Summary
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.
Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) is one of the originators and most influential writers of supernatural fiction. Among his many honors was the Order of Merit, bestowed upon him by King George V in 1930.
S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood's Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany- Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft- A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature . He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.
