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Montague Summers Biography & Facts

Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 – 10 August 1948) was an English author, clergyman, occultist, and teacher. He initially prepared for a career in the Church of England at Oxford and Lichfield, and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in 1908. He then converted to Roman Catholicism and began styling himself as a Catholic priest. He was, however, never affiliated with any Catholic diocese or religious order, and it is doubtful that he was ever actually ordained to the priesthood. He was employed as a teacher of English and Latin while independently pursuing scholarly work on the English drama of the 17th century. The latter earned him election to the Royal Society of Literature in 1916. Noted for his eccentric personality and interests, Summers became a well known figure in London society as a result of the publication of his History of Witchcraft and Demonology in 1926. That work was followed by other studies on witchcraft, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe. Summers also produced a modern English translation, published in 1929, of the 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum. He has been characterized as "arguably the most seminal twentieth century purveyor of pop culture occultism." Early life Montague Summers was the youngest of the seven children of Augustus William Summers, a rich banker and justice of the peace in Clifton, Bristol. Montague was educated at Clifton College. Early on, he rebelled against his father's evangelical, low church religiosity, embracing instead a ritualistic Anglo-Catholicism. In 1899, Summers entered Trinity College, Oxford as a student of theology. Although an avid reader and Latinist, Summers neglected his official studies. In 1904 he received a fourth-class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, promoted in 1906 to a Master of Arts (MA) degree, as per the custom of the University of Oxford. Summers then continued his religious training at Lichfield Theological College with the intention of becoming a priest in the Church of England. Summers self-published his first book, Antinous and Other Poems, in 1907. Its contents reflected the influence of the literary Decadent movement while showcasing Summers' own preoccupations with pederasty, medievalism, Catholicism, and the occult. Summers was ordained as deacon in 1908 and worked as a curate in Bath and Bitton, near Bristol. He never proceeded to higher orders, however, probably because of rumours of his interest in Satanism and accusations of sexual impropriety with young boys, for which he was tried and acquitted. Summers' interest in Satanism probably derived in part from his reading of the works of the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, particularly the novel Là-bas (1891), which includes an account of a Black Mass. Summers himself later claimed in private conversation to have attended Black Masses in Bruges, Brighton, and London. There are also testimonies from former associates, including the poet J. Redwood Anderson, suggesting that Summers may even have conducted such ceremonies himself. Conversion to Catholicism In 1909, Summers converted to Catholicism and began studying for the Catholic priesthood at St John's Seminary, Wonersh, receiving the clerical tonsure on 28 December 1910. After 1913 he styled himself as the "Reverend Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers" and acted as a Catholic priest, even though he was never a member of any Catholic order or diocese. Whether he was actually ordained as a priest is disputed. According to some sources, Summers had transferred from the seminary in Wornesh to the Diocese of Nottingham, but the local bishop refused to ordain him after receiving incriminating reports of Summers' prior conduct. Other sources claim that Summers travelled to Continental Europe and was ordained there by Cardinal Mercier in Belgium or by Archbishop Guido Maria Conforti in Italy. According to yet another version of events, Summers was ordained as a priest by Ulric Vernon Herford, the self-styled "Bishop of Mercia" and one of several episcopi vagantes ("wandering bishops") operating in Britain at the time. Work as a teacher From 1911 to 1926 Summers found employment as a teacher of English and Latin. Among other posts, he was an assistant master at the Junior School of the Central School of Arts and Crafts in Holborn. In 1922, he became senior English master at Brockley County School in south-east London. Despite his eccentric appearance and habits, he appears to have been a successful and well respected teacher. Summers gave up teaching in 1926, after the success of his first book on witchcraft allowed him to adopt writing as his full-time occupation. Literary scholarship While employed as a schoolmaster and with the encouragement of Arthur Henry Bullen of the Shakespeare Head Press, Summers established himself as an independent scholar specializing on the dramatic literature of the Stuart Restoration. Summers successively edited the plays of Aphra Behn, William Congreve, William Wycherley, Thomas Otway, Thomas Shadwell, and John Dryden. He also helped to create a new society called "The Phoenix" that performed those neglected works. Summers' work on the theatre of the Restoration earned him election as fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1916. Several decades after his death, literary critic and historian Robert D. Hume characterized Montague Summers' scholarship on Restoration drama as pioneering and useful, but also as marred by sloppiness, eccentricity, uncritical deference to Sir Edmund Gosse and other similar gentlemen-amateurs, and even occasional dishonesty. Hume judged Summers' studies on The Restoration Theatre (1934) and The Playhouse of Pepys (1935) to be particularly fruitful sources. In his own day, Summers' credibility among university-based scholars was adversely impacted by the acrimonious disputes in which he engaged with others working in the same field. The other major focus of Summers' literary scholarship was Gothic fiction. He edited three collections of Gothic horror short stories, as well as an incomplete edition of two of the seven obscure Gothic novels, known as the "Northanger Horrid Novels", that Jane Austen mentioned in her Gothic parody novel Northanger Abbey. He was instrumental in rediscovering those lost works, which some had supposed were inventions of Jane Austen herself. He also published biographies of Austen and Ann Radcliffe, a writer of Gothic fiction. Summers' Gothic Bibliography, published in 1940, has been characterized as "flawed but useful." Summers compiled three anthologies of supernatural stories, The Supernatural Omnibus, The Grimoire and other Supernatural Stories, and Victorian Ghost Stories. He has been described as "the major anthologist of supernatural and Gothic fiction" in the 1930s. He also edited the poetry of Richard Barnfield, a contemporary of Shakespeare. Summers' introduction to his 1936 edition of Barnfield's poem.... Discover the Montague Summers popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Montague Summers books.