M.R. James

Collection of stories by Montague Rhodes James, a noted medieval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge and of Eton College. He is best remembered today for his ghost stories in the classic Victorian Yuletide vein.

Thirteen stories deal with mysterious disappearances, archaeological digs, an unlucky hotel room, a treasure hunt, and ghostly apparitions

Reprint of the first Tower Book Edition. The best stories from the four books by James. Includes "The Mezzotint" and "Cannon Alberie's Scrap Book" and other book stories. 319 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. 8vo..

M. R. James is the master of the English ghost story, whose tales are inhabited not by ethereal spirits, but by terrifying, palpable forces of evil. In these four stories figures appear in paintings, demonic voices are heard, books awaken ancient horrors - and ordinary objects and situations are transformed into inescapable nightmares. This book includes: • Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book • The Mezzotint • The Rose Garden • The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral

A selection of 21 stories, which also includes three stories that are not in the Collected Edition. Canon Alberic's scrap-book -- The mezzotint -- Number 13 -- Count Magnus -- Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad -- The treasure of Abbot Thomas -- A School story -- The rose garden -- The tractate middoth -- Casting the runes -- The stalls of Barchester Cathedral -- Mr Humphreys and his inheritance -- The diary of Mr Poynter -- An episode of cathedral history -- The uncommon prayer-book -- A neighbour's landmark -- A warning to the curious -- Rats -- The experiment -- The malice of inanimate objects -- A vignette

M. R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre. This collection contains some of his most chilling tales, including A View from a Hill, Rats, A School Story, The Ash Tree, and The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. Read by BAFTA and Emmy-award winning actor Derek Jacobi, and with haunting and evocative music, these tales cannot fail to send a shiver down your spine.

M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernize a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognizable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a doll's 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. James's prescription for his ghost stories was to "let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage."

A traveller in Sweden stumbles upon the history of a mysterious and ominous figure, Count Magnus.

The only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. These volumes are both the culmination of the nineteenth-century ghost story tradition and the inspiration for much of the best twentieth-century work in this genre. Included in this collection are such landmark tales as "Count Magnus," set in the wilds of Sweden; "Number 13," a distinctive tale about a haunted hotel room; "Casting the Runes," a richly complex tale of sorcery that served as the basis for the classic horror film Curse of the Demon; and "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad," one of the most frightening tales in literature. The appendix includes several rare texts, including "A Night in King's College Chapel," James's first known ghost story.

A vengeful phantom lurks in a country graveyard.A whaling crew becomes trapped on a haunted ship.A human skull is kept locked in a cupboard, butsometimes at night, it screams. . . .This collection of tales transports the reader to a time when staircases creaked in old manor houses, and a candle could be blown out by a gust of wind, or by a passing ghost. Penned by some of the greatest Victorian novelists and masters of the ghost story genre, each story is illustrated with exquisitely eerie artwork in this special gift edition featuring an embossed textured case and a ribbon marker. Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad - M.R. James The Old Nurse's Story - Elizabeth Gaskell The Signalman - Charles Dickens The Body-Snatcher - Robert Louis Stevenson The Captain of the Pole-Star - Arthur Conan Doyle The Phantom Coach - Amelia B. Edwards The Screaming Skull - Francis Marion Crawford

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is the first Horror short-story collection by British writer M.R. James (AKA: Montague Rhodes 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 of an Antiquary (1911), combined in one volume. This collection features some of M.R. James’ greatest tales of the supernatural world crossing over into our own. In Number 13, an inn that previously belonged to an alchemist changes dimensions in the night. The Mezzotint features a painting of a house reenacting a gruesome scene from the house’s history. In The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, an antiquary who has discovered the location of a treasure gets far more than he bargained for. There are eight classics by great Edwardian scholar and storyteller. "Number Thirteen," "The Mezzotint," "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook," and more. Renowned for their wit, erudition and suspense, these stories are each masterfully constructed and represent a high achievement in the ghost genre. Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medieval scholar; Provost of King's College, Cambridge. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. His stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasize the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions. He is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

