Showing results by author "M.R. James" in All Categories

A gentleman stumbles upon a curious old diary—an innocent discovery, or the key to something far more disturbing? In The Diary of Mr. Poynter, M. R. James once again conjures an atmosphere thick with dread, beauty, and the uncanny. This is a tale where the most ordinary object can become a gateway to forces beyond reason, and where curiosity may lead to quiet terror. With James's trademark subtlety and scholarly unease, the story whispers rather than screams—unsettling the soul long after the final word. Haunting, intricate, and elegantly unnerving.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. The zenith of Empire is bookended by two catastrophic wars that slaughter vast swathes of humanity. And yet authors manage to record and create fragile libraries of humanity, its talents, its dreams and increasingly its nightmares.

Many hybrid forms of the mystery-crime-thriller genre exists. All of them are narratives that keep one in suspense about what is about to happen. The thriller also shares a literary lineage with ancient epic and myth populated by monsters, terror and danger. Alexandre Dumas, Alfred Hitchcock, and Robert Ludlum are some of the masters of the genre.

The best of M R James' ghost stories. Includes the classics "The Mezzotint", "Whistle and I'll Come for You My Lad", "Lost Hearts", "The Tractate Middoth", and "The Casting of the Runes". Narrated by Michael Ward for the Huntingdon Community Radio station HCR104fm.

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic in his time but today is remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. Here is one of them: "The Ash Tree".

Asked to write a story to be included in an actual dollhouse’s library, M. R. James crafted a macabre tale where a collector buys a doll house that turns out to be more than he bargained for. Rebecca Thomas narrates this tale of a dolls’ house haunted by the last days of the residents of the actual house.

This is a story from the Classic Ghost Stories collection.

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, nowc redited with redefining the ghost story form. By abandoning many of the formal gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more contemporary settings, James set the stage for future generations of writers. Originally published in 1904, Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad is the story of a man who digs up a bronze whistle, which, after blowing it, leads to unexpected consequences.

A selection of some of the best short stories about vampires ever written. Includes 'The Vampire Maid' by Hume Nisbet, 'Fragment of a Novel' by Lord Byron, 'Dracula's Guest' by Bram Stoker, and 'Count Magnus' by M.R. James.

In one of M.R. James’ creepiest short stories, night of terror plays out with every glimpse at a static picture and the viewer is powerless to prevent a dark figure’s progress. 'The Mezzotint' is taken from the second volume of the Victorian Anthologies Horror series, featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.

A child's toy, a cursed relic, a mystery that refuses to stay hidden. In The Haunted Dolls' House , M. R. James weaves a tale of exquisite unease, where the innocent facade of a dollhouse reveals a terrifying world of spirits long forgotten. Here, the past and present collide, and the boundaries between the living and the dead blur in unsettling silence. With his signature restraint and an eye for the uncanny, James transports the listener to a place where even the most innocent of objects can conceal a dark history—and a terrible secret that demands to be uncovered.

M R James is widely regarded as THE master of the ghost story. His stories abound with spectres skulking in the shrubbery, in shadowy corners and dark recesses. 'The Mezzotint' is a whimsical and apparently supernatural tale of art on the move; a dying man devises a gruesome plan for testing his heirs in 'The Tractate Middoth', and something is lurking under the bedclothes in 'Rats'.

A young, scientifically minded college professor finds an old bronze whistle while exploring the ruins of a Knights Templars' preceptory. That night, he blows on the whistle and a vision comes to him of a dark expanse with a lonely figure in its midst. The sound also appears to call up a gust of wind, but the sensible professor dismisses it as a coincidence. More strange incidents follow, however, to shake his disbelief in the supernatural.

In this particular story, a traveller in Sweden stumbles upon the history of a mysterious and ominous figure, Count Magnus. Apparently the count went on a ‘black pilgrimage’, the details of which are discovered by the traveller in an alchemical textbook. However, it might not be the best of ideas to go poking around in the history of such a mysterious man....

Step into the chilling world of M. R. James, the master of the English ghost story, with this anthology of his finest supernatural tales. From mysterious rooms in curious inns to cursed manuscripts and vengeful spectres, James’s stories weave an atmosphere of dread and suspense that lingers long after the final tick

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic but is today remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. His short novel for children, The Five Jars, is a bewitching fairy tale in the form of a letter to a young friend, telling of the writer's strange experiences after discovering a box containing five jars with labels that indicate the mysterious powers of their contents.

This is a story from the Classic Ghost Stories collection.

A relic buried. A secret watched. A warning unheeded. In this chilling tale by master of the supernatural M. R. James, the boundaries between legend and reality dissolve into coastal mist. A Warning to the Curious draws the listener into a bleak and beautiful world where ancient guardians still linger—and curiosity can awaken things best left undisturbed. A haunting meditation on the price of trespass, this is classic ghost storytelling at its most precise and unnerving.

A picture that changes. A scholar who watches. A nightmare unfolding one shadow at a time. Forget jump scares—this is horror in its most refined form. The Mezzotint is a slow-burn classic where dread creeps in like fog and nothing is ever quite as it seems. M. R. James delivers a ghost story that gets under your skin—and stays there. Mysterious, unsettling, and quietly terrifying.

This is a story from the Chilling Ghost Stories collection. In Rats by M. R. James, Mr. Thompson comes to regret his decision to investigate a locked room in a country inn.