Collected Ghost Stories

Considered by many to be the most terrifying writer in English, M. R. James was an eminent scholar who spent his entire adult life in the academic surroundings of Eton and Cambridge. His classic supernatural tales draw on the terrors of the everyday, in which documents and objects unleash terrible forces, often in closed rooms and night-time settings where imagination runs riot. Lonely country houses, remote inns, ancient churches or the manuscript collections of great libraries provide settings for unbearable menace, from creatures seeking retribution and harm. These stories have lost none of their power to unsettle and disturb.

This edition presents all of Jamess published ghost stories, including the unforgettable Oh, Whistle and Ill Come to You, My Lad and Casting the Runes, and an appendix of Jamess writings on the ghost story. Darryl Joness introduction and notes provide a fascinating insight into Jamess background and his mastery of the genre he made his own.