'Still as the night was, the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not yet lulled to rest' The aim of a good ghost story is to make the blood freeze, pleasurably, and this M. R. James achieves to perfection in these wonderful stories. His most atmospheric settings include English country houses and gardens, the north end of the churchyard, the yew-maze in 'Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance' and the unforgettable train journey in 'Casting the Runes'. To each of these stories he brings an eye for the telling detail, an imaginative twist and a narrative tone that is, at least to begin with, urbane and reassuring ...

Selected from the books of M R James. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

La casa delle bambole infestata (The Haunted Dolls' House), scritto nel 1922 e pubblicato per la prima volta su The Empire Review nel febbraio del 1923, fu offerto in dono alla biblioteca della celebre casa delle bambole della regina Mary, consorte di Giorgio V. Tuttavia James, diversamente da altri autori che contribuirono con le loro opere in miniatura ad arricchire la collezione reale, non cedette il copyright alla regina, e un paio di anni dopo il racconto fu inserito in A Warning to the Curious (1925). In questa raccolta il testo è accompagnato da una nota, nella quale l?autore stesso si scusa del fatto che la storia sembri ricalcare quella di uno dei suoi più vecchi racconti dal titolo La Mezzatinta (The Mezzotint), che può leggersi nella prima raccolta Ghost Stories of an Antiquary pubblicata nel 1904. Nella presente edizione annotata si offrono entrambi i racconti, così che il lettore possa agevolmente cogliere punti di contatto e differenze fra i due e avere l?occasione di approfondire, grazie all?apparato di note che accompagna i testi, alcuni aspetti interessanti di queste due opere di M. R. James, studioso e narratore tanto apprezzato da H. P. Lovecraft.

The follow-up volume to "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" collects seven more of Montague Rhodes James's classic horror stories, including "A School Story," "The Rose Garden," "Casting the Runes," and "Martin's Close." "...gifted with an almost diabolic power of calling horror by gentle steps from the midst of prosaic daily life, is the scholarly Montague Rhodes James, Provost of Eton College, antiquary of note, and recognized authority on mediæval manuscripts and cathedral history. Dr. James, long fond of telling spectral tales at Christmastide, has become by slow degrees a literary weird fictionist of the very first rank!" -- H.P. Lovecraft

"Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance" by Montague Rhodes James. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

M. R. James is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings. According to James, a story must "put the reader into the position of saying to 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"

When Professor Parkins finds an old whistle, his stay at Globe Inn takes a turn for the eerie.

Quanti di voi hanno mai preso in seria considerazione gli oggetti che utilizziamo quotidianamente? Chi sa dire se possiedono un'anima, se nascondono poteri occulti, se sono stati creati per distruggere (fisicamente o metaforicamente) coloro ai quali appartengono? Se sapeste che una caffettiera racchiude l'anima di una giovane fanciulla deceduta, berreste ancora il vostro cappuccino? O se qualcuno di insospettabile vi offrisse una tisana per riscaldarvi, potreste giurare che non lo faccia con le più losche intenzioni? Le risposte a queste domande – forse - potrà fornirvele questa Piccola Guida agli Infidi Oggetti di uso Quotidiano, che raccoglie i bellissimi racconti di M.R. James, Chechov, Saki e altri, per farvi scoprire che bisogna fare attenzione a sottovalutare i propri beni materiali e bollarli come semplici "oggetti inanimati". E chissà, in fondo anche questo libro è un "semplice oggetto"…

