Basil Netherby | A Ghost Story by A. C. Benson | A Bitesized Audiobook

Leonard Ward receives a strange communication from his friend Basil, a composer who has sought isolation in a remote house in Cornwall. In a cryptic note, Basil begs Leonard to visit him at Treheale, but after Leonard makes the trip his friend seems annoyed to see him, and is behaving altogether very oddly. It soon becomes clear that a strange and malign presence is at work in the house...

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, you may like to consider supporting me on Patreon:
  / bitesizedaudio  

Or for occasional one-off contributions, you can Buy Me a Coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bitesize...

Arthur Christopher Benson (1862–1925) was an author, poet, critic and academic, who served as the Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1915 until his death ten years later, aged 63. He had a passion for music, and wrote the lyrics of the patriotic song 'Land of Hope and Glory' (1902, to the tune composed by Edward Elgar in 1901), perhaps his best known work today – even though the majority of people probably wouldn't be able to identify him as the author. A. C. Benson was one of M. R. James’s closest friends at Cambridge (the two were exact contemporaries) and he too composed several highly regarded ghost stories, including 'Basil Netherby', which it's believed he read aloud at the Chit Chat Club Christmas gathering in 1903 – incidentally, this was the same year that James first presented his story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'.

Although a prolific author of literary criticism, poetry and essays, as an author of ghost stories A. C. Benson has been overshadowed both by his friend James and by his younger brother Edward Frederic (E. F. Benson, 1867–1940), but Arthur's relatively few contributions to the genre, compared to his brother's output of more than 50 stories, are still highly regarded today.

The eldest son of E. W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, Arthur trained as a teacher and after working for some time as a housemaster at Eton, he moved to Cambridge in 1903. His love of music is reflected in 'Basil Netherby', which depicts a musician whose character and compositions are both affected by supernatural influence. The story's Cornish setting may also have been inspired by his time spent in the county as a youth, while his father was Bishop of Truro.

As noted above, it's believed that 'Basil Netherby' was read aloud to the Chit Chat Club in December 1903. Although Benson published two volumes of ghost stories, in 1903 and 1904, this piece was not included and was unpublished in his lifetime. Shortly after his death, his brother Edward Frederic discovered the manuscripts of a number of unpublished ghost stories written by Arthur, including 'Basil Netherby'. He arranged for it to be published in The Sovereign Magazine in August 1926, and subsequently in book form alongside 'The Uttermost Farthing' and other uncollected stories, in a volume entitled 'Basil Netherby' (1927), although the title of the story was apparently altered to 'The House at Treheale': it's unclear whether this was E. F.'s editorial change, or whether Arthur had ever used this title.

Some musical notes:
There are two pieces of music referred to in the story:
(1) When the narrator is invited to play the piano for Basil, he opts to play the opening of Mendelssohn's 'Hear My Prayer', an 1844 anthem (sometimes known as 'O For the Wings of a Dove') for soprano solo and chorus. There are many fine recordings of it available on YouTube; one of the most famous is the recording by boy soprano Ernest Lough from 1927 (the year this story was finally published in book form):    • Mendelssohn's "Hear My Prayer": Templ...  
(2) In conversation with the narrator, Basil sings a few bars from 'The Revenge', a choral work by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford. If you're interested in hearing the full piece, it can be heard here:    • Charles Villiers Stanford: The Revenge  

The title card image is a detail from 'Beethoven Composing', c.1890, by Carl Schlösser.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2022.