Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - A Collection of Ghostly Tales (Fantasy and Horror Classics)

By M R James

M. R. James was born in Kent, England in 1862. James came to writing fiction relatively late, not publishing his first collection of short stories - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) - until the age of 42. Modern scholars now see James as having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century and he is seen as the founder of the 'antiquarian ghost story'. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions with a brand new introductory biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473379350

M R James

Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 at Goodnestone Parsonage, Kent, where his father was a curate, but the family moved soon afterwards to Great Livermere in Suffolk. James attended Eton College and later King's College Cambridge where he won many awards and scholarships. From 1894 to 1908 he was Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and from 1905 to 1918 was Provost of King's College. In 1913, he became Vice-Chancellor of the University for two years. In 1918 he was installed as Provost of Eton. A distinguished medievalist and scholar of international status, James published many works on biblical and historical antiquarian subjects. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1930. His ghost story writing began almost as a divertissement from his academic work and as a form of entertainment for his colleagues. His first collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary was published in 1904. He never married and died in 1936.

Book preview

Ghost Stories of

an Antiquary

A COLLECTION OF GHOSTLY SHORT STORIES

-FANTASY AND HORROR CLASSICS-

BY

M. R. JAMES

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

These stories are dedicated to all those who at various times have listened to them.

* * * * *

Contents

M. R. James

PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

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

I

II

III

M. R. James

Montague Rhodes James was born in Kent, England in 1862. An intellectually gifted child, he excelled academically at both Temple Grove School and Eton College before enrolling at King’s College, Cambridge. A highly respected scholar to this day, James’ areas of research interest were apocryphal Biblical literature and mediaeval illuminated manuscripts. He was, by turns, Fellow, Dean, and Tutor at King’s College, and in 1905 was installed as Provost. James was a highly sociable man, and he travelled widely throughout Europe.

James came to writing fiction relatively late, not publishing his first collection of short stories – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) – until the age of 42. Many of his tales were written as Christmas Eve entertainments and read aloud to friends. James described his introduction to ghosts in 1931: In my childhood I chanced to see a toy Punch and Judy set, with figures cut out in cardboard. One of these was The Ghost. It was a tall figure habited in white with an unnaturally long and narrow head, also surrounded with white, and a dismal visage. Upon this my conceptions of a ghost were based, and for years it permeated my dreams. James believed that must a good story must put the reader into the position of saying to himself: ‘If I’m not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!’ He eventually published five collections of his ghost stories, all of which were reprinted and adapted numerous times.

Modern scholars now see James as having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James’s tales tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests, and he is seen as the founder of the ‘antiquarian ghost story’. His first two collections – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) and More Ghost Stories (1911) – are generally regarded as his most important, containing as they do the well-known stories ‘Number 13’, ‘Count Magnus’, ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ and ‘Casting the Runes’.

The onset of World War One marked the beginning of the end of James’ golden years in Cambridge. In 1918, he accepted the post of Provost of Eton College. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1930, and died in 1936, aged 73.

PART 1: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY

* * * * *

If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You’ I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book as that which I quote in ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’. ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’ was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the National Review, ‘Lost Hearts’ appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine; of the next five stories, most of which were read to friends at Christmas-time at King’s College, Cambridge, I only recollect that I wrote ‘Number 13’ in 1899, while ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ was composed in the summer of 1904.

M. R. JAMES

* * * * *

CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK

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.

However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the old man from his déjeuner, that he was regarded as likely to make away with St Bertrand’s ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile that hangs over the font, began to torment him.

‘Won’t you go home?’ he said at last; ‘I’m quite well able to finish my notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn’t it?’

‘Good heavens!’ said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror, ‘such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at all cold, with many thanks to monsieur.’

‘Very well, my little man,’ quoth Dennistoun to himself: ‘you have been warned, and you must take the consequences.’

Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauléon, the remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at Dennistoun’s heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were, sometimes.

‘Once,’ Dennistoun said to me, ‘I could have sworn I heard a thin metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. It is he—that is—it is no one; the door is locked, was all he said, and we looked at each other for a full minute.’

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series illustrating the miracles of St Bertrand. The composition of the picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below, which runs thus:

Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem diabolus diu volebat strangulare. (How St Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long sought to strangle.)

Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks. Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question would not go away from him,’Why should a daub of this kind affect anyone so strongly?’ He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day: the man must be a monomaniac; but what was his monomania?

It was nearly five o’clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises—the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day—seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.

The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to the western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the church.

On the doorstep they fell into conversation.

‘Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the sacristy.’

‘Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the town.’