Montague Rhodes James OM, MA, FBA (1 August 1862 - 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English author, medievalist 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 cliches 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 was born in Goodnestone Parsonage, near Dover in Kent, England, although his parents had associations with Aldeburgh in Suffolk. From the age of three (1865) until 1909 his home, if not always his residence, was at the Rectory in Great Livermere, Suffolk. This had also been the childhood home of another eminent Suffolk antiquary, "Honest Tom" Martin (1696-1771) "of Palgrave." Several of his ghost stories are set in Suffolk, including "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" (Felixstowe), "A Warning to the Curious" (Aldeburgh), "Rats" and "A Vignette" (Great Livermere). He lived for many years, first as an undergraduate, then as a don and provost, at King's College, Cambridge, where he was also a member of the Pitt Club. The university provides settings for several of his tales. Apart from medieval subjects, James studied the classics and appeared very successfully in a staging of Aristophanes' play The Birds, with music by Hubert Parry. His ability as an actor was also apparent when he read his new ghost stories to friends at Christmas time. In September 1873 he arrived as a boarder at Temple Grove School, one of the leading boys' preparatory schools of the day. James is best known for his ghost stories, but his work as a medievalist scholar was prodigious and remains highly respected in scholarly circles. Indeed, the success of his stories was founded on his antiquarian talents and knowledge. His discovery of a manuscript fragment led to excavations in the ruins of the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, in 1902, in which the graves of several twelfth-century abbots described by Jocelyn de Brakelond (a contemporary chronicler) were rediscovered, having been lost since the Dissolution. His 1917 edition of the Latin Lives of Saint Aethelberht, king and martyr (English Historical Review 32), remains authoritative. He catalogued many of the manuscript libraries of the Cambridge colleges. Among his other scholarly works, he wrote The Apocalypse in Art, which placed illuminated Apocalypse manuscripts into families. He also translated the New Testament Apocrypha and contributed to the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1903). His ability to wear his learning lightly is apparent in his Suffolk and Norfolk (Dent, 1930), in which a great deal of knowledge is presented in a popular and accessible form, and in Abbeys (Great Western Railway, 1925). James also achieved a great deal during his directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (1893-1908). He managed to secure a large number of important paintings and manuscripts, including notable portraits by Titian. James was Provost of Eton College from 1918 to 1936. He died in 1936 and was buried in Eton town cemetery.

Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James. M.R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. James, Stories I Have Tried To Write , which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'.

The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James is the title of M. R. James' omnibus collection of ghost stories, published in 1931, bringing together all but four of his ghost stories (which had yet to be published).Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medievalist scholar; Provost of King's College, Cambridge. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. His stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasize the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions.Contents of the original edition:"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book""Lost Hearts""The Mezzotint""The Ash Tree""Number 13""Count Magnus""'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'""The Treasure of Abbot Thomas""A School Story""The Rose Garden""The Tractate Middoth""Casting the Runes""The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral""Martin's Close""Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance""The Residence at Whitminster""The Diary of Mr Poynter""An Episode of Cathedral History""The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance""Two Doctors""The Haunted Dolls' House""The Uncommon Prayer-Book""A Neighbour's Landmark""A View from a Hill""A Warning to the Curious""An Evening's Entertainment""Wailing Well""There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard""Rats""After Dark in the Playing Fields"

