James, M. R.

Sir Gerald Kelly: M. R. James (1936)

Montague Rhodes James
(1862-1936)

Montague Rhodes James was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–18), and of Eton College (1918–36).

He is best known for his ghost stories, which first appeared in four collections. ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You’ appeared in the first of these, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904). He went on to write More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925). The first hardback collected edition was published in 1931.

Select Bibliography:

1. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. London: Edward Arnold, 1904.


2. More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. London: Edward Arnold, 1911.


3. A Thin Ghost and Others. London: Edward Arnold, 1919.


4. The Five Jars. 1920. Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2008.


5. Collins, V. H., ed. Ghosts and Marvels: A Selection of Uncanny Tales from Daniel Defoe to Algernon Blackwood. Introduction by Montague R. James. London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1924.


6. [Trans.]: The Apocryphal New Testament: Being the Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypses, with Other Narratives and Fragments. 1924. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1955.


7. A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories. London: Edward Arnold, 1925.


8. Abbeys. With an Additional Chapter on ‘Monastic Life and Buildings’ by A. Hamilton Thompson. Paddington, London: The Great Western Railway, 1925.


9. Eton and King's: Recollections, mostly trivial, 1875-1925. London: Williams &​ Norgate, 1926.


10. Suffolk and Norfolk: A Perambulation of the Two Counties with Notices of Their History and Their Ancient Buildings. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1930.


11. [Trans.]: Andersen, Hans Christian. Forty-Two Stories. 1930. London: Faber & Faber, 1973.


12. The Ghost Stories of M. R. James. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., 1931.


13. The Ghost Stories of M. R. James. Ed. Michael Cox. Illustrated by Rosalind Caldecott. London: Tiger Books International, 1986.


14. ‘Casting the Runes’ and Other Ghost Stories. Ed. Michael Cox. The World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.


15. A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings. Ed. Christopher Roden & Barbara Roden. Introduction by Steve Duffy. Ashcroft, British Columbia, Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 2001.


16. Collected Ghost Stories. Ed. Darryl Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)

Biography & Secondary Literature:

Cox, Michael. M. R. James: An Informal Portrait. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1983.

Homepages & Online Information:

Wikipedia entry

M. R. James: Collected Ghost Stories (1931)