M R James

Collected Ghost Stories M R James

M. R. James's ghost stories are the perfect example of quality counting over quantity. Although he produced these stories over the course of forty years (1894-1935), his complete tally of spectral fiction is only thirty-three stories, twenty-six of which had appeared in four previous collections. Four more were added to make up The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James. Although this volume excludes three later stories, they are only minor pieces, and their exclusion does not detract from the completeness of the collected works. The volume has the added benefit of James's essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write."Almost all of James's stories have a common approach and content. As the title of his first book suggests, they are related by an antiquarian, meaning that the incidents are linked to the study of old documents or buildings. They develop the theme of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," as the antiquarians in his stories always suffer from delving a little too far into things best left alone. This theme is common to almost all of James's stories, which therefore can be explored by reference to two in detail.

(Annotated Edition)

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

A Thin Ghost and Others is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1919. It was his third short collection.

A Thin Ghost and Others Illustrated

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1904 (some had previously appeared in magazines). Some later editions under this title contain both the original collection and its successor, More Ghost Stories (1911), combined in one volume. It was his first short story collection. After Jonathan Miller adapted "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" for Omnibus in 1968, several stories from the collection were adapted as the BBC's yearly Ghost Story for Christmas strand, including "Lost Hearts", "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas", "The Ash-tree" and "Number 13". "Whistle and I'll Come to You" was also heavily adapted by Neil Cross for broadcast on Christmas Eve 2010. (wikipedia.org)

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1904. Some later editions under this title contain both the original collection and its successor, More Ghost Stories, combined in one volume. It was his first short story collection.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Illustrated

More Ghost Stories is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1911. Some later editions under the title Ghost Stories of an Antiquary contain it and the earlier Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in one volume. It was his second short story collection.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Part 2

St Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution, and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place-I can hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from Toulouse to see St Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who were less keen archaeologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse, under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the church would satisfy them, and all three could then pursue their journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife.

Original Edition

..".With formidable quickness it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though he knew how perilous a sound was - he could not keep back a cry of disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and the linen face was thrust close into his own...."

Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary

Anonymous

The Gospel of Nicodemus, also known as the Acts of Pilate (Latin: Acta Pilati; Greek: Πράξεις Πιλάτου), is an apocryphal gospel claimed to have been derived from an original Hebrew work written by Nicodemus, who appears in the Gospel of John as an associate of Jesus.