Listening Length: 4 hours and 13 minutes An award-winning collection of four ghostly tales inspired by M. R. James. Casting the Runes, adapted by Stephen Gallagher When academic Jo Harrington (Anna Maxwell Martin) is sent a paper—The Truth of Alchemy, by Anton Karswell—for peer review, she pulls no punches. Jo writes that the paper has no place in a serious academic publication and that Karswell is a half-bright fool. When the editor writes a rejection note to Karswell, he inadvertently includes Jo’s entire email. Occultist Karswell (Reece Shearsmith) doesn’t take kindly to criticism. On the tube home with her partner Edward Dunning (Tom Burke), Jo spots a poster with her name on it. It reads: "In memory of Joanne Harrington, MLitt, PhD, died September eighteenth, three days were allowed." Is there anything that Edward can do to save Jo from this curse? Lost Hearts, adapted by A. K. Benedict Teenager Stephanie Elliot (Rosa Coduri) is taken to Aswarby House to be fostered by Mrs. Bunch (Susan Jameson). Stephanie strikes up a friendship with Ben (Bill Milner), the adopted son of charismatic community leader Mr. Abney (Jeff Rawle). He tells her that Mr. Abney is a good man—he even took in a child refugee last year, but she stole from him and ran away. Stephanie is troubled by voices and visions of a dead girl clutching at her chest, and when Ben disappears she begins to suspect that all is not right in Aswarby House. The Treasure of Abbot-Thomas, adapted by Jonathan Barnes When former Somerton school pupil Greg Parsbury (Robert Bathurst) meets history teacher Mika Chantry (Pearl Mackie) at a memorial service for schoolmaster Sam Abbot-Thomas, he begs for her help. Greg has been sent a postcard by the estate of the mysterious and charismatic Abbot-Thomas. On it is a strange inscription in Latin, which he believes to be an inaugural clue in a treasure hunt much like the elaborate treasure hunts Abbot-Thomas used to set back in the 1970s. There were rumors that Abbot-Thomas possessed a hidden fortune, and Parsbury and Chantry set out to find it. A View from a Hill, adapted by Mark Morris Comedian and podcaster Paul Fanshawe (Andy Nyman) and his wife, Sarah (Alice Lowe), visit the Cotswolds on holiday, trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their young son, Archie. While out walking, they spot a beautiful abbey across the valley on Gallows Hill, but when they reach it, they find the building is little more than rubble. While Sarah explores, Paul records commentary for his podcast. Sarah thinks she hears children’s laughter, but there’s no one there. Later that night, she listens to the recording and hears a child’s voice whisper, "Mummy." Sarah is convinced that Archie is trying to reach them and wants to return to the ruins. But something far worse is waiting for them on Gallows Hill.

When James Denton discovered an ancient bit of fabric within an 18th century diary, he showed it to his aunt, who insisted the wavy, hair-like pattern would be perfect to accent his windows. The sensitive artisan tasked with the copying of the cloth, however, saw evil in its design. The curtains, now hung, do fill Denton with a creeping unease. Surely, he thinks, absently reaching down to pet his dog, the feeling must be imagined…

A macabre human drama is re-enated in a Gothic doll's house; a whistle awakens a force of unspeakable malevolence; an ancient curse is passed from person to person; a grisly crime is avenged from beyond the grave; the tomb of a Swedish count will not rest quietly... M.R. James's chilling ghost stories reveal a world were the familiar becomes diabolical, the smallest object can lead to unimaginable horror, and evil brushes against everyday life in the most unexpected and sinister of ways. 'Gifted with an almost diabolic power of calling horror by gentle steps from the midst of prosaic daily life... James evokes fright and hideousness in their most shocking form.' H.P. Lovecraft

Stories by a visionary master of supernatural fiction   In volume two of the only annotated edition of M. R. James's complete writings currently available, Penguin Classics brings together tales from James's final two works, A Thin Ghost and Others and A Warning to the Curious. In these stories, James continues his fearsome transformation of the ghost story from its nineteenth-century heritage, drawing upon his deep knowledge of medieval history and biblical curiosa. This edition features a number of little-known tales that have rarely been assembled, including “The Fenstation Witch,” presented here for the first time in a corrected text, a new translation of “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” and a number of James’s essays.   Edited and with an introduction and notes by S. T. Joshi. Stories included: • The Residence at Whitminster • The Diary of Mr. Poynter • An Episode of Cathedral History • The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance • Two Doctors • The Haunted Dolls’ House • The Uncommon Prayer-book • A Neighbour’s Landmark • A View from a Hill • A Warning to the Curious • An Evening’s Entertainment • There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard • Rats • After Dark in the Playing Fields • Wailing Well • The Experiment • The Malice of Inanimate Objects • A Vignette • The Fenstanton Witch • Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories