The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories

The Complete Ghost Stories of M.R. James #2

by M.R. James, S.T. Joshi (Editor, introduction, notes)

Stories by a visionary master of supernatural fiction
 
In volume two of the only annotated edition of M. R. James's complete writings currently available, Penguin Classics brings together tales from James's final two works, A Thin Ghost and Others and A Warning to the Curious. In these stories, James continues his fearsome transformation of the ghost story from its nineteenth-century heritage, drawing upon his deep knowledge of medieval history and biblical curiosa. This edition features a number of little-known tales that have rarely been assembled, including “The Fenstation Witch,” presented here for the first time in a corrected text, a new translation of “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” and a number of James’s essays.
 
Edited and with an introduction and notes by S. T. Joshi.

Stories included:
• The Residence at Whitminster
• The Diary of Mr. Poynter
• An Episode of Cathedral History
• The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance
• Two Doctors
• The Haunted Dolls’ House
• The Uncommon Prayer-book
• A Neighbour’s Landmark
• A View from a Hill
• A Warning to the Curious
• An Evening’s Entertainment
• There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
• Rats
• After Dark in the Playing Fields
• Wailing Well
• The Experiment
• The Malice of Inanimate Objects
• A Vignette
• The Fenstanton Witch
• Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Ghost Stories, Gothic, Fantasy

308 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2006

About the author

Montague Rhodes James, who used the publication name M.R. James, was a noted English mediaeval scholar & provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18) & of Eton College (1918–36). He's 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, replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

M.R.^James

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find I do not like a crowd after dark. . . . You see—no, you do not see, but I see—such curious faces: and the people to whom they belong flit about so oddly, often at your elbow when you least expect it, and looking close into your face, as if they were searching for someone—who may be thankful, I think, if they do not find him. “Where do they come from?” Why, some, I think, out of the water, and some out of the ground. They look like that. But I am sure it is best to take no notice of them, and not to touch them.

Ever since Valancourt starting releasing their excellent Victorian Christmas ghost story anthologies, I’ve made it a point to read stories of this type each December. This year I read the complete ghost stories, of M. R. James, the granddaddy of them all.

Conventional wisdom holds that James’ early ghost story collections are his best, and that the later stories weren’t as good, so I wasn’t really looking forward to these. Holy cow, was I wrong. The stories contained in this anthology are just as good as those in the first but actually start to move into Aickman territory: they are weird, bizarre, hallucinatory, tightly plotted, and really really creepy. I ended up having to read each one twice to get what was happening, but that was a good thing.

So, don’t believe the negative hype. These stories, available in this annotated collection or all over the place online, are highly recommended.

[Jim Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat more mixed selection than the first volume, but very worthwhile. This second Penguin volume features the master's later stories, which I would have to agree with fan consensus aren't usually up to the standard of his earlier classics. That being said, lesser M. R. James is rarely less than entertaining, and even the poorer ones have some merit. I have read much criticism of Two Doctors, but I think it's a decent enough tale featuring a chrysalis dream sequence of pure nightmare imagery. A Neighbour's Landmark, another less popular tale, features a memorably unnerving banshee scream written with immense delicacy.

Of career highlights there are many here: A Warning to the Curious, Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, A View from a Hill and An Episode of Cathedral History are among the master's very best, while Wailing Well, Rats and A Vignette are overlooked gems from the fag end of his career.

Worth reading, and every single story here has something to savour, but if you are given a choice of the two be sure to pick the prior, superior volume first and treat this as the booster pack for the initiated.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of M.R. James short stories isn’t quite as good as ‘Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories’ but is still fantastic all the same.
The stories my not be as creepy but are still well written and entertaining, I especially liked ‘The Diary of Mr Poynter’ and ‘A View from a Hill. Some of the stories included also weren’t published in M.R. James’ lifetime as I was surprised by how good they were, it seems that James was incapable of writing anything less than brilliant.

[Kumar Anshul · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was a small book with three short stories (that were supposed to be scary) that I picked up randomly from the local bookshop. I am already a bit wary of Horror genre and it's difficult to convince myself that you can actually get scared by "reading Horror stories".
The stories with complicated prose were an utter disappointment and reading them actually felt like a task. Hopefully someday I might pick up a book from Horror genre again and actually get scared.

[David Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

This second collection of ghost stories from the early twentieth century master M.R. James pulls works from his later catalog. It has often been suggested that James' later stories fall well short of his best work, and despite editor S.T. Joshi's claims to the contrary, this largely seems to be true.

James doesn't stray far from his traditional scenarios with these stories. They still mostly deal with a narrator (who irritatingly keeps interrupting throughout certain stories) who has heard rumors of a professor or scholar stumbling onto some arcane and ghostly mystery while researching old records or visiting an ancient church. And, while this format was somewhat predictable for the first collection, it still worked.

