M. R. James (1862–1936)

Christmas Ghost Stories: Classic Victorian Tales for Cold Winter Nights
Rating: 4.5 / 5

This is an exceptionally well-curated and well-framed collection. I enjoyed it far more than I expected, and I read it quickly—one of those books where the momentum sneaks up on you.

Wells’s introduction does real work, not just scene-setting. It clearly explains why Christmas became a season for ghost stories: long nights, enforced domestic closeness, cold, ritual, memory, and the tension between show more comfort and unease. That framing carries through the whole book. Each story is preceded by its own introduction, and those are just as valuable—brief but intelligent discussions of the author, the historical moment, and what kind of horror you’re about to encounter.

What I appreciated most is the range Wells highlights without flattening it. There’s domestic horror, where the threat is inside the home and the family structure itself. There’s horror of the unseen, horror of the half-seen, and horror that relies on implication rather than spectacle. There’s even room for a lighter, almost comic piece—something to relieve the pressure so the evening doesn’t become relentlessly grim. That balance feels very true to how these stories were originally told and consumed.

The standout for me was The Nurse’s Story, which remains one of the most chilling Christmas ghost stories ever written, precisely because the person in danger is a lonely child rather than a reckless adult. The collection as a whole reinforces how often Victorian ghost stories are about neglect, moral coldness, and quiet failures of care, rather than monsters.

The only story that did not work for me was The Brown Hand. The problem isn’t the premise—it’s the ending. After setting up a haunting rooted in colonial exploitation and bodily violation, the resolution feels evasive. The ghost is effectively tricked, which undermines the story’s own moral argument. Instead of reckoning, the narrative opts for reassurance, and that sits badly alongside the book’s broader themes about consequence and responsibility.

That single misfire aside, this is an excellent anthology. Wells respects the reader, trusts the material, and gives just enough context to deepen the experience without explaining the fear away. It’s thoughtful, unsettling, and very satisfying to read in winter, when darkness comes early and the house feels a little too quiet.

Highly recommended for readers who like their ghost stories intelligent, historically grounded, and morally sharp. show less

Based on the classic M. R. James ghost story “Casting the Runes”, Jacques Tourneur’s "Night of the Demon" is one of the all-time great British horror films. The film begins with an American psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews) visiting a London symposium aimed at exposing the fraudulent nature of the occult with a particular focus on cult leader Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). When symposium leader, Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) dies in mysterious circumstances his niece show more Joanna (Peggy Cummins) tries to convince Holden that Karswell killed Harrington via a runic curse. She persuades Holden to look at a mysterious old tome and they visit Karswell at his country estate. Both Karswell and his mother warn Holden off, but his analytical scientific mind is not willing to hear any warnings. When he begins to suffer strange aural and visual hallucinations and discovers a mysterious runic parchment slipped to him by Karswell, Holden begins to realise that he is in real danger and has to contrive a way to pass the runes back to Karswell before the appointed hour.

"Night of the Demon" is a brilliantly effective film, full of stunning photography and superb visual touches from master director Jacques Tourneur of "Cat People" (1942) and "I Walked With a Zombie" (1943) fame. The brilliance of the film is all the more impressive given the massive disagreements between producer Hal E. Chester and Tourneur and writer Charles Bennett. Both Tourneur and Bennett wanted the focus to be ambiguous and psychologically based, but Bennett was adamant that a literal monster or demon required to be shown. Chester got his way and a demon was inserted into the film and it features heavily at the climax. Personally I would have preferred the film without the literal demon being shown, but it does not distract from the overall impact of the film – the demon, based visually on traditional demonic woodcuts has it's own strangely chilling quality. Where the film stands out, however, is in the unsettling psychological aspects where it is never clear whether events are real or not; whether they have a rational or demonic explanation. Tourneur avoids simple scares and instead concentrates on developing an atmosphere of dread and unease which begins to blur reality. The film is full of individually creepy sequences: a bleak, ancient Stonehenge with an overlying doom-laden narration; Holden being "pursued" through the woods; a children's party that descends into stormy chaos; a cat that takes on a demonic aspect; a séance that runs out of control. Even empty corridors take on a strangely sinister aspect, which is symbolic of the overall stunning production design – Karswell's oddly designed country house and its strange geometry and spiral staircases being possibly the epitome of beautiful but disquieting design. The high contrast monochrome photography by cinematographer Ed Scaife is stunning and cleverly adds to the disquieting feel developed by Tourneur. All these elements appear overlaid by Freudian analytics with the demon offering huge potential for metaphorical interpretation. Dana Andrews’s portrayal of John Holden in particular appears a textbook case of a hyper-rational character, unwilling or unable to see beyond the surface. His stubborn grasp on one and only one rationalist explanation of life and reality makes him a cold and smug character. His unwillingness to countenance any other explanations for his plight places him in huge danger and its only when he admits his fears and doubts that he finds a way to fight Karswell – indeed going beneath the surface veneer was the only way he could battle his own demons. Niall MacGinnis is excellent as Karswell, a smoothly genial warlock who is warm, intelligent, articulate and likeable – MacGinnis brilliantly portraying the warm and seductive qualities of evil. Peggy Cummins is also very good as an intelligent and proactive young woman determined to find her way to the truth. "Night of the Demon" is a brilliant film – the powerfully suspenseful direction, the doomy narrative feel of unease, the superb individual set pieces, the stylish black and white photography and the excellent all round performances make this a masterpiece of both horror and British cinema. show less

I enjoyed the collection overall. I thought the stories were interesting, well constructed, and in a few cases even eerie, if not actually frightening, and the humor worked for me.

Unfortunately, I found the running thread of...I'm not even sure what to call it, Christian supremacy, maybe? Pro-Christian propaganda? Anti-non-Christian bigotry? Well, whatever it was, I found it incredibly off-putting.
It noticeably detracted from my enjoyment of the stories, enough so that it brought my rating show more down from 4 stars to 3.5.

For anyone not bothered by that sort of thing, this collection will probably be a solid read. I will note that I was able to read several stories by phone on my balcony after dark without trouble, and I've gotten spooked watching Criminal Minds alone on sunny afternoons, so those looking for the truly frightening should probably look elsewhere. show less

I love the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas adaptations that Lawrence Gordon Clark directed back in the 1970s; they're atmospheric, creepy, folksy, and have a touch of the esoteric. The original stories, however, are rather dry. M.R. James was a scholar first, and a writer of ghost stories second, and that reflects in the stories here. They're more like reading scholarly articles than stories, and he wasn't an author like Borges who could use these techniques in a literary way.