The passing of time does not lessen their popularity or their ability to chill, and our edition of 'Collected Ghost Stories' remains the best-selling book in the series. By way of diversion, over a period of time he wrote thirty four of what are acknowledged to be the best ghost stories ever written. Ruth Rendall AUTHOR: M(ontague) R(hodes) James (1862-1936), the son of a Kent curate, enjoyed a glittering academic career, and was acknowledged as a leading authority on medieval manuscripts and biblical apocrypha. "There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of reading them for the first time. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'. James, "Stories I Have Tried To Write", which accompanies these thirty tales. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. Includes a lively introduction that explores Jamess conservative, donnish background and the character traits that contributed to the extraordinary power of his closely focused tales. Jamess 1931 Collected Ghost Stories, plus three uncollected tales. 'I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several - I don't know how many - legs and arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body.' M.R. The only one-volume edition to include all the published stories included in M. With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.
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