&I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould & of a cold kind of face pressed against my own& Considered by many to be the most terrifying writer in English M R James was an eminent scholar who spent his entire adult life in the academic surroundings of Eton & Cambridge His classic supernatural tales draw on the terrors of the everyday in which documents & objects unleash terrible forces often in closed rooms & night-time settings where imagination runs riot Lonely country houses remote inns ancient churches or the manuscript collections of great libraries provide settings for unbearable menace from creatures seeking retribution & harm These stories have lost none of their power to unsettle & disturb This edition presents all of James&s published ghost stories including the unforgettable & Oh Whistle & I&ll Come to You My Lad& & & Casting the Runes& & an appendix of James&s writings on the ghost story Darryl Jones&s introduction & notes provide a fascinating insight into James&s background & his mastery of the genre he made his own