M. R. James

A young orphan. A sprawling country estate. A distant relative with unsettling interests. This is a tale where quiet dread builds behind closed doors, and the line between scholarly pursuit and ancient ritual begins to blur. Twelve-year-old Stephen Elliott arrives at Aswarby Hall expecting...

Something ancient lingers beneath the surface of Castringham Hall. In the stillness of the Suffolk countryside, a presence takes root—silent, watchful, and patient. The Ash-tree is M.R. James at his most unsettling: a precise exercise in creeping dread, where history never rests easy and...

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...

A curious traveler. A forbidden tomb. A name best left unspoken. When Mr. Wraxall digs into the past of a long-dead Swedish nobleman, he unearths more than just history. Something stirs beneath the surface—something ancient, waiting, watching. Count Magnus is a masterpiece of restrained horror by...

An Episode of Cathedral History is one of M. R. James's most quietly chilling tales—a masterwork of subtle horror, antiquarian mystery, and creeping dread. Behind the stone walls of a venerable English cathedral, the past stirs with a presence that should have remained undisturbed. In this...

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...

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas draws its listener into a labyrinth of ancient secrets, cryptic clues, and a warning that should never have been ignored. In this masterwork of antiquarian dread, M. R. James summons a world where curiosity is a dangerous impulse, and knowledge—particularly the hidden...

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 Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance is M. R. James at his most disquieting: where festive streets darken quickly, dreams twist into warnings, and something grotesque walks just beyond the edge of understanding. Blending holiday cheer with a creeping sense of dread, this tale invites...

A new Latin master. A strange sentence. A figure at the window. When boys at a quiet English school begin seeing things that shouldn't be there—and writing things they don't understand—a mystery begins to unfold, darker than any textbook could explain. In A School Story , M. R. James blends...

An Evening's Entertainment is a tale that lives up to its deceptively quaint title, offering not comfort, but a slow, tightening dread. In the hands of master ghost-storyteller M. R. James, a quiet rural setting becomes the stage for something far more sinister—where folklore whispers, tradition...

Some histories refuse to stay buried. In A Neighbour's Landmark , M. R. James offers a haunting meditation on place, memory, and the quiet persistence of old wrongs. Through gentle suggestion and masterful restraint, James evokes a creeping dread rooted in the land itself—a whisper of something...

There is no Number 13 at the hotel. At least, there isn't supposed to be. But when shadows stretch in the wrong direction and the architecture begins to forget its own shape, what starts as a quiet academic stay becomes something else entirely. Elegant, unsettling, and steeped in the unseen,...

Author Montague Rhodes James, known as M.R. James, who lived from 1862–1936, was a most distinguished medievalist, biblical scholar and antiquarian who served as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge and of Eton College in England.

In M. R. James' klassischer Geistergeschichte „Kanonikus Alberics Sammlung" begibt sich ein englischer Gelehrter im Jahr 1883 in die abgelegene französische Stadt Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges. Dort entdeckt er in der Kathedrale ein mysteriöses Manuskript, das einst dem Kanonikus Alberic gehörte ...

In M. R. James’ klassischer Erzählung "Verlorene Herzen“ wird der zwölfjährige Waisenjunge Stephen Elliott im Jahr 1811 von seinem entfernten Verwandten, ...

Erleben Sie die unheimliche Geschichte Nummer 13 von Montague Rhodes James, gelesen von Alexander Wohnhaas. In dieser atmosphärischen Erzählung ...