‘No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter, but it is now such a small place—’ Here came a strange pause of irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on: ‘But if monsieur is amateur des vieux livres, I have at home something that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards.’

At once all Dennistoun’s cherished dreams of finding priceless manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin’s printing, about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he refused. So they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the next morning. To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.

‘That is well,’ he said quite brightly—’that is very well. Monsieur will travel in company with his friends: they will be always near him. It is a good thing to travel thus in company—sometimes.’

The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought and to bring with it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.

They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its neighbours, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield of Alberic de Mauléon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of Bishop John de Mauléon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680 to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.

Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?’

‘Not at all—lots of time—nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what it is you have got.’

The door was opened at this point,

Reviews for Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - A Collection of Ghostly Tales (Fantasy and Horror Classics)

[ron18-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ghost stories really don't get a heck of a lot better than many of these. I've listed my individual ratings for each of the 8 stories, rating some as low as 3 (surprisingly - one of which has a reputation for being among the best, The Mezzotint) - but they are all worthwhile. The particular mood and atmosphere of the reading has an impact, I suspect - - as does whether or not you have read spoilers.
It is a pure joy to read someone write on a subject about which they are a seasoned professional (M R James being a paleographer and medievalist scholar) - and see them have a little fun with it. You can imagine the ideas coming to him as he poured over some ancient work or location and having his mind take a side trip, perhaps disturbing himself enough to encourage him to share the feeling.
Lost Hearts strikes me as a great vehicle for Tim Burton to get morbid and stylistic with. Number 13 inadvertently became a bedtime story for my 9yr old (she listened to the first 75%, then had me tell her the ending in the morning), and Oh, Whistle is among the best of the batch (illustrated in an overly-revealing way on the cover pictured).

As for anyone who finds the text too antiquated and bogged down with locations, history, and so forth - just trust it to pull you along, don't get hung up - context will give you all you need. If my 9yr old can follow enough to speculate on the resolution, we all can. Looking forward to more.

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" 5/5
"Lost Hearts" 4/5
"The Mezzotint" 3/5
"The Ash-tree" 4/5
"Number 13" 5/5
"Count Magnus" 3/5
"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad''" 5/5
"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" 3/4

[finxy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Full review from BadelyngeI love a good ghost story. M.R.James is one of the best at the short form of the genre. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is packed with some of his best. All the stories here were written between 1894 and 1904 and were originally read to the author's friends at Christmas at Kings College, Cambridge where James was a noted British medieval scholar. I'd guess the best way to experience these chilling little stories would be to have them read to you on a dark night, in the depths of winter, perhaps on Christmas Eve itself. It is probably easier to imagine, listening to the words, that the story is being told to you by someone who has heard the story from another, and that such a tale might be true - just for a short time anyway. James usually cleverly distances the storyteller from the actual protagonists who are often of a scholarly type, quite sanguine (at least at first) in their rejection of the supernatural.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Perhaps," said the landlord, with hesitation, "you gentlemen would like another room for to-night — a double-bedded one?" Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. It was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle.Canon Alberic's Scrap-book and Lost Hearts James' protagonists tend, like himself , to be academics with antiquarian interests, who find that their interests lead them into trouble. The book starts out with three stories that didn't particularly scare me, although I seem to remember that I found them more unnerving the first time I read them. Canon Alberic seems to get off lightly in the end, and I don't believe that anybody reading Lost Hearts will be unhappy with what happens at the end. Some people deserve whatever fate vengeful ghosts may have in mind for them. The Mezzotint Although the events of this story are creepy, the protagonist has his friends to keep him company and reassure him that he is not going mad, and the portrayal of past events never seems likely to escape the confines of the picture and affect the protagonist and his friends directly. In fact, this story is quite humorous in places, with James indulging in inter-university rivalry and poking fun at golf-loving Oxford academics. The Ash Tree The rest of the stories in this book are rather more frightening. The Ash-Tree reminded me of one of those horror movies that has you are yelling at the screen when the characters do something particularly stupid and likely to get them killed. When Sir Richard (CHECK NAME) decides to move bedrooms, he finds reasons for turning down all the rooms suggested by his housekeeper, but isn't bothered by the room his grandfather died in being dark and prone to damp due the the enormous ash-tree outside. When I was a child I had a dream about spiders covering the ceiling of our playroom and streaming down the walls, so this story made me shudder in recognition.By this point in the book, I had decided that M. R. James must have really liked Queen Anne houses, as they feature in three of the first four stories, and the other story is set in France.Number 13 This story is set in a hotel in Viborg in Denmark, which may or may not have a room 13. I liked the way the room stole physical space from the rooms on either side, although their occupants seemed strangely unobservant about the change in their rooms changed size and lost one of their three windows. The source of the haunting seems to have been discovered, but the English traveller then leaves the hotel and the reader doesn't find out whether room 13 is ever seen again. The hotelier mentions having heard the unearthly shriek that comes form room 13 once before, but none of his previous guests have ever mentioned room 13 to him, so I don't think it can have appeared very often. Count Magnus, Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad and The Treasure of Abbot Thomas The last three stories return to the theme of Canon Alberic's Scrap-book, with the protagonist accidentally awakening something that would be better left undisturbed. Sometimes it leads him inexorably towards his doom, but in other stories a very frightening haunting can be stopped quite simply, so the reader can tell whether there will be a happy ending or not. In Count Magnus, the protagonist is passing the place the Count is buried when he idly says he wishes he could meet him, and takes no notice of the warning signs that follow. In the next story, a professor of ontography (the study of the essence of things) who is strongly against the occult superstitions of all types, tempts fate by blowing a whistle he finds buried in the ruins of a Templar preceptory, while the treasure hunter in the final story ignores warnings that the treasure has a guardian, even though he thinks their may be some substance in them. My favourite story is Number 13, with The Mezzotint and Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My Lad making up my top three, while my least favourite is the Ash Tree.

