China Miéville, "M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire". Collapse IV, May 2008. Quoted in James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880-1939. Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2019 (p.21)
“

James is regularly cited as a – or the – founder of the ‘tradition’ of English ghost stories. It is commonplace to then wryly point out that James’s ghosts are in fact often not ghosts, but inhuman ‘demons’ of one sort or another.

— China Miéville

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "James is regularly cited as a – or the – founder of the ‘tradition’ of English ghost stories. It is commonplace to then wryly point out that James’s ghosts are in fact often not ghosts, but inhuman ‘demons’ of one sort or another." in the context of "China Miéville, "M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire". Collapse IV, May 2008. Quoted in James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880-1939. Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2019 (p.21)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "M. R. James" (Quotes about M. R. James) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
M. R. James

About M. R. James

Montague Rhodes James OM (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English biblical scholar, medievalist, palaeographer and bibliographer, but is best remembered for his Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and other works of supernatural fiction.