Collected Ghost Stories
by M. R. James
Ghost Stories of M.R. James (Collections and Selections — Omnibus 1-4)
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M. R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M. R. James, 'Stories I Have Tried To Write', which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The show more Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'. 'There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. For me, M. R. James is one of these'. Ruth Rendell. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
EveleenM Malden's stories are written in a very similar style to James', and the best of the collection are very enjoyable.
20
EveleenM Dickinson's stories are an interesting contrast to James's: they are ghost stories of a presbyterian Scots antiquary, as opposed to an anglican Cambridge don. An enjoyable read.
Member Reviews
The 1984 Penguin Complete Edition of M R James' Ghost Stories includes all four published collections (1904, 1911, 1919 and 1925) with a very few rather weak appended items as well as a very short but informative Preface by the great man himself. This particular edition appears now to be out of print.
However, all these stories - seminal in the development of a particular type of detailed and scholarly horror tale that keeps threatening to prefigure the Lovecraftian but never quite makes the leap - are easily available and cheap online or elsewhere.
A complete works is never going to be completely masterful but the majority of stories are in that category with excellent tales appearing in all collections. Above all, we are attracted to show more the stories' atmosphere - introverted scholarly men facing uncanny discomfort and downright horror.
Sometimes introverted scholarly men are the bringers of horror through malice but here is one common denominator - the educated rational man out of his depth when his eagerness for knowledge results in the uncovering of something dark and malign invested in what he seeks.
But it is not modern 'cosmic' horror. The prevailing evil is much closer to the medieval and early modern fear of devils and the Devil, of something evil lurking in the natural, in the occult buried in something from the past and above all the dark power of text (which Lovecraft does develop further).
Hidden deeper is a very old fear of knowledge itself, of what it might uncover. This may be very much the anxiety of the cloistered academic in an era that was still coming to terms with both Darwin and serious Biblical criticism. The stories may be a late nineteenth century scholar's shadow side.
There is so much intelligent criticism available that not much can be usefully added by me. I can recommend the relevant passages in Merlin Coverley's relatively recent 'Hauntology' (reviewed here on Goodreads by myself) as an excellent starting point.
All I can do is suggest that anyone interested in the Gothic, in horror, in the weird tale, in the ghost story and, indeed, in Edwardian culture needs to have the James tales in his or her library as well as make the effort to dig out some of the excellent BBC and other TV and film adaptations.
If I had to recommend just one story to give a flavour of the man's work, I would be hard put to it to choose between 'Lost Hearts', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'Casting the Runes' and 'A Warning to the Curious'.
Just those central five stories give you pagan child murder, malice that oozes around a magical text, a slip of paper whose possession means death and damnation and two similar hauntings from the past in which artefacts bring terror on the Anglian coast. James is strong on old artefacts that bring terror. show less
However, all these stories - seminal in the development of a particular type of detailed and scholarly horror tale that keeps threatening to prefigure the Lovecraftian but never quite makes the leap - are easily available and cheap online or elsewhere.
A complete works is never going to be completely masterful but the majority of stories are in that category with excellent tales appearing in all collections. Above all, we are attracted to show more the stories' atmosphere - introverted scholarly men facing uncanny discomfort and downright horror.
Sometimes introverted scholarly men are the bringers of horror through malice but here is one common denominator - the educated rational man out of his depth when his eagerness for knowledge results in the uncovering of something dark and malign invested in what he seeks.
But it is not modern 'cosmic' horror. The prevailing evil is much closer to the medieval and early modern fear of devils and the Devil, of something evil lurking in the natural, in the occult buried in something from the past and above all the dark power of text (which Lovecraft does develop further).
Hidden deeper is a very old fear of knowledge itself, of what it might uncover. This may be very much the anxiety of the cloistered academic in an era that was still coming to terms with both Darwin and serious Biblical criticism. The stories may be a late nineteenth century scholar's shadow side.
There is so much intelligent criticism available that not much can be usefully added by me. I can recommend the relevant passages in Merlin Coverley's relatively recent 'Hauntology' (reviewed here on Goodreads by myself) as an excellent starting point.
