Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

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One picture, “The dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night”, proves to be particularly compelling…and why is the sacristan so eager to get rid of a book so obviously of great value?

First edition, first impression, with the publisher's adverts dated November 1904, in notably bright condition. Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) began writing ghost stories upon entering Cambridge in 1882 and quickly become known for his candlelit readings.

Most were composed to be read aloud for the entertainment of James's colleagues and students at Christmas gatherings, held annually in his rooms at King's College, Cambridge, where James was a fellow and, later, Dean. With re-reading in later life, I’ve come to appreciate the steady pace and I’ve come to see that the “slowness” I perceived at first, was made up of text that is full of tiny suggestions, hints and clues as to what is to come.

Titles and decoration on both the spine and cover remain bright, but cloth shows moderate discoloration and small rubbed areas. When he has you thoroughly involved and at your most somnambulant, it is only then that the inexplicable suddenly rears its head, usually byway of a few powerful images that change the dream to nightmare. There are some tiny red speckles in a small area in the top margin of p39, a few light brown spots in the top margin of pp 117-8, and the final page has a couple of marked areas. With the illustrated bookplate of Alex Bridge to the front pastedown, and his inscription, dated 21. With a contemporary ink inscription to the front free endpaper, dated December 25th 1911, and a Blackwell's bookseller's label to the front pastedown.My personal favorite story of James' from the first eight stories is "Lost Hearts," a story about a young orphaned boy who is adopted by his eccentric uncle, and begins to become disturbed by sights of two other children - children who match the description of ones whom his uncle had previously taken into his care and then they disappeared without trace. R. James that they could employ an alternative illustrator, but the author wanted the book to stand as testament to his friend’s work, so they kept it to the four. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings. James doesn’t expand on his creatures, they appear and disappear with scarcely a word of explanation, but they linger menacingly in the reader’s imagination long after the story ends. Mark Gatiss wrote and directed adaptations of "The Mezzotint" and "Count Magnus" for the Ghost Story for Christmas series in 2021 and 2022 respectively. There is often a quiet scholarly person as the main protagonist, and the settings are often rural, or a musty old library or church.

This lulls the reader into a false sense of security thereby emphasising the horror of the supernatural forces which are inevitable in an M. Das eBook „Ghost Stories of an Antiquary“ von Montague Rhodes James enthält ein paar Gruselstories, die es echt in sich haben. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” was written as two collections, presented here as two volumes in a single work. The disparate artistic styles really work in the book's favour and provide a wonderful counterpoint to the imagery from prevoius illustrations and BBC adaptations. A school story -- The rose garden -- The tractate Middoth -- Casting the runes -- The stalls of Barchester Cathedral -- Martin's Close -- Mr.

We are often left at the end of these stories with the feeling that it’s not over, as in The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, where the greed for treasure drives Mr Somerton literally into the arms (or tentacles) of a supernatural creature.

Light edge rubbing to covers with slight creasing to the top of the front cover and a tiny chip at the bottom of the spine. He took the 18th century fictional convention of horror stories, known as ‘Gothic’, from their settings of dark ruined Castles or damp claustrophobic dungeons where danger or the unknown lurked, and showed that the past can have a more disturbing hold over the present than that conjured by those stereotypes. Many of them were written to be read aloud, as there was a tradition in Victorian families of reading spooky tales aloud on Christmas Eve. In Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to you, My Lad, the object is an ancient bronze whistle that terrifies Professor Parkins to near insanity. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Volume 2 comprises graphic adaptations of four spine-chilling stories by M.