Collected Ghost Stories (Classics Library (NTC))

Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Review: COLLECTED GHOST STORIES was first published in 1931. The thirty fictional "ghost stories" herein - more correctly, perhaps, stories of the supernatural - were written by author Montague Rhodes James at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. James was an English antiquarian, linguist, gentleman and scholar, so it's no surprise that each of the tales is usually about a fictional individual of similar capacities who's come across it while rummaging around in an old church, or among old books or letters, or has been told of it by a another who's had a direct experience with the paranormal. The plots take place in the 19th or late 18th century, and are mostly in a rural setting.

Compared to the writings of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, these yarns, while reasonably inventive, are decidedly not scary. Purists might assert these authors compose trash, while James's pieces comprise "classic" literature. Well, perhaps, but COLLECTED GHOST STORIES still put me to sleep in short order as I read them in bed at night.

The author's style includes the penning of interminable paragraphs that numbingly extend for one or two pages. And he sometimes includes Latin phrases or sentences that go untranslated. I guess genteel readers in those days were more robustly educated, or the author didn't expect the narrative to fall before such plebeian eyes as mine. (True, I took two years of the language in high school, but it evidently didn't stick.)

At times, the plot of an individual story seems overly contrived, as the one about the phantom conjured up by the unusual pattern in a new set of curtains. Worse, James occasionally and intentionally leaves out an element of the story that might have otherwise improved upon it, as the tale of a country doctor who falls victim to the evil machinations of a fellow physician:

"Annexed to the other papers is one which I was at first inclined to suppose had made its way among them by mistake. Upon further consideration I think I can divine a reason for its presence. ... It relates to the rifling of a mausoleum in Middlesex ... The account is blunt and terrible. I shall not quote it." Then why, pray tell, bring it up?

My favorite chapter was "A View from A Hill", which has as its chief prop an old and singular pair of binoculars filled with some sort of icky distillate, and which allowed one to see through the lenses landscapes and buildings from the past. My kind of high-tech gadget! (Sort of like the x-ray glasses I saw advertised as a kid becoming interested in girls, and which I thought would allow me to see through ... well, you know.)

I started this review with the intent of awarding three stars, but have worked myself up into a froth of dissatisfaction with the volume as a whole. So, two stars. The author's long dead anyway and not likely to care.

Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Review: COLLECTED GHOST STORIES was first published in 1931. The thirty fictional "ghost stories" herein - more correctly, perhaps, stories of the supernatural - were written by author Montague Rhodes James at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. James was an English antiquarian, linguist, gentleman and scholar, so it's no surprise that each of the tales is usually about a fictional individual of similar capacities who's come across it while rummaging around in an old church, or among old books or letters, or has been told of it by a another who's had a direct experience with the paranormal. The plots take place in the 19th or late 18th century, and are mostly in a rural setting.

Compared to the writings of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, these yarns, while reasonably inventive, are decidedly not scary. Purists might assert these authors compose trash, while James's pieces comprise "classic" literature. Well, perhaps, but COLLECTED GHOST STORIES still put me to sleep in short order as I read them in bed at night.

The author's style includes the penning of interminable paragraphs that numbingly extend for one or two pages. And he sometimes includes Latin phrases or sentences that go untranslated. I guess genteel readers in those days were more robustly educated, or the author didn't expect the narrative to fall before such plebeian eyes as mine. (True, I took two years of the language in high school, but it evidently didn't stick.)

At times, the plot of an individual story seems overly contrived, as the one about the phantom conjured up by the unusual pattern in a new set of curtains. Worse, James occasionally and intentionally leaves out an element of the story that might have otherwise improved upon it, as the tale of a country doctor who falls victim to the evil machinations of a fellow physician:

"Annexed to the other papers is one which I was at first inclined to suppose had made its way among them by mistake. Upon further consideration I think I can divine a reason for its presence. ... It relates to the rifling of a mausoleum in Middlesex ... The account is blunt and terrible. I shall not quote it." Then why, pray tell, bring it up?

