Ghost Stories

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'Still as the night was, the mysterious population of the distant moonlit woods was not yet lulled to rest' 
 
The aim of a good ghost story is to make the blood freeze, pleasurably, and this M. R. James achieves to perfection in these wonderful stories. His most atmospheric settings include English country houses and gardens, the north end of the churchyard, the yew-maze in 'Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance' and the unforgettable train journey in 'Casting the Runes'. To each of these stories he brings an eye for the telling detail, an imaginative twist and a narrative tone that is, at least to begin with, urbane and reassuring ... 
 
The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

Ghosts

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

Montague Rhodes James was born on 1 August 1862 near Bury St Edmunds, though he spent long periods of his later life in Suffolk, which provided the setting for many of his ghost stories. He studied at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, where he was eventually elected Fellow, and then made Provost in 1905. In 1918 he became Provost of Eton. He was a renowed medievalist and biblical scholar, and published works on palaeography, antiquarianism, bibliography and history, guides to Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as editing a collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. However, he remains best known for his own ghost stories, which were published in several collections including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Other Stories (1919), A Warning to the Curious (1925) and a collected edition in 1931. M. R. James never married and died on 12 June 1936.

A high-pitched laugh echoes in an empty church. Servants discover their master dead in his bed, the only sign of disturbance an open window. The coffin of a woman hanged as a witch is found to be empty. A bed that hasn’t been slept in is crumpled and distressed come the morning. A skeletal figure creeps closer and closer to the house where an unsuspecting family lie sleeping. In these chilling tales of the supernatural, M. R. James proves he truly is the master of the ghost story. 
 
Selected from the book Ghost Stories by M.R. James 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Drinking by John Cheever 
Summer by Laurie Lee 
Friendship by Rose Tremain 
Love by Jeanette Winterson

Stop What You’re Doing and Read…After Dark: Ghost Stories & Dracula

M.R JAMES' GHOST STORIES &amp; DRACULA: Spine-tingling stories of the strange and supernatural to thrill you from the witching hour until the dead of night...

M.R. JAMES' GHOST STORIES - A gnawing sense of unease, a steady accumulation of sounds, shadows and images finally meet in a single moment of sensational physical horror'

Bram Stoker's Dracula remains central to contemporary vampire myths

Montague Rhodes James was born on 1 August 1862 near Bury St Edmunds, and he spent long periods of his later life in Suffolk, which provided the setting for many of his ghost stories. He studied at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, where he was eventually elected Fellow, and then made Provost in 1905. In 1918 he became Provost of Eton. He was a renowed medievalist and biblical scholar, and published works on palaeography, antiquarianism, bibliography and history and guides to Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as editing a collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. However, he remains best known for his own ghost stories, which were published in several collections, including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Other Stories (1919), A Warning to the Curious (1925) and a collected edition in 1931. M. R. James never married and died on 12 June 1936. 
 
Abraham Stoker was born in Dublin on 8 November 1847. He graduated in Mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin in 1867 and then worked as a civil servant. In 1878 he married Florence Balcombe. He later moved to London and became business manager of his friend Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre. He wrote several sensational novels including novels The Snake's Pass (1890), Dracula (1897), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). Bram Stoker died on 20 April 1912.

To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books. 
 
M.R. JAMES' GHOST STORIES 
SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY RUTH RENDELL 
M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense. 
 
DRACULA 
'The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key in the lock; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt...I shall not remain alone with them. I may find a way from this dreadful place, away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet!' 
Young lawyer Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on business for a mysterious Count. Months later in England, beautiful Lucy Westenra falls ill and dies, inexplicably, as if from a severe loss of blood. Lucy's friends, including Jonathan's fiancée Mina and the intrepid doctor Van Helsing, must begin a desperate battle against a powerful, ancient evil, in Bram Stoker's definitive gothic tale.

