Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a scholar and antiquarian who lived almost entirely within the halls of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. Although prolific in his chosen academic fields of medieval history and literature, theology and architecture, today he is known to horror fans as the Master of the English ghost story, celebrated for tales such as ‘O Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ and ‘A Warning to the Curious’.

M.R. James read voraciously, and wrote about his favourite genre stories in essays such as ‘Some Remarks On Ghost Stories’ (1929) and ‘Ghosts - Treat them Gently!’ (1931), his introduction to an anthology called ‘Ghosts and Marvels’ (1924), and his lovingly curated compilation of JS Le Fanu’s stories ‘Madame Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery’ (1923).

This volume contains twelve such tales, and is being published to accompany our coverage of these stories on 'A Podcast to the Curious', the M.R. James podcast.

Contents

• A True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe,


• The White and the Black by Erckmann-Chatrain,


• The Familiar by Sheridan Le Fanu,


• The Haunted and the Haunters by Edward Bulwer-Lytton,


• The Signalman by Charles Dickens,


• The Open Door by Margaret Oliphant,


• The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford,


• Featherston’s Story by Mrs Henry Wood,


• The Story of the Moor Road by Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard and Kate O'Brien Ryall Prichard,


• The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs,


• The Death-mask by Henrietta Dorothy Everett,


• Negotium Perambulans by E.F. Benson.