M.R. James





M.R. James

Author profile


born
in Kent, England, The United Kingdom
August 01, 1862

died
June 12, 1936

gender
male

genre


About this author

Montague Rhodes James, who used the publication name M. R. James, was a noted British mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918) and of Eton College (1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal Gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.


Average rating: 4.10 · 8,632 ratings · 765 reviews · 294 distinct works · Similar authors
Collected Ghost Stories
4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 avg rating — 2,032 ratings — published 1931 — 16 editions
Count Magnus and Other Ghos...
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4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 663 ratings — published 2005 — 7 editions
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
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4.24 of 5 stars 4.24 avg rating — 744 ratings — published 1904 — 44 editions
Casting the Runes and Other...
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4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 274 ratings — published 1911 — 8 editions
The Haunted Dolls' House an...
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4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 avg rating — 225 ratings — published 1995 — 4 editions
More Ghost Stories of an An...
4.32 of 5 stars 4.32 avg rating — 152 ratings — published 1916 — 22 editions
Ghost Stories
3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 142 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions
Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come ...
3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 65 ratings4 editions
Complete Ghost Stories
4.29 of 5 stars 4.29 avg rating — 94 ratings — published 1931 — 14 editions
A Thin Ghost and Others
3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 avg rating — 64 ratings — published 1919 — 15 editions
More books by M.R. James…
“...his girl was on the tentacles of expectation about it.

(From Mr. Humphreys and his Inheritance)”
M.R. James, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

“The door was opening again. The seer does not like to dwell upon what he saw
entering the room: he says it might be described as a frog - the size of a man - but it had scanty white hair about its head. It was busy about the truckle-beds, but not for long. The sound of cries - faint, as if coming out of a vast distance - but, even so, infinitely appalling, reached the ear. ("The Haunted Doll's House")”
M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories

“But it was in the life-saving competition that Stanley Judkins's conduct was most blameable and had the most far-reaching effects. The practice, as you know, was to throw a selected lower boy, of suitable dimensions, fully dressed, with his hands and feet tied together, into the deepest part of Cuckoo Weir, and to time the Scout whose turn it was to rescue him. On every occasion when he was entered for this competition Stanley Judkins was seized, at the critical moment, with a severe fit of cramp, which caused him to roll on the ground and utter alarming cries. This naturally distracted the attention of those present from the boy in the water, and had it not been for the presence of Arthur Wilcox the death-roll would have been a heavy one. As it was, the Lower Master found it necessary to take a firm line and say that the competition must be discontinued. It was in vain that Mr. Beasley Robinson represented to him that in five competitions only four lower boys had actually succumbed. The Lower Master said that he would be the last to interfere in any way with the work of the Scouts; but that three of these boys had been valued members of his choir, and both he and Dr. Ley felt that the inconvenience caused by the losses outweighed the advantages of the competitions. Besides, the correspondence with the parents of these boys had become annoying, and even distressing: they were no longer satisfied with the printed form which he was in the habit of sending out, and more than one of them had actually visited Eton and taken up much of his valuable time with complaints. So the life-saving competition is now a thing of the past.”
M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories

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