A. M. Burrage

Alfred McLelland Burrage (1889–1956) was a British writer. He was noted in his time as an author of fiction for boys which he published under the pseudonym Frank Lelland, including a popular series called "Tufty".[1] After his death, however, Burrage became best known for his ghost stories.[1]

Life and work

Burrage was born in Hillingdon, London, in 1889. His father, Alfred Sherrington Burrage, and his uncle, Edwin Harcourt Burrage, were both prolific writers of magazine stories for boys. Burrage attended St Augustine's Abbey School in Ramsgate. After his father died in 1906, A. M. Burrage began writing fiction, partly to support his family.[2] Burrage's main market for his fiction were British pulp magazines such as The Grand Magazine, The Novel Magazine, Cassell's Magazine and The Weekly Tale-Teller.[2]

He served in the Artists Rifles in the First World War.[2] Burrage's publisher, Victor Gollancz Ltd., later published a memoir of his war experiences, War Is War, as "Ex-Private X". War is War received several good reviews, although it did not sell as well as Gollancz had hoped it would.[2]

For children, Burrage wrote a humorous novel, Poor Dear Esme (1925), about a boy who has disguise himself as a girl and attend a girl's school. Poor Dear Esme was described by Jack Adrian as a "comic classic", and the book was often reprinted.[2] Burrage wrote historical and romance fiction.[2] Burrage's historical fiction was often set in seventeenth-century England, as in the 1936 story "Mr. Codesby's Behaviour".[3]

Burrage is now remembered mainly for his horror fiction, which was originally collected in the books Some Ghost Stories (1927) and Someone in the Room (1931, as by "Ex-Private X") and has been reprinted by Ash-Tree Press.[1]

Burrage was a lapsed Roman Catholic.[4] He died at Edgware General Hospital at the age of sixty-seven December 18, 1956.

Critical reception

M. R. James praised Burrage's book Some Ghost Stories, saying that the book "keeps on the right side of the line and, if about half his ghosts are amiable, the rest have their terrors, and no mean ones".[5] James later included Burrage among a list of contemporary writers who had "best realized" the possibilities of the ghost story. [6] Bleiler has described Burrage's work thus: "The best stories in Some Ghost Stories and Someone in the Room are intelligent, well crafted and imaginative."[1] Richard Dalby has ranked Burrage as "one of the finest English ghost story writers, alongside Benson, Wakefield and James."[7] Neil Barron has stated "Burrage's underrated short stories are deft and subtle, and include a number of poignant posthumous fantasies."[8]

Novels
  • The St. Austin's Mystery: A Rattling School Story (1908)
  • The Cad of the College (1921)
  • The Golden Barrier (1925)

Three Chums Rebel of the house For House and School Well played, Sir! Mystery term at Hemming

Collections
  • Poor Dear Esme (1925)
  • Some Ghost Stories (1927)
  • Someone in the Room (1931)
  • Seeker to the Dead (1942)
  • Don't Break the Seal (1946)
  • Between the Minute and the Hour (1967)

Short stories
  • George Was a Hero. The Annie Swan Annual, 1935

References
  1. Bleiler E. F., "A. M. Burrage" in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (1986), edited by Jack Sullivan.
  2. Adrian, Jack. "Introduction" to A. M. Burrage, Someone in the Room: Strange Tales Old and New. Ash-Tree Press, (1997) ISBN 1-899562-38-9
  3. Cox, Michael and Adrian,Jack, The Oxford Book of Historical Stories. Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780192142191 (p.429)
  4. Burrage A. M. "I had been brought up as a R.C., but had given up practising my religion because I couldn't quite believe in it." Memoirs & Diaries - War is War - Early Doubts at firstworldwar.com
  5. James, M. R. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories", in The Bookman, December 1929. Reprinted in James, Collected Ghost Stories, edited by Darryl Jones. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780199568840 (p. 415)
  6. James, M. R. "Ghosts—Treat Them Gently!" in The Evening News,17 April 1931. Reprinted in James, Collected Ghost Stories. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011 (p.418).
  7. Dalby, Richard. The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories, London: Robinson Books. ISBN 1854870556 (p.103).
  8. Barron, Neil. Horror Literature: a reader's guide London: Garland, 1990. ISBN 0824043472

Critical Studies
  • Jack Adrian, "Burrage, A(lfred) M(cLelland)" in David Pringle, St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. London: St. James Press, 1998, ISBN 1558622063
  • S. T. Joshi, "A. M. Burrage:The Ghost Man" in Classics and Contemporaries (2009).


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.