All I can do is suggest that anyone interested in the Gothic, in horror, in the weird tale, in the ghost story and, indeed, in Edwardian culture needs to have the James tales in his or her library as well as make the effort to dig out some of the excellent BBC and other TV and film adaptations.
If I had to recommend just one story to give a flavour of the man's work, I would be hard put to it to choose between 'Lost Hearts', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'Casting the Runes' and 'A Warning to the Curious'.
Just those central five stories give you pagan child murder, malice that oozes around a magical text, a slip of paper whose possession means death and damnation and two similar hauntings from the past in which artefacts bring terror on the Anglian coast. James is strong on old artefacts that bring terror. show less
Unlike the non-stop, bucket of blood horror stories of today, the Collected Ghost Stores of M.R. James are subdued, implied, and, at times, quite chilling. This collection contained 30 stories and for me not all of the stories worked, but there were some that definitely sent shivers down my back and a need to turn up the lights.
Mostly set in England, many of these stories relied on the author’s knowledge of church history and the horror is almost always indirect and implied. The author trusts his audiences’ imagination to fill in the blanks and this, I believe, is what makes these stories so good. Whether it is being trapped on a dark staircase with the knowledge that something is with you or the sound of scratching outside your show more bedroom door late at night, the terror comes from the reader’s own mental images.
Rich in atmosphere, these dark and twisty stories are the perfect way to prepare oneself for Halloween. This is a book that I will put back on my shelves and pull down again on a future rainy, windy October night. show less
Mostly set in England, many of these stories relied on the author’s knowledge of church history and the horror is almost always indirect and implied. The author trusts his audiences’ imagination to fill in the blanks and this, I believe, is what makes these stories so good. Whether it is being trapped on a dark staircase with the knowledge that something is with you or the sound of scratching outside your show more bedroom door late at night, the terror comes from the reader’s own mental images.
Rich in atmosphere, these dark and twisty stories are the perfect way to prepare oneself for Halloween. This is a book that I will put back on my shelves and pull down again on a future rainy, windy October night. show less
M.R. James’s Collected Ghost Stories is among the finest anthologies in the genre. With a somewhat professorial tone yet wholly accessible, James’s stories exhibit a style and sense of eeriness that few authors can match. James includes authoritative details throughout that sublimely augment the reader’s suspension of disbelief. The tales generally fall into two broad plot lines: stories involving the search for or discovery of antiquarian manuscripts and artifacts; and stories centered in English manors or estates of some historical significance. These are all uniformly effective ghost stories by the unparalleled master storyteller.
This is a hefty volume of M. R. James's ghost stories. James is skilled at devising creepy monsters that are glimpsed only fleetingly, but the one fleeting glimpse is chilling. (For example, in "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad", "The Diary of Mr. Poynter", or "A View from a Hill") He likes to use certain storytelling devices and frameworks, so the collection as a whole can get repetitive. The multi-layered narratives in particular can be exhausting, although it is usually clear who is talking. And at one point he himself acknowledges the similarity between two stories: "The Mezzotint" and "The Haunted Dolls' House", but given that "The Mezzotint" is great, I think both of them work very well. His writing is also not without show more humour; I nearly laughed out loud at one story whose first line of dialogue is spoken by "a person not in this story".
I'd recommend this if you like creepy but not gory stories...and read it a little bit at a time. Don't try to read it all at once. show less
I'd recommend this if you like creepy but not gory stories...and read it a little bit at a time. Don't try to read it all at once. show less
A slightly expanded version of this review is posted on my blog:
http://jlshall.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-complete-ghost-stories-of-mr.html
This Penguin edition combines all four volumes of M.R. James’s ghost stories, first issued between 1904 and 1931. James said he wrote these stories intending to “put the reader into the position of saying to himself: ‘If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!’” And in that, I believe he was successful. These are all classic ghost tales – formulaic, to be sure (the settings and characters and basic plots can seem a bit repetitive when you read them all together like this), but still disturbing enough to make you squirm a bit in your comfy chair.
