Book description
The lower jaw was thin what can I call it? shallow, like a beast
s; teeth showed behind the black lips M. R. James is the master of the
English ghost story, whose tales are inhabited not by ethereal spirits,
but by terrifying, palpable forces of evil. In these four stories
figures appear in paintings, demonic voices are heard, books awaken
ancient horrors and ordinary objects and situations are transformed
into inescapable nightmares. This book includes Canon Alberic's
Scrap-Book, The Mezzotint, The Rose Garden and The Stalls of Barchester
Cathedral. Montague Rhodes James was born in Kent in 1862, where his
father was curate. He was educated at Eton and then at King's College,
Cambridge, where he became assistant in classical archaeology at the
Fitzwilliam Museum. He was elected a Fellow of King's and then lectured
in Divinity, becoming Dean of the College in 1889. He was made Provost
of King's in 1905 and was Vice Chancellor of the University from 1913 to
1915. In 1918 he became Provost of Eton. Although a great scholar of his
day, it is now for his ghost stories that James is best remembered. The
stories were published in several volumes between 1904 and 1931,
including Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), A Thin Ghost and Others
(1919) and A Warning to the Curious (1925). His memoirs, Eton and
King's, were published in 1926. He died in 1936.
