A. N. L. Munby (1913–1974)

An amusing short meditation on visual caricatures of book collectors, from Brant's "Ship of Fools" to Doré's portrayal of Don Quixote. Munby's sparkly style works wonderfully in short pieces like this.

The life, trials and tribulations of the world's greatest book collector (or perhaps I should say the trials and tribulations of anyone who ever came in contact with the world's greatest book collector). Sir Thomas Phillipps was definitely not an easy man to get along with, but his contributions to the world of the book are important. Munby's biography (as adapted by Barker) is a fabulous treatment of this man, who can best (and probably most charitably) be described as a "character."

A wonderful book of M R Jamesian inspired ghost stories, with one of my absolute favourites of the genre - "An Encounter in the Mist". By the end of the book you've pretty much come to terms with the fact that Munby only ever had one book of ghost stories in him, but you're glad he managed the one. "An Encounter in the Mist" for my money is one of the absolute crown jewels in any ghost story collection with a twist any author would be proud of. For that story alone it's worth tracking down show more (Incidentally, my copy has the ridiculously unchilling seventies copy and cost me a couple of quid on ebay, I'm glad to say!) show less

Since starting to read M.R. James' ghost stories a few years ago, I've been also hunting up a copy of A.N.L. Munby's The Alabaster Hand, a collection of fourteen Jamesian-style tales written while Munby was being held in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. I was delighted to come across this new edition, which isn't perhaps the perfect setting for Munby's stories, but will certainly do given the scarcity of earlier editions.

It's true, many of Munby's stories don't quite rise show more to the level of James', but all of them make for good reading and several of them are so thoroughly enjoyable that as soon as I finished I went back and read them again. Munby puts the tropes and themes of the antiquarian ghost stories to excellent use, and very playfully inserts some really unexpected twists. show less