James also claimed not show more to have any use for “amiable” spirits. His ghosts are malevolent and vindictive and frightening. They are frequently amorphous, monstrous creations – seemingly conjured from ashes or leaves or dust, with few human characteristics about them. They have more in common with Lovecraft’s “nameless horrors” than they do with the ethereal or attractive spirits in some folk tales or modern gothic romances.
Most of these stories were new to me, although there were a few I had read before and one ("Casting the Runes" – probably his best-known tale) that I'd read several times over the years. And one of them ("Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad") has one of my favorite lines from all the ghost stories I’ve read (you should know that our protagonist is staying alone at a hotel, in a double-bedded room):
. . . the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed.
Makes me shiver as I type. show less
http://jlshall.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-complete-ghost-stories-of-mr.html
This Penguin edition combines all four volumes of M.R. James’s ghost stories, first issued between 1904 and 1931. James said he wrote these stories intending to “put the reader into the position of saying to himself: ‘If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!’” And in that, I believe he was successful. These are all classic ghost tales – formulaic, to be sure (the settings and characters and basic plots can seem a bit repetitive when you read them all together like this), but still disturbing enough to make you squirm a bit in your comfy chair.
James also claimed not show more to have any use for “amiable” spirits. His ghosts are malevolent and vindictive and frightening. They are frequently amorphous, monstrous creations – seemingly conjured from ashes or leaves or dust, with few human characteristics about them. They have more in common with Lovecraft’s “nameless horrors” than they do with the ethereal or attractive spirits in some folk tales or modern gothic romances.
Most of these stories were new to me, although there were a few I had read before and one ("Casting the Runes" – probably his best-known tale) that I'd read several times over the years. And one of them ("Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad") has one of my favorite lines from all the ghost stories I’ve read (you should know that our protagonist is staying alone at a hotel, in a double-bedded room):
. . . the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed.
Makes me shiver as I type. show less
Henry James once said that the most effective ghost stories are connected to everyday life at a thousand different points. M.R. James took this to heart; the most effective stories herein are those that take some normal, everyday occurance and find the terror lurking beneath the surface. The stories all begin rather pleasantly; there are polite conversations and new discoveries and some very funny turns of phrase. In some cases, there's a gradual buildup, a sense of menace that pervades the entire piece. In others, the horrific twist takes the characters by surprise. In all the stories, though, there's a real sense that this could happen to you.
James does a masterful job of combining the ordinary and the strange. In each of these show more stories, the characters find themselves involved in some normal occurance that is nonetheless outside the norm. Many of them spend time in hotels, buildings that are both profoundly normal and divorced from the norm. Others make exciting new purchases and bring objects both everyday and sinister into their homes.
A hotel room with three windows suddenly has only two. A picture changes slightly every time the viewer returns to it. An empty bed isn't. In each case, the reader can imagine just such a thing happening to them. The true terror behind the stories lies not in the tales themselve but in the way they spark the reader's imagination.
If you have any interest in ghost stories, you really ought to pick up any of James's collections. He's exerted a huge influence on many, if not all, of the ghost story writers who've come after him. COLLECTED GHOST STORIES contains almost all his stories, but diehards may wish to pick up the COMPLETE GHOST STORIES instead. Penguin also publishes a gorgeous little edition of selected stories entitled THE HAUNTED DOLL'S HOUSE.
(This review originally appeared in a slightly different form on my blog, Stella Matutina). show less
James does a masterful job of combining the ordinary and the strange. In each of these show more stories, the characters find themselves involved in some normal occurance that is nonetheless outside the norm. Many of them spend time in hotels, buildings that are both profoundly normal and divorced from the norm. Others make exciting new purchases and bring objects both everyday and sinister into their homes.
A hotel room with three windows suddenly has only two. A picture changes slightly every time the viewer returns to it. An empty bed isn't. In each case, the reader can imagine just such a thing happening to them. The true terror behind the stories lies not in the tales themselve but in the way they spark the reader's imagination.