Malignant forces and supernatural visitors haunt this selection of superbly spooky tales

In M.R. James' stories, the ordinary tips over into an alternative existence that is just as believable

An original and powerful storyteller....  A gnawing sense of unease, a steady accumulation of sounds, shadows and images finally meet in a single moment of sensational physical horror

M R James, who ushered the ghost story into our century, is still quite simply the craftiest

M R James is quite simply the finest writer of ghost stories ever. They're always set in an academic context, about university chaps who find out very nasty things while they're researching. They uncork the wrong bottle, unearth the wrong papers, dig up the wrong place. . . James was provost of Eton and a fellow of Kings College, and the stories have this wonderful candlelit, academic atmosphere, surrounded by incredible nastiness. Tweedy, but unpleasant

A master class in creepiness from the Edwardian-era Provost of King's College, Cambridge. James delivers brilliant atmospherics, gnawing disquiet and (above all) horrific denouements created by suggestion rather than ghoulish spectacle

'Whistle And I'll Come To You' is one of the best ghost stories that has ever been written... will haunt you to the marrow

Montague Rhodes James was born on 1 August 1862 near Bury St Edmunds, and he spent long periods of his later life in Suffolk, which provided the setting for many of his ghost stories. He studied at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, where he was eventually elected Fellow, and then made Provost in 1905. In 1918 he became Provost of Eton. He was a renowed medievalist and biblical scholar, and published works on palaeography, antiquarianism, bibliography and history and guides to Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as editing a collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. However, he remains best known for his own ghost stories, which were published in several collections, including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Other Stories (1919), A Warning to the Curious (1925) and a collected edition in 1931. M. R. James never married and died on 12 June 1936.

Malignant forces and supernatural visitors haunt this selection of superbly spooky tales selected and introduced by Ruth Rendell. 
 
M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense.

Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book

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Montague Rhodes James was born in Kent in 1862, where his father was curate. He was educated at Eton and then at King's College, Cambridge, where he became assistant in classical archaeology at the Fitzwilliam Museum. He was elected a Fellow of King's and then lectured in Divinity, becoming Dean of the College in 1889. He was made Provost of King's in 1905 and was Vice Chancellor of the University from 1913 to 1915. In 1918 he became Provost of Eton. 
 
Although a great scholar of his day, it is now for his ghost stories that James is best remembered. The stories were published in several volumes between 1904 and 1931, including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919) and A Warning to the Curious (1925). His memoirs, Eton and King's, were published in 1926. He died in 1936.

'The lower jaw was thin - what can I call it? - shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips...' 
 
M. R. James is the master of the English ghost story, whose tales are inhabited not by ethereal spirits, but by terrifying, palpable forces of evil. In these four stories figures appear in paintings, demonic voices are heard, books awaken ancient horrors - and ordinary objects and situations are transformed into inescapable nightmares. 
 
This book includes Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book, The Mezzotint, The Rose Garden and The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral.

The Haunted Dolls' House

Part of our Gothic Classics series - ten terrifying tales of the supernatural - eerie visitations, revenge from beyond the grave, vampire love and many other macabre manifestations from masters of the genre

Montague Rhodes James was born at Goodnestone Parsonage in Kent in 1862. Although a great scholar of his day, it is now for his ghost stories, many set in East Anglia, that James is best remembered. Fascinated by the supernatural, he was an admirer of the Irish mystery-writer Sheridan Le Fanu, whose ghost stories he edited. His stories were usually first published in magazines such as the Cambridge Review, but some were written for special occasions. Wailing Well is one such story, composed for the gathering of the Eton College Boy Scouts in 1927. The stories were published in several volumes between 1904 and 1931, including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919) and A Warning to the Curious (1925). M. R. James died in 1936.

Evil comes with many different faces. 
 
A macabre human drama is re-enacted in a Gothic dolls&rsquo; house one night; a whistle awakens a force of unspeakable malevolence; an ancient curse is passed from person to person; a grisly crime is avenged from beyond the grave; the tomb of a Swedish count will not rest quietly &hellip; 
 
M. R. James&rsquo;s chilling ghost stories reveal a world where the familiar becomes diabolical, the smallest object can lead to unimaginable horror, and evil brushes against everyday life in the most unexpected and sinister of ways.

M. R. James

Abridged Edition

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Ghost Stories, a Level 3 Reader, is A2 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing first conditional, past continuous and present perfect simple for general experience. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages. 
 
A strange whistle, a dangerous curse, a buried crown and a hotel without a room 13. Don't read these four frightening ghost stories by M.R. James late at night!

M. R. James

Penguin Readers Level 3: Ghost Stories (ELT Graded Reader)

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