Product Description

The only annotated edition of M. R. James’s writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James’s ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. These volumes are both the culmination of the nineteenth-century ghost story tradition and the inspiration for much of the best twentieth-century work in this genre. Included in this collection are such landmark tales as “Count Magnus,” set in the wilds of Sweden; “Number 13,” a distinctive tale about a haunted hotel room; “Casting the Runes,” a richly complex tale of sorcery that served as the basis for the classic horror film Curse of the Demon; and “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad,” one of the most frightening tales in literature. The appendix includes several rare texts, including “A Night in King’s College Chapel,” James’s first known ghost story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19797 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) is one of the originators and most influential writers of supernatural fiction. Among his many honors was the Order of Merit, bestowed upon him by King George V in 1930. S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature. He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.

Customer Reviews

The very best of English supernatural fiction!
For anyone who can think of no better way to spend a dark winters' evening than to curl up by the fire and read a good ghost story, then this book is for you. M.R. James, perhaps the most famous of all English supernaturalists, delivers stories of such consistent quality and style that it is difficult to think of anyone, except perhaps Algernon Blackwood, that ever has or ever will match him. James' stories reflect an England that has long since faded into memory. He himself was a lifelong academic and a highlight of the Christmas term for his students would be an invite to his study where they would hear his latest tale of terror. These stories are beautifully crafted with an elegant prose that conjours up an age long since past. Despite being written over eighty years ago these stories have not lost their ability to send shivers down the spine and indeed on occasion, even shock. With James' work, it is often the unexpected that leaves a lingering shadow in the readers mind long after the book has been put down. Highlights and true classics of supernatural fiction, include his most famous tale 'Oh Whistle, and I'll Come To You My Lad' and other genre classics such as ' Lost Hearts,' 'The Mezzotint,' and 'The Ash Tree.' So imagine , if you will, it is night, you are sitting in an old leather arm chair alone in a dark room, you are drifting off to sleep. Your arm falls from your side and your hand brushes something that is crouching in the dark on the floor beside you. It is large, the size of a man, but it is covered in thick coarse hair and it has started to rise!