M. R. James, undoubtedly the finest ghost story writer in the English language, disparaged the occult detective story. This is very odd for James was inspired by, promoted the works of, and virtually single-handedly resurrected the fame of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, the man who invented the occult detective (even if more by accident than intention.) Proof of this fallen fortune lies in H. P. Lovecraft’s monumental essay “The Supernatural Horror in Literature” which says of Le Fanu: “The romantic, semi-Gothic, quasi-moral tradition here represented was carried far down the nineteenth century by such authors as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins, the late Sir H. Rider Haggard…” and that’s all. He doesn’t champion such tales as “Carmilla” or “Green Tea” (obvious Lovecraft fodder.)
Writing in 1927, Lovecraft had yet to see a copy of Madame Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales, edited by M. R. James. In that book James writes: “My Aunt Margaret’s Adventure (ibid. 1864) which belongs to a class of which I disapprove–the ghost-story which peters out into a natural explanation…”
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 2: From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly.