Ghost Stories

 

M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernize a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognizable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a doll's 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. James's prescription for his ghost stories was to "let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage."

M. R. James (1862–1936) was a renowed medievalist and biblical scholar, and published works on palaeography, antiquarianism, bibliography, and history as well as editing a collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. He remains best known for his own ghost stories, which were published in several collections including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, A Thin Ghost and Other Stories, and A Warning to the Curious. Ruth Rendell is an award-winning crime writer whose titles include End in Tears, Harm Done, and The Monster in the Box.