My favorite chapter was "A View from A Hill", which has as its chief prop an old and singular pair of binoculars filled with some sort of icky distillate, and which allowed one to see through the lenses landscapes and buildings from the past. My kind of high-tech gadget! (Sort of like the x-ray glasses I saw advertised as a kid becoming interested in girls, and which I thought would allow me to see through ... well, you know.)

I started this review with the intent of awarding three stars, but have worked myself up into a froth of dissatisfaction with the volume as a whole. So, two stars. The author's long dead anyway and not likely to care.

Rating:
Summary: Without a doubt the best collection of ghost stories
Review: First published in 1931, Colected Ghost Stories is a collection of most of M.R. James much revered stories. These stories were all first written for publication in magazines or for his famous Christmas readings, and were subsequently collected into four seperate volumes: Ghoast Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious (1925). Three stories that were published in magazines following the first publication of this work, and do not appear in this reprint; they are: The Experiment, The Malice of Inanimate Objects, and A Vignette.

James' skill for conceiving and presenting ghost stories seems to have developed at relatively young age, and his reading of some of his stories at King's College at Christmastime was a quite popular event. But ghost stories were, unfortunately, not James' priority; he was an antiquarian, and much respected one at that. He was also a noted linguist, paleographer, medievalist and biblical scholar--fields that all influenced his stories.

While it is safe to say that these ghost stories are among the best ever written, their style and subject matter are still a matter of taste. So it is difficult to catagorically recommend this book, but I doubt that any lover of ghost stories will be able to put this book down without difficulty after sampling but a story or two.

Rating:
Summary: collect collected!
Review: great stories from the master. excellent at details, truly chilling, great descriptions, noone can make as much out of the traditional ghost story. james no that one change is enough to make a completely different story. changing objects, persons, places, angles, james shows the complete potential of the ghost story. built up excellent, these stories are among the best read in horror. lurking evil, suggestive evil, warning of evil, sudden icy touches by ghostly hands. i have read a lot of horror, but james almost startles me. like that scene in the well, i could almost feel a hand on my shoulder.

Rating:
Summary: SPIFFING!
Review: I wonder whether Mr John Major (remember him?) has read these stories. They are the English of the English (more than you could say for him I guess) and evoke the sort of idealised tranquil Albion that I suppose he was harking after when he tried to present a vision of spinsters cycling through the eventide and so forth. If he has I trust he found them not unsplendid, as I do. I myself am Scottish although I have lived most of my life in England, and I like to think that the peculiar sense of Englishness that I get from M R James is one that a semi-foreigner can feel with special force.

The mises-en-scene are cathedrals, canal boats, rural railways etc. It is partly these warm reassuring backgrounds that give the special thrill to James's glimpses of things old and sinister lurking in odd corners of the placid landscape. He never lays the effects on with a trowel as Lovecraft keeps doing, and to judge by other reviews I have read he is found all the more effective for that. I doubt that Lovecraft ever scared anyone, but for me James's Count Magnus is a candidate for the most flesh-creeping story I know, and when I told the story of Number 13 to my son aged c 7 or 8 at his own request and believing it to be innocuous, he forbade me for years even to mention it again. James's skill does not even depend on the degree of horror in the story. Count Magnus is horrific in the extreme, but what is probably James's best-known story? I would guess Whistle and I'll Come to You, where the story itself suggests that the apparition is one that only frightens not harms, and it frightens not a bit less for that. A lot of the trick is in introducing paganism into an ostentatiously C of E context, all archdeacons and vergers, and An Episode in Cathedral History is one of the best.

Get an edition that is absolutely complete. Some of the stories, like A Neighbour's Landmark, read like ideas for stories rather than the final article, but the magic is there already and there are too few of them in total for anthologising to be sensible.

Rating:
Summary: Stories in this collection
Review: Love this book and, as with any collection, thought a specific listing of all thirty included short works might be helpful to potential buyers.