The Gospel of Nicodemus

Arthur Conan Doyle

Edgar Wallace

Charles Dickens

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Robert Louis Stevenson

Algernon Blackwood

George Macdonald

Wilkie Collins

Thomas Hardy

Nathaniel Hawthorne

G K Chesterton

Emmuska Orczy

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Jerome K Jerome

Arthur Cheney Train

Louisa M Alcott

Saki

John Kendrick Bangs

Florence Marryat

Fergus Hume

Grant Allen

Catherine Crowe

Sabine Baring-Gould

Katherine Rickford

Bithia Mary Croker

Leonard Kip

Catherine L. Pirkis

Lucie E. Jackson

William Douglas O'Connor

James Bowker

Frank R Stockton

E F Benson

Fred M White

R Austin Freeman

Sir J M Barrie

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Flying Stars (G. K. Chesterton)
Percival Bland's Proxy (R. Austin Freeman)
A Christmas Capture (Fred M. White)
McAllister's Christmas (Arthur Cheney Train)
The Mystery of Room Five (Fred M White)
A Policeman's Business (Edgar Wallace)
Stuffing (Edgar Wallace)
Mr Wray's Cash Box (Wilkie Collins)
The Adventure of the Second Swag (Robert Barr)
A Chaparral Christmas Gift (O. Henry)
A Christmas Tragedy (Emmuska Orczy)
What the Shepherd Saw (Thomas Hardy)
The Silver Hatchet (Arthur Conan Doyle)
Markheim (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The Wolves of Cernogratz (Saki)
Mustapha (Sabine Baring-Gould)
The Christmas Banquet (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
The Haunted Man (Charles Dickens)
The Ghost's Touch (Fergus Hume)
Glámr (Sabine Baring-Gould)
The Ghosts at Grantley (Leonard Kip)
A Terrible Christmas Eve (Lucie E. Jackson)
Ghosts and Family Legends (Catherine Crowe)
Thurlow's Christmas Story (John Kendrick Bangs)
The Abbot's Ghost (Louisa M. Alcott)
Old Applejoy's Ghost (Frank R. Stockton)
Wolverden Tower (Grant Allen)
The Christmas-Eve Vigil (James Bowker)
The Box with the Iron Clamps (Florence Marryat)
Joseph (Katherine Rickford)
The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton (Charles Dickens)
The Ghost of Christmas Eve (J. M. Barrie)
The Dead Sexton (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu)
Uncle Cornelius His Story (George MacDonald)
The Grave by the Handpost (Thomas Hardy)
Number Ninety (Bithia Mary Croker)
At Chrighton Abbey (Mary Elizabeth Braddon)
The Black Bag Left on a Door-Step (Catherine L. Pirkis)
Between the Lights (E. F. Benson)
Transition (Algernon Blackwood)
The Kit-Bag (Algernon Blackwood)

The Best Holiday Mysteries for Christmas Time

"Such things may have attached to them heaven knows what spooks and spirits." - The Ikon On the evening of Saturday, 28 October 1893, Cambridge University's Chit-Chat Club convened its 601st meeting. Ten members and one guest gathered in the rooms of Montague Rhodes James, the Junior Dean of King's College, and listened - with increasing absorption one suspects - as their host read "Two Ghost Stories". Ghosts of the Chit-Chat celebrates this momentous event in the history of supernatural literature, the earliest dated record we have of M. R. James reading his ghost stories out loud. And it revives the contributions that other members made to the genre; men of imagination who invoked the ghostly in their work, and who are now themselves shades. In a series of essays, stories, and poems Robert Lloyd Parry looks at the history and culture of the Club. In addition to tales and poems never before reprinted, Ghosts of the Chit-Chat features earlier, slightly different versions of two of M. R. James's best-known ghost stories; Robert Lloyd Parry's profiles and commentaries on each featured Chit-Chat member sheds new light on this supernatural tradition, making Ghosts of the Chit-Chat a valuable resource for casual readers and long-time Jamesians alike.

Ghosts of the Chit-Chat

Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, (1 August 1862 - 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905-1918) and of Eton College (1918-1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story". James held strongly traditional views about literature. In addition to ghost stories, he also enjoyed reading the work of William Shakespeare and the detective stories of Agatha Christie. By contrast, James disliked most contemporary literature, strongly criticizing the work of Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey and James Joyce (whom James called "a charlatan" and "that prostitutor of life and language"). James also supported the banning of Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel about lesbianism, The Well of Loneliness, stating, "I believe Miss Hall's book is about birth control or some kindred subject, isn't it. I find it difficult to believe either that it is a good novel or that its suppression causes any loss to literature". As a student at King's, James had opposed the appointment of Thomas Henry Huxley as Provost of Eton because of Huxley's agnosticism. In his later life, James had little interest in politics and rarely spoke on political issues. However, James often spoke out against the Irish Home Rule movement, and in his letters he also expressed a dislike for Communism. James's friend A. C. Benson considered him to be "reactionary" and "against modernity and progress". (wikipedia.org)

A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories

Here is a fascinating journey into a world none of us mere mortals can usually see: a world of weird enchantment, where all is not as it seems, where fantastic beauty is commonplace, where strange beings are hidden just out of sight everywhere, and yet disturbing danger lurks around every corner... Told in James' matter-of-fact prose, this journey into the unknown stirs rich colours into a cloud of imaginative fancy, stunningly creating an alternative world, just next to ours, which is both captivating and eerie.

The Five Jars

M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window, ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense.

M R James

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