A Thin Ghost and Others, first published in 1919, is the third volume of ghost stories by the English medievalist and author M. R. James (1862–1936). Two of the stories, “An Episode of Cathedral History” and “The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance”, had previously been published in the Cambridge Review.[1]
James’s stories broke the mould of earlier supernatural fiction, which was rooted in exotic locations and gothic language; his stories were set in an everyday world.[2] The common themes in his stories are “a characterful setting (church, village, country estate), a gentleman-scholar protagonist and an antiquarian object which in some way facilitates a ghoulish encounter”.[3] But despite the book’s title, James’s stories veer more towards horror than ghostly apparitions.[4]
Contents
- “The Residence at Whitminster”
- “The Diary of Mr PoynterGhost story by M. R. James, first published in 1919, about an apparently possessed scrap of chintz, said to be a memorial to the hair of a 17th-century nobleman.“
- “An Episode of Cathedral HistoryHorror story by M. R. James, first published in 1914, about a demon that escapes frpm a hidden tomb in the fictional Southminster Cathedral.“
- “The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance”
- “Two Doctors”
See also
- M. R. James bibliographyList of the works written by M. R. James.
External links
- Full text of A Thin Ghost and Others at Project Gutenberg