Since these are similar, I'm a bit surprised I didn't enjoy the stories here as much. There are a few creative ones—"A View From a Hill" being my favorite—but none of them are scary, and I actually found myself bored with a majority of them. I don't exactly know why they seemed so dull either. It was almost as if James had only come up with brief fragments of ideas for new ghost tales and slapped them together without much thought. Either that or the formula has worn thin.

One way or another, stick with the first volume and skip this one.

[Orrin Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The two Penguin editions of James' ghost stories are divided up among his better (and better-known) ones, which are largely in the previous volume and his lesser works in this one. But lesser works by M.R. James are mostly still pretty great.

The main claim to fame in this volume are several short stories that weren't published by James in his collections, and which are therefore not contained in the Collected Ghost Stories. Sadly, most of these aren't anything particularly great, though "The Fenstanton Witch" had some good bits. Still, this is a great companion to the other Penguin edition, and together they make a pretty comprehensive and affordable M.R. James reader.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anthology of M. R. James chilling ghost stories.

Contains several of my favourites including the title story and "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad."

Just the thing for a quiet Sunday afternoon.

[em sky-walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, these stories are super hit or miss. The ones that hit left chills and were rather enjoyable.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were quite good. They show their age but don’t suffer from the overwrought florid language of a lot of people writing fantastic fiction during this time period.

Per Joshi’s introduction these later works are not a good as James’ earlier collections (this is the second set of stories Penguin has published, collecting James’ 3rd and 4th collections); I’ll need to track down a cheap copy of the other Penguin volume based on the strength of these.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I think that it is hard to find really good ghost stories. These are great! If you like Victorian fiction, you should love these.

[J.L. Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recomiendo a M R James a todos los que quieren entrar en una atmósfera ominosa, pero sin perder elegancia, y sobre todo, elegancia literaria.

Valdemar tiene una bonita colección con sus relatos.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story had a lot of potential, which it sadly did not meet. Instead, the doll house simply recounts every night how a series of murderers occurred in the home it was designed after.

[Joseph R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains a second set of ghost stories by M. R. James after Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. This collection of creepy tales follows the same format that makes James so successful: a mundane setting is interrupted or offset by an uncanny event or unseen force that causes terror and problems for the characters in the story. My favorites are "A View from a Hill," "There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard," and "Wailing Well." All the stories are interesting and give a little chill. The final tale is in fact a dozen medieval ghost stories from a medieval text (with the original Latin and James's translation).

As with the previous volume, an appendix has writings by James about ghost stories, both his and others'. He provides a lot of leads for further reading. In one essay, he reveals the heart of his idea of an excellent ghost story: "...here you have a story written with the sole object of inspiring a pleasing terror in the reader; and as I think, that is the true aim of the ghost story." [p. 254] If you don't know what a "pleasing terror" is or find it intolerable, then ghost stories aren't for you. I do have a good sense of it and share James's idea, which is why I enjoy certain ghost and, more broadly, horror stories. This is another excellent collection.

Recommended, highly if you like a pleasing terror now and then.

[alex]

"The Residence at Whitminster"
rating: tbd/5

"The Diary of Mr. Poynter"
rating: tbd/5

"An Episode of Cathedral History"
rating: tbd/5

"The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance"
rating: tbd/5

"Two Doctors"
rating: tbd/5

"The Haunted Dolls' House"
rating: tbd/5

"The Uncommon Prayer-book"
rating: tbd/5

"A Neighbour's Landmark"
rating: tbd/5

"A View from a Hill"
rating: tbd/5

"A Warning to the Curious"
rating: tbd/5

"An Evening's Entertainment"
rating: tbd/5

"There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard"
rating: tbd/5

"Rats"
rating: tbd/5

"After Dark in the Playing Fields"
rating: tbd/5

"Wailing Well"
rating: tbd/5

"The Experiment"
rating: tbd/5

"The Malice of Inanimate Objects"
rating: tbd/5

"A Vignette"
rating: tbd/5

"The Fenstanton Witch"
rating: tbd/5

"Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories"
rating: tbd/5

[Olly Mogs · Rating 4 out of 5]

M.R. James is meant to be one of the best writers of ghost stories, and certainly his beginnings are very atmospheric. He is very good at scene-setting and building you up... Only for a number of his stories to end in 2 maybe 3 paragraphs; the supernatural equivalent of "they all went home for tea".

Some of the stories are really good - I particularly enjoyed "A Warning to the Curious", "Rats", and "the Wailing Well". Plenty were really good to start (I loved the premise of "A View From A Hill") but just needed 5 or more paragraphs to tidy the ending.

I still give it 4 stars for the knowledge of folklore, Shakespeare references, and that the stories were enjoyable, even if they did end rather suddenly.

