East Sheen and Richmond Cemeteries #2: Montague Summers

'MONTAGUE SUMMERS

1880–1948

"Tell me strange things"'

 

The rather odd epitaph 'Tell me strange things' is a quotation from Montague Summers, who certainly had a great hunger for strange things. It's also the half-title of Brocard Sewell's tribute to the man, which was published by the Aylesford Press in 1991.

Summers was a Roman Catholic convert who began calling himself the Reverend Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers, although his credentials are very dubious.

 

He is best known as a writer, and edited works by 17th century playwrights such as Aphra Behn, William Congreve and John Dryden. He is also noted for his work on Jane Austen's 'Northanger Horrid Novels', which many people thought were an invention of Austen's narrator in Northanger Abbey.

But above all he is remembered for his work on the occult, particularly relating to vampires, witches and warlocks, and his first book in this field was The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926).

My other posts on graves in East Sheen and Richmond cemeteries are linked below:

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George Julian Harney
Mary Elizabeth Braddon