[dulac3_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This volume contains eight tasty little nuggets of supernatural horror that I found very satisfying. In each of them the story is told second or even third hand by a genial narrator whose acquaintances, who are themselves of a decidedly scholarly bent, have been the victims of supernatural intrusion into our world. Often the stories revolve around an ancient artifact able to invoke the otherworldly that is discovered by these particularly luckless individuals (though they often feel themselves lucky indeed when they first make their discoveries). The tales are all good, but my favourites were “Canon Alberic's Scrap-book”, “Lost Hearts”, “”The Mezzotint”, and “Count Magnus”. I found myself thinking of both Lovecraft (in James’ use of made-up manuscripts and a reliance on protagonists of a learned bent whose curiosity proves to be their bane) and Clark Aston-Smith (though with prose that was a little less flowery) though I think James is a much better stylist than the former and a little less given to the more extreme flights of fancy of the latter.

“Canon Alberic's Scrap-book” – An antiquary discovers a scrap-book of ancient manuscripts compiled by the titular Canon Alberic in the 17th century that is in the keeping of the sacristan of a church in France that he is studying. One picture, “The dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night”, proves to be particularly compelling…and why is the sacristan so eager to get rid of a book so obviously of great value? Great evocation of mood and the way in which the supernatural creature manifests itself was suitably creepy.

"Lost Hearts" – A rather moving tale of revenge from beyond the grave and the perils of devoting oneself to the arcane teachings of the ancients in the hopes of gaining eternal life. I knew where this one was going pretty much after the first paragraph, but I heartily enjoyed the ride.

"The Mezzotint" – I really liked the interesting way in which the artifact in question here, the mezzotint of the title, manifested the supernatural and the foreboding sense of a quiet yet unstoppable horror that was the result.

"The Ash-tree" – A nobleman and his descendants find that being the star witness in a witch trial probably isn’t a good idea. Good creepy/gross factor with the creatures invoked for vengeance.

"Number 13" – What happens when you book a room in an inn that used to belong to a man accused of having been an alchemist and magician several generations ago? Nothing good, especially if you rent the room right next to the one in which he mysteriously died. Space and time have a funny way of bending and twisting when the undead get involved.

"Count Magnus" – The titular count reminded me a bit of Vigo the Carpathian from Ghost Busters 2; he was a mean-spirited son of a bitch who liked to torture people in his spare time and go on trips with names like “the Black Pilgrimage”. Perhaps it’s wisest if you’re a travel writer getting good copy from his native village to leave the crypt where he’s entombed alone. Just sayin’.

"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" – Ah skeptics…they always learn their lesson in the end, don’t they? Well, they do in these kind of stories anyway. If you’re kind of a priggish and pedantic professor going on a holiday to sharpen up your golf game (golf is a re-occurring motif in these stories and I don’t think James was a fan) don’t promise to do some investigating of the local Templar preceptory for a colleague, and if you do for God’s sake don’t muck around with anything you find there. If you’re lucky you’ll run into an old military type who doesn’t trust papists.

"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" – When the Abbot of a 16th century monastery basically dares you, though the enciphered clues he left behind in some striking stained glass windows, to uncover his hidden treasure don’t do it. Trust me on this.

