The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James

The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James

First edition
Author	M. R. James
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Horror
Publisher	Edward Arnold
Publication date	1931
Media type	Print (Hardback)

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

1. "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book"
2. "Lost Hearts"
3. "The Mezzotint"
4. "The Ash Tree"
5. "Number 13"
6. "Count Magnus"
7. "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"
8. "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas"
9. "A School Story"
10. "The Rose Garden"
11. "The Tractate Middoth"
12. "Casting the Runes"
13. "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral"
14. "Martin's Close"
15. "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance"
16. "The Residence at Whitminster"
17. "The Diary of Mr Poynter"
18. "An Episode of Cathedral History"
19. "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance"
20. "Two Doctors"
21. "The Haunted Dolls' House"
22. "The Uncommon Prayer-Book"
23. "A Neighbour's Landmark"
24. "A View from a Hill"
25. "A Warning to the Curious"
26. "An Evening's Entertainment"
27. "Wailing Well"
28. "There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard"
29. "Rats"
30. "After Dark in the Playing Fields"

The four stories not collected in this volume are:

1. "The Experiment"
2. "The Malice of Inanimate Objects"
3. "A Vignette"
4. "The Fenstanton Witch"

References

• "A Guide to Supernatural Fiction". Retrieved 2007-03-29. 
• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 240. 

Sources

• "M.R. James: free web books, online". Retrieved 2009-09-11.