The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories (Complete Ghost Stories 2)

By M.R. James

Book Overview

Stories by a visionary master of supernatural fiction

In volume two of the only annotated edition of M. R. James's complete writings currently available, Penguin Classics brings together tales from James's final two works, A Thin Ghost and Others and A Warning to the Curious. In these stories, James continues his fearsome transformation of the ghost story from its nineteenth-century heritage, drawing upon his deep knowledge of medieval history and biblical curiosa. This edition features a number of little-known tales that have rarely been assembled, including "The Fenstation Witch," presented here for the first time in a corrected text, a new translation of "Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories," and a number of James's essays.

Edited and with an introduction and notes by S. T. Joshi.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014303992X
• ISBN13: 9780143039921
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The greatest ghost stories ever written

For several years when she was growing up my daughter and I made a habit of from time to time gathering all the candles we can muster, lighting them, turn off the electrical lights and reading one of the stories in this collection. What Conan Doyle is to the detective story, James is to the ghost story. These are not horror stories. No gore is to be found, no monsters, no savagery. One can find a subtle horror, a persistent sense that there are things in this world that we have either forgotten or never discovered. If one has ever engaged in any historical research on the occult (which I have undertaken as an extreme nonbeliever), one will come across several ancient books and manuscripts in the field that were edited by M. R. James. He was not merely the writer of perfect ghost stories; he was an authority in the field of occult beliefs and practices. This concrete grounding accounts for much of the realistic feel to the researches of many of the characters in his stories.

Great Victorian Ghost Stories

If you like the style of Victorian ghost stories, in the best English tradition, you'll greatly enjoy this collection of stories by M.R. James, and it's companion volume, Vol. 1. In most of the stories the horror is oblique, but present and able to deliver delicious shivers on dark stormy nights (or on bright, sunny afternoons, for that matter). If you like Arthur Conan Doyle's ghost stories, you'll definitely enjoy this collection.