[Nathan Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of M.R. James' ghost stories is just okay. It represents volume II of a two-volume set of his complete ghost stories, arranged in chronological order. Volume I is Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. As a result, the current collection includes a lot of stories that James wrote later in his life and a few unpublished stories or stories published posthumously. By-and-large, the stories in this collection are derivate of James' earlier stories or just underwhelming. There are a few gems, like 'Rats' and 'An Episode of Cathedral History.' My recommendation to anyone wishing to read James is to prioritize Volume I as the stories therein are much better

[Robin Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark winter evenings are always a good time to return to the classic ghost stories of M.R. James. Often the moon will reveal more shadows than one would have expected to be present and there is a different kind of chill in the air.
This volume holds some of my favourite stories: 'The Residence at Whitminster', 'The Uncommon Prayer-book', 'A View From A Hill', 'A Warning to the Curious', and 'Rats'.
It also contains 'The Fenstanton Witch' unpublished until 1990, more than fifty years after the author's death and an English translation of Twelve Medieval Ghost-stories which M.R. James transcribed -in Latin- in the early 1920s.
There's a brief but informative introduction by S.T. Joshi.

[Sumant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first volume of horror stories by M.R James, but this collection of stories just did not resonate with me. Although S.T Joshi has taken lot efforts when compiling these stories and presenting these to us in this form. The notes which he gives us for each chapter definitely provide us some context as regards to historical facts and places where these stories do take place.

But what I did not like about this volume is that none of the stories are really that scary, and the language is completely outdated, also the conversations which take place in the story I just could not follow what was going on in most of them due to the language.

[Jeremiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book can be accurately looked at as volume 2 of M.R. James' ghost stories, a companion piece to Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories. While volume 1 has better selections in it there are stories included in this volume that are not to be missed. I particularly enjoyed The Fenstanton Witch, A Warning to the Curious, and Waling Well. There are also some wonderful commentaries by James in the Appendix that were a joy to read and get a feel for the man's personal tastes and sensibilities. He is without a doubt a must read for anyone with an interest in Ghost Stories

[Becky Churchman · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Poe, Lovecraft, and Blackwood, James is not for you. James is a completely different writer, and I found him boring and wordy. So many of these stories were set up as someone telling a story about someone telling a story telling a story. Ugh. It became tiring, and I just found it poor writing. James writes much more scholarly and cannot set any tone or mood whatsoever. If scholarly ghost stories is your thing, try James. If you're looking for actual creepy stories, look elsewhere.

[BookNightOwl · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - If you are the type of reader that enjoys words used from the old days. For example "gravely disturbed that vain man and neglectful father". This is just a small example but if you are ok with reading proper olden days English, then you should try this book out. I only read the first 10 pages and I can't even tell you what happened other than one of the characters died. I don't even have a scene pictured in my head, I have NO idea who any of the characters are and how they are related. I was just really confused! I tried to push through but I couldn't.

[max · Rating 3 out of 5]

The other anthologies for his stories were better. Think this one had the weakest of the batch, but still entertaining to read. Think my favorite was just the little medieval ghost stories due to how funny some of them were. This guy sees a horse walking upright and tells it to stop and it does lmao or the other dude that gets so sick after every time he talks to this one ghost even though he was doing it a solid by dedicating 180 masses to it like come on jdjdshjs the past is funny tbh

[Les Gehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion, the stories in the first volume (Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories) were more memorable. However, this is still an excellent collection of ghost stories. The articles in the appendix were also very interesting as they illuminated James' thoughts on writing and what makes for a good ghost story.

[Will Fagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this second collection of M.R. James's ghost stories, the quality begins to fade. I sense he was running out of ideas.
There are two standout pieces: 'A Warning to the Curious' ranks as one of his best stories. The title story is a rehashing of his previous work, 'The Mezzotint', but is still entertaining. Unfortunately, there's little else of note.

[James Tidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the first volume many years back, my library decided to stock a few of Volume Two. Many of these stories, such as the Diary of Mr. Poynter, Two Doctors, and Wailing Well I had not read before. The only ones I had heard of were A Warning to the Curious, A View from a Hill and the Haunted Doll's House. My personal favourites are the Fenstanton Witch and An Episode of Cathedral History.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5.

These later stories aren't quite as classic and effective as the ones in the previous volume, but there are still many chilling passages and evocative spirits to make it worth reading. The addition of several short forewords and other nonfiction pieces by James on ghost stories are also welcome.

[Nicholas J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some potentially entertaining tales absolutely buried by tedious irrelevancies. The author can’t seem to decide what he’s writing: chilling ghost stories or exhaustive genealogies of local English clergy. The stories are probably best read separately, between other works, because taken as a whole they become tedious.

[Debra B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was unfamiliar with the author and his stories. I bought this book as a gift for a friend and she loved it. I also enjoyed the stories. We are now both going to read the first volume of the author's ghost stories.

[Tana · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were more gothic than horror. I didn't think The Haunted Dolls' House was particularly good but some of the other stories were entertaining but not memorable. There was a strange one about a dead hairy man stalking people and a witch one that i thought was ok.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book because I watched the BBC adaptation of Whistle and I'll Come to You for Halloween (2021) and I found myself still thinking about a year later. Unfortunately, I found these stories tedious and kinda boring, with very dry uninteresting writing. Pretty disappointing.