A. N. L. Munby (1913–1974)

An excellent read. I collect books by and about J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps and wanted to read this bio about the father-in-law who hated him so much. Nicolas Barker does a good job in reducing A.N.L. Munby's five-volume work on Sir Thomas Phillipps and his collections into one readable volume. I came away understanding why Phillipps hated his son-in-law so much, and why he is considered the world's greatest bibliomaniac. Previously I thought books were his passion – he wanted a copy of "every book published," – but it was manuscripts that were his primary passion. And his family suffered for his passion. Sir Thomas Phillipps was not a very nice man.… (más)

Since starting to read M.R. James' ghost stories a few years ago, I've been also hunting up a copy of A.N.L. Munby's The Alabaster Hand, a collection of fourteen Jamesian-style tales written while Munby was being held in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. I was delighted to come across this new edition, which isn't perhaps the perfect setting for Munby's stories, but will certainly do given the scarcity of earlier editions.

It's true, many of Munby's stories don't quite rise to the level of James', but all of them make for good reading and several of them are so thoroughly enjoyable that as soon as I finished I went back and read them again. Munby puts the tropes and themes of the antiquarian ghost stories to excellent use, and very playfully inserts some really unexpected twists.… (más)