The Ghost Stories of M. R. James
The second in a series of republished classic literature, The Ghost Stories of M. R. James collects the tales that best illustrate his quiet mastery of the ghost story form. Running through each of these stories is a slowly escalating sense of unease and dread, which ultimately shifts into the wildly uncanny. James' characters exist in a world of ancient objects whose atrocious histories begin to repeat when they are disturbed, and the blinkered repression common to James' narratives only amplifies the shock of the spectral appearance.
Montague Rhodes James (1962-1936) is best remembered for redefining the ghost story for a new century. James subverted the Gothic tradition, setting his stories in commonplace, contemporary settings. He also worked as a medievalist scholar and served as provost of King's College, Cambridge and, later, Eton College. His published collections include Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), A Warning to the Curious (1925) and Collected Ghost Stories (1931).
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