Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Collected Ghost Stories by Montague Rhodes James ISBN: 1-85326-053-3 Publisher: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Co. Pub. Date: August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Ghost Story Writer of All Time
Comment: M.R. James has many imitators and if you've read any ghost story anthologies at all, you're probably already acquainted with him. "Casting the Runes" and "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You, My Lad" are probably his two most collected stories, but they're all good. I still shiver through every one of them, and I've read all of his stories at least a hundred times (well, maybe ten times). His usual protagonist is an elderly (or elderly seeming) scholar, British of course, who gets himself into horrible, occult trouble by going where he shouldn't go or reading what he shouldn't read.
There are other good writers of ghostly tales: Sheridan LeFanu, Charles Dickens, E.F. Benson, Shirley Jackson, etc.; and Ramsey Clark once wrote a short story in the style of M.R. James that almost could have been written by the Master, himself. However, if you haven't already read M.R. James' "Collected Ghost Stories", please do so. He is the writer by which all others in this difficult genre are measured.
Rating: 5
Summary: Definitely not Lovecraft....you can say that again !
Comment: M.R. James is nothing like Lovecraft, though he did influence H.P.L. in some respects ( though not as much as Dunsany, Blackwood, Machen and others ). James was a master of the subtle, 'antiquarian' ghost story, whereas Lovecraft was more interested in aeon-old daemonic unspeakable horrors and cyclopean eldritch shamblers from unnameable nether pits of cosmic unfathomable darkness, so to speak! He ( Lovecraft ) wrote some effective stories but they don't really bear comparison with those of James, who could elicit more fear in a couple of sentences than H.P.L. could in a whole story.
M.R. James may well be the most famous of early modern ghost/supernatural fiction writers but he certainly isn't the 'father' of the ghost or horror story, nor is he the best, in the opinion of many afficionados. In fact, he himself was directly influenced by the true father of the psychological ghost story, J.Sheridan LeFanu. James openly acknowledged his admiration and debt to LeFanu and those who enjoy James should definitely try reading LeFanu - his 'Best Ghost Stories' published by Dover are also available from Amazon.com and are a must for anyone with an interest in supernatural fiction. There are so many great writers who are the equal of or superior to James who have been unjustly neglected over the years, including Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions, Robert Aickman, and Fritz Leiber to name just a few. To all who've enjoyed the wonderfully creepy tales of the late provost, I whole-heartedly recommend these sadly forgotten masters of the ghostly tale.
Rating: 5
Summary: SPIFFING!
Comment: I wonder whether Mr John Major (remember him?) has read these stories. They are the English of the English (more than you could say for him I guess) and evoke the sort of idealised tranquil Albion that I suppose he was harking after when he tried to present a vision of spinsters cycling through the eventide and so forth. If he has I trust he found them not unsplendid, as I do. I myself am Scottish although I have lived most of my life in England, and I like to think that the peculiar sense of Englishness that I get from M R James is one that a semi-foreigner can feel with special force.
The mises-en-scene are cathedrals, canal boats, rural railways etc. It is partly these warm reassuring backgrounds that give the special thrill to James's glimpses of things old and sinister lurking in odd corners of the placid landscape. He never lays the effects on with a trowel as Lovecraft keeps doing, and to judge by other reviews I have read he is found all the more effective for that. I doubt that Lovecraft ever scared anyone, but for me James's Count Magnus is a candidate for the most flesh-creeping story I know, and when I told the story of Number 13 to my son aged c 7 or 8 at his own request and believing it to be innocuous, he forbade me for years even to mention it again. James's skill does not even depend on the degree of horror in the story. Count Magnus is horrific in the extreme, but what is probably James's best-known story? I would guess Whistle and I'll Come to You, where the story itself suggests that the apparition is one that only frightens not harms, and it frightens not a bit less for that. A lot of the trick is in introducing paganism into an ostentatiously C of E context, all archdeacons and vergers, and An Episode in Cathedral History is one of the best.
Get an edition that is absolutely complete. Some of the stories, like A Neighbour's Landmark, read like ideas for stories rather than the final article, but the magic is there already and there are too few of them in total for anthologising to be sensible.
 |
Title: Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu by J. Sheridan LeFanu ISBN: 0486204154 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: June, 1964 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories (Oxford World's Classics) by M. R. James, Michael Cox ISBN: 0192837737 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: The Moonlit Road and Other Ghost and Horror Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) by Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce ISBN: 0486400565 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