I like the way in which James gives us enough of a glimpse at the ghosts and undead horrors he unleashes in his stories to avoid Lovecraft’s almost laughable (to me at least) approach of “oh, it was so horrible I can’t even begin to describe it, just trust me it was really, really, really, mind-crushingly horrible!” and yet was sufficiently vague to leave enough of the horror to the imagination of the reader. The charming, almost homely, voice of the narrator was also a nice contrast to the ultimate invocation of otherworldly menace in the tales. All in all a really solid collection of old-school ghost stories that may not leave you cringing in terror, but you may end up looking over your shoulder from time to time. And you’ll definitely take greater care the next time that weird old manuscript seems to fortuitously land in your lap.

[myopicbookworm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A classic of the genre. The stories typically involve a studious bachelor gentleman staying in a slightly shabby hotel or country house, who through his antiquarian researches into an old book, print, inscription, or artefact, accidentally encounters some threatening manifestation of the occult, typically in a repellent, humanoid or quasi-animal form. The style may now be rather dry and dusty for modern taste (though familiar enough to readers of 19th century novelists such as Walter Scott or George MacDonald), but if you can match James's imagination with your own, this is well worth reading, preferably on a windy night in an old house. MB 15-iii-07

[nsenger-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Ghost Stories of an Antiquary over the course of an entire year as part of the Deal Me In Short Story Challenge. Each week I would draw a card from a deck of playing cards, and if it turned up spades, then I knew I was in for another creepy story from M.R. James. The Kindle edition I read from Open Road Media contained both the eight tales from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) and the seven tales from More Ghost Stories (1911).Each and every story in this anthology was top-notch. James is a master of atmosphere, setting his tales in churchyards, labyrinths, and spooky old mansions. Many of the stories revolved around antique manuscripts or objects. According to the Wikipedia entry for M.R. James, "James perfected a method of story-telling which has since become known as Jamesian," and which includes the following elements:1. a characterful setting in an English village, seaside town or country estate; an ancient town in France, Denmark or Sweden; or a venerable abbey or university2. a nondescript and rather naive gentleman-scholar as protagonist (often of a reserved nature)3. the discovery of an old book or other antiquarian object that somehow unlocks, calls down the wrath, or at least attracts the unwelcome attention of a supernatural menace, usually from beyond the graveThat describes this collection perfectly.Coincidentally, two of the stories appeared in Alfred Hitchcock anthologies I was also reading for the Deal Me In Challenge, which gives you some idea of their quality and content. Don't pass this collection up. I especially recommend the Open Road Kindle edition, which is only 99 cents, and which has excellent formatting. You can also find these stories available online for free at Project Gutenberg.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First published in 1904, this is a collection of spooky stories with a very Gothic feel. Several of the stories involve a traveler doing research in Scandinavia and finding that long-ago myths are real. My favorites are "Number 13", in which the traveler staying in a pleasant hotel finds that his room, number 12, sometimes has a noisy neighbor next door in 13, though the hotel owner insists there is no room 13. The most effective is "Mezzotint", in which a University student is sent a tint of an old, nameless house, but finds sinister changes to the photo every time he returns to his room.

[valzi-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Okay. Ghost stories are nice, but these are a bit dry and sometimes ridiculous. I was disappointed, but it's fairly good.

[rumpeltje · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Even when reading this book for the second time the stories are good. Most of the time the ghosts or supernatural beings are not described in any detail or not at all because they stay unseen. Often this is more effective than describing every detail of horror and gore as is often the case with modern ghost/horror stories.

At times the language is old fashioned and often more so because the narrator quotes even older texts.

Personally, I didn't find the stories scary, but I'm not easily scared.

[grazianoronca_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

CANON ALBERIC’S SCRAP-BOOK ‘They were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great heart.’ (p.13)Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book was first published in 1904, although it was written in 1894.The story is set in southern France. An English tourist is photographing the interior of the cathedral of Saint-Bernard-de-Comminges at the foot of Pyrenees, when the cathedral’s sacristan tries to sell him a strange book. The Englishman is impressed by a drawing in the book. After buying it, he returns to his room, and …‘his attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow. …A pen wiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black.A large spider? I trust to goodness not - no. …God! a hand like the hand in that picture!’ (p. 23-4)

[arkrayder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed reading this. M.R. James knew how to write a good horror story. Subtle, but with enough going on to keep the reader interested.

[charrlygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James
A fantastic collection of creepy atmospheric horror tales written back in the day. I felt that these stories lost nothing with the passage of time. In fact, I appreciated the fact that these tales weren't gory at all. I guess I've gotten used to explicit scenes in my horror, and these shorts served to remind me that blood and guts don't necessarily have to play a part. My imagination often supplies something scarier than the author may have intended and I like that. I highly recommend this excellent, (free for Kindle), collection.