This vintage book contains Montague Rhodes James's chilling supernatural short story An Episode of Cathedral History . First published as part of The collected ghost stories of M.R. James (1931), it is a hair-raising ghost story highly recommended for all lovers of the genre. Montague Rhodes James (1862 1936) was an English author who often published under the name M. R. James. He was a seminal medievalist scholar, but today is most famous for his contributions to supernatural fiction. James was a masterful purveyor of macabre tales highly regarded by H. P. Lovecraft. Other notable works by...

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, now credited with having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic cliches of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. Originally published in 1904, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to you, My Lad' ranks amongst his best and most underrated tales. Many of the earliest ghost stories and tales of hauntings, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high...

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, now credited with having redefined the ghost story for the 20th century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic cliches of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. 'Casting the Runes' is one of his most famous tales, and was adapted into a film in 1958. Many of the earliest occult stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and...

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a medieval 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 emphasise the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions. "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" was written as two collections, presented here as two volumes in a...

Montague Rhodes James 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, relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasise the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions.

If anyone is curious about my local settings, let it be recorded that St Bertrand de Comminges and Viborg are real places: that in 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You' I had Felixstowe in mind. As for the fragments of ostensible erudition which are scattered about my pages, hardly anything in them is not pure invention; there never was, naturally, any such book as that which I quote in 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas'. 'Canon Alberic's Scrap-book' was written in 1894 and printed soon after in the National Review, 'Lost Hearts' appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine; of the next five stories, most of...