Ghost Stories

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 (1862–1936) was a renowed medievalist and biblical scholar, and published works on palaeography, antiquarianism, bibliography, and history as well as editing a collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. He remains best known for his own ghost stories, which were published in several collections including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, A Thin Ghost and Other Stories, and A Warning to the Curious.