Montague Rhodes (M. R.) James, widely acknowledged as the master of the English ghost story, inspired a host of other Victorian and Edwardian authors to turn their hands to spooks, hauntings and horrors.

This brand-new collection features twenty-four classic stories by James and his 'circle' from the golden age of supernatural short fiction around the turn of the twentieth century.

There was great interest in ghosts and the paranormal at this time in Britain. Many households possessed an Ouija board, and a séance was a popular after-dinner entertainment. The Society for Psychical Research had recently been founded in 1882 to 'investigate mesmeric, psychical and spiritualistic phenomena, and to do so in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems'.

This anthology brings together ten of the best and most creepy stories of M. R. James alongside fourteen chillers by other authors, many of whom were friends or acquaintances of 'Monty'. The tales are presented in chronological order of their composition, providing a fascinating comparison of styles and subject matter, and an insight into the changes in British society as the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardian period and then World War I.

Many of these tales first appeared in the periodicals of the age such as 'Pall Mall', 'Illustrated London News' and 'London Mercury', accompanied by lurid illustrations of hangings, vampires and gory apparitions which often bore little relevance to the stories, but undoubtedly helped to shift copies from the newsstands.

This Kindle edition has been carefully edited and formatted, and comes complete with an active Table of Contents and section markers to enable easy browsing and ensure a smooth, enjoyable reading experience. Each story is preceded by a brief introduction and biographical notes to provide further context. With a total length of 187,000 words, equivalent to over 350 paperback pages, this huge collection also offers outstanding value.

Enjoy all these stories in full:

'The Dead Sexton' by Sheridan Le Fanu (1871)
'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford (1886)
'Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk' by Frank Cowper (1889)
'Lost Hearts' by M. R. James (1893)
'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook' by M. R. James (1894)
'On the Leads' by S Baring Gould (1900)
'Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by M. R. James (1904)
'The Mezzotint' by M. R. James (1904)
'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas' by M. R. James (1904)
'The Slype House' by A. C. Benson (1905)
'A Ghost-Child' by Bernard Capes (1906)
'The Bus-Conductor' by E. F. Benson (1906)
'Across the Moors' by W. F. Harvey (1909)
'The Whistling Room' by William Hope Hodgson (1910)
'Casting the Runes' by M. R. James (1911)
'A School Story' by M. R. James (1911)
'The Tractate Middoth' by M. R. James (1911)
'Bone To His Bone' by E. G. Swain (1912)
'The True History of Anthony Ffryar' by Arthur Gray (1919)
'The Piccadilly Tube' by T. G. Jackson (1919)
'Brickett Bottom' by Amyas Northcote (1922)
'Major Wilbraham' by Hugh Walpole (1922)
'A Warning to the Curious' by M. R. James (1925)
'The Face in the Fresco' by Arnold Smith (1928)

Also check out these other great Kindle titles in the same series (search for "Fast Editions" using quotation marks):

'The Lady Chillers' - classic ghost and horror stories by women writers.

'The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson' - fifty-four tales by an Edwardian master of the genre.

'The Gap in the Curtain' - John Buchan's fascinating borderline science fiction story of predestiny and free will.

'The Beast with Five Fingers and Other Stories' - the collected weird tales of W. F. Harvey.

'The Open Door' - collected ghost stories of Charlotte Riddell, Victorian mistress of the macabre.

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• Literature & FictionHorror
• Literature & FictionClassicsClassics

• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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• Print Length: 429 Pages
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