If you have any interest in ghost stories, you really ought to pick up any of James's collections. He's exerted a huge influence on many, if not all, of the ghost story writers who've come after him. COLLECTED GHOST STORIES contains almost all his stories, but diehards may wish to pick up the COMPLETE GHOST STORIES instead. Penguin also publishes a gorgeous little edition of selected stories entitled THE HAUNTED DOLL'S HOUSE.
(This review originally appeared in a slightly different form on my blog, Stella Matutina). show less
Montague Rhodes James brings the classic British understatement to the field of horror stories and makes them terrifying beyond imagination. His writing is without any frills; there is very little by the way of atmosphere-building; and the stories themselves seem to be an odd form of reportage. By going against convention, M. R. James creates a nightmare world which is more frightening than that of any of his more traditional contemporaries. He is helped in this by his encyclopaedic knowledge of Church History.
James' ghosts are most exclusively European, mostly British. They emanate from the Celtic woodlands of pre-Roman Britain, and inhabit the wooded copses and cavernous churches of the English countryside. Often the protagonist is a show more scholarly enquirer who stumbles upon unwelcome and potentially dangerous knowledge in the course of his enquiries, and his journey, along with the story, slowly descend into a madness equalling that of Lovecraft, but in a gentlemanly, English way.
I would rank Casting the Runes at the very top of these gems. This story has given me delicious nightmares ever since I first encountered it during my teens. "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" is another story which stays in the mind. Mind you, that does not mean the others are lesser-these are just personal favourites.
Curl up in your favourite corner during a rainy night, listen to the wind howling in the rafters, and read these stories preferably in dim light. That is, if you dare... show less
James' ghosts are most exclusively European, mostly British. They emanate from the Celtic woodlands of pre-Roman Britain, and inhabit the wooded copses and cavernous churches of the English countryside. Often the protagonist is a show more scholarly enquirer who stumbles upon unwelcome and potentially dangerous knowledge in the course of his enquiries, and his journey, along with the story, slowly descend into a madness equalling that of Lovecraft, but in a gentlemanly, English way.
I would rank Casting the Runes at the very top of these gems. This story has given me delicious nightmares ever since I first encountered it during my teens. "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" is another story which stays in the mind. Mind you, that does not mean the others are lesser-these are just personal favourites.
Curl up in your favourite corner during a rainy night, listen to the wind howling in the rafters, and read these stories preferably in dim light. That is, if you dare... show less
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Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Collected Ghost Stories
- Original publication date
- 1904-1929; 1931 (collection) (collection)
- People/Characters
- Dennistoun; Stephen Elliott; Mr. Abney; Mr. Williams; Mrs. Mothersole; Sir Matthew Fell I (show all 13); Mr. Wraxall; Count Magnus de la Gardie; Professor Parkins; Abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen; Mr. Somerton; Mr. Gregory; William Brown
- Important places
- St Bertrand de Comminges, Haute-Garonne, Occitanie, France; Aswarby Hall, Lincolnshire, England, UK; Canterbury College, England, UK; Anningley Hall, Essex, England, UK; Castringham Hall, Suffolk, England, UK; Råbäck, Vestergothland, Sweden (show all 9); Burnstow, Suffolk, England, UK; Parsbury, Berkshire, England, UK; Steinfeld Abbey, Kall, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
- Dedication
- For my husband
ANTHONY JOHN RANSON
with love from your wife, the publisher
Eternally grateful for your
unconditional love - Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.08733
- Disambiguation notice
- This is an omnibus volume containing all the stories published in M.R. James' four original volumes of ghost stories. It should contain 31 stories. Please do not combine it with editions which are only selections, containing ... (show all)a smaller number of stories.
This book contains 34 stories - all stories from James' four short story collections, and three additional stories. See description for list of stories.
Classifications
- Genres
- Horror, Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Fantasy
- DDC/MDS
- 823.08733 — Literature & rhetoric English & Old English literatures English fiction By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Horror and ghost fiction Ghost fiction
- LCC
- PR6019 .A565 .A6 — Language and Literature English English Literature 1900-1960
- BISAC
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- English, French, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 37
- ASINs
- 31