2006-08-16 The very best of English supernatural fiction!

For anyone who can think of no better way to spend a dark winters' evening than to curl up by the fire and read a good ghost story, then this book is for you. M.R. James, perhaps the most famous of all English supernaturalists, delivers stories of such consistent quality and style that it is difficult to think of anyone, except perhaps Algernon Blackwood, that ever has or ever will match him. James' stories reflect an England that has long since faded into memory. He himself was a lifelong academic and a highlight of the Christmas term for his students would be an invite to his study where they would hear his latest tale of terror. These stories are beautifully crafted with an elegant prose that conjours up an age long since past. Despite being written over eighty years ago these stories have not lost their ability to send shivers down the spine and indeed on occasion, even shock. With James' work, it is often the unexpected that leaves a lingering shadow in the readers mind long after the book has been put down. Highlights and true classics of supernatural fiction, include his most famous tale 'Oh Whistle, and I'll Come To You My Lad' and other genre classics such as ' Lost Hearts,' 'The Mezzotint,' and 'The Ash Tree.' So imagine , if you will, it is night, you are sitting in an old leather arm chair alone in a dark room, you are drifting off to sleep. Your arm falls from your side and your hand brushes something that is crouching in the dark on the floor beside you. It is large, the size of a man, but it is covered in thick coarse hair and it has started to rise!