A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings

Edited by Christopher Roden and Barbara Roden. Introduction by Steve Duffy.

The ghost stories of M. R. James need no introduction. They are widely considered the very best classical supernatural tales ever committed to paper, and a testimony to their quality and universal appeal is the fact that James's Collected Ghost Stories has remained in print since its first publication in 1931. James's ghost stories are a towering achievement, and they continue to dominate the genre more than a century after they first began to appear.

Ash-Tree Press has published collections by many of the writers who followed James and sought to emulate him, and is now proud to have published A Pleasing Terror, which collects all of M. R. James's writings on the supernatural. In addition to the thirty-three stories from Collected Ghost Stories, this volume includes a further three stories, seven story drafts left amongst his papers, all of his introductions and prefaces to his various collections, and his article 'Stories I Have Tried to Write'. In addition, there are the texts of twelve medieval ghost stories discovered and published by James, all of his articles about the ghost story, and his writings on J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

James's many letters also discussed supernatural matters, and A Pleasing Terror includes a selection written to his friend Gwendolen McBryde; and those he wrote to the young Sybil Cropper — which touch on many of the ideas he later developed into his fantasy novel for younger readers, The Five Jars. The complete text of this novel is included, together with James's spoof of Doctor Faustus, the play Auditor and Impresario, which is reprinted here for the first time in almost seventy-five years.

Much important Jamesian scholarship has been produced in recent years, and some of the more important articles are reproduced in A Pleasing Terror. The thirty-three completed ghost stories are fully annotated, and a bibliography provides a starting point for further research. Biographical details are provided by S. G. Lubbock's A Memoir of Montague Rhodes James, and the volume is introduced by Steve Duffy, and has a preface by Christopher and Barbara Roden. Each story is illustrated by Paul Lowe, who has shown himself to be one of the finest interpreters of the ghostly vision of M. R. James.

The 712 pages of A Pleasing Terror bring together all of James's collected ghost stories, and much more besides. The full list of contents is as follows:

Preface by Christopher Roden and Barbara Roden; Introduction by Steve Duffy; A Memoir of Montague Rhodes James by S. G. Lