated by David Suchet, have been a delight.

Note: This was a free listen for Audible Plus members.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as part of Ghost Sories of Antiquary part 2. It is a will written short stories of ghost and haunting as the hunt is on for a will. I recommend this novella to readers of fantasy novels. Enjoy reading or listening 2022

[kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 ⭐⭐⭐

enjoyed the puzzle element, but didn't like this as much as the other m r james I've read. it's always good when a story can be interpreted multiple ways but it was almost too mysterious, and I didn't know what to make of it. 🕸️📚🕸️

[Sol · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story is simple, but so interesting, the intrigue, all the questions, all the whys and whats we think while reading each sentence.
The ghosts are here, not as spooky for me, but thrilled about them anyways.

[Sascha Nolte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die für James Werke üblichen gediegenen Zutaten. Das Ende ist hier allerdings sehr vorhersehbar und die Geschichte von einer etwas stolpernden inneren Logik. Trotzdem: Gothic-Horror auf höchstem Niveau.

[Nipper1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this, it's the perfect Christmas Eve read.

[Macky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating for the BBC 4 dramatisation

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting!

[Zanika Mahmud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different but interesting though .