Canon Alberic's Scrapbook; Lost Hearts; The Mezzotint; The Ash Tree; Number 13; Count Magnus; 'Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad'; The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas; A School Story; The Rose Garden; The Tractate Middoth; Casting The Runes; The Stalls Of Barchester Cathedral; Martin's Close; Mr. Humphreys And His Inheritance; The Residence At Whitminster; The Diary Of Mr. Paynter; An Episode Of Cathedral History; The Story Of A Disappearance And An Appearance; Two Doctors; The Haunted Doll's House; The Uncommon Prayer-Book; A Neighbor's Landmark; A View From A Hill; A Warning To The Curious; An Evenings Entertainment; There Was A Man Dwealt By A Churchyard; Rats; After Dark In The Playing Fields; Wailing Well; Stories I Have Tried To Write

Rating:
Summary: Splendid Creepiness
Review: M.R. James has many imitators and if you've read any ghost story anthologies at all, you're probably already acquainted with him. "Casting the Runes" and "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You, My Lad" are probably his two most collected stories, but they're all good. I still shiver through every one of them, and I've read all of his stories at least a hundred times (well, maybe ten times). His usual protagonist is an elderly (or elderly seeming) scholar, British of course, who gets himself into horrible, occult trouble by going where he shouldn't go or reading what he shouldn't read.

There are other good writers of ghostly tales: Sheridan LeFanu, Charles Dickens, E.F. Benson, Shirley Jackson, etc.; and Ramsey Campbell once wrote a short story in the style of M.R. James that almost could have been written by the Master, himself. However, if you haven't already read M.R. James' "Collected Ghost Stories", please do so. He is the writer by which all others in this difficult genre are measured.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Ghost Story Writer of All Time
Review: M.R. James has many imitators and if you've read any ghost story anthologies at all, you're probably already acquainted with him. "Casting the Runes" and "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You, My Lad" are probably his two most collected stories, but they're all good. I still shiver through every one of them, and I've read all of his stories at least a hundred times (well, maybe ten times). His usual protagonist is an elderly (or elderly seeming) scholar, British of course, who gets himself into horrible, occult trouble by going where he shouldn't go or reading what he shouldn't read.

There are other good writers of ghostly tales: Sheridan LeFanu, Charles Dickens, E.F. Benson, Shirley Jackson, etc.; and Ramsey Clark once wrote a short story in the style of M.R. James that almost could have been written by the Master, himself. However, if you haven't already read M.R. James' "Collected Ghost Stories", please do so. He is the writer by which all others in this difficult genre are measured.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely not Lovecraft....you can say that again !
Review: M.R. James is nothing like Lovecraft, though he did influence H.P.L. in some respects ( though not as much as Dunsany, Blackwood, Machen and others ). James was a master of the subtle, 'antiquarian' ghost story, whereas Lovecraft was more interested in aeon-old daemonic unspeakable horrors and cyclopean eldritch shamblers from unnameable nether pits of cosmic unfathomable darkness, so to speak! He ( Lovecraft ) wrote some effective stories but they don't really bear comparison with those of James, who could elicit more fear in a couple of sentences than H.P.L. could in a whole story.

M.R. James may well be the most famous of early modern ghost/supernatural fiction writers but he certainly isn't the 'father' of the ghost or horror story, nor is he the best, in the opinion of many afficionados. In fact, he himself was directly influenced by the true father of the psychological ghost story, J.Sheridan LeFanu. James openly acknowledged his admiration and debt to LeFanu and those who enjoy James should definitely try reading LeFanu - his 'Best Ghost Stories' published by Dover are also available from Amazon.com and are a must for anyone with an interest in supernatural fiction. There are so many great writers who are the equal of or superior to James who have been unjustly neglected over the years, including Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions, Robert Aickman, and Fritz Leiber to name just a few. To all who've enjoyed the wonderfully creepy tales of the late provost, I whole-heartedly recommend these sadly forgotten masters of the ghostly tale.

Rating:
Summary: Superbly spooky
Review: Superbly spooky tales, beautifully lucid prose, very English. Classic ghost stories. I first read these tales as a teenager on the recommendation of a high school teacher. They gave me chills then, and sometimes, if I find myself alone at night, walking a deserted road, they come back to haunt me. Be warned, some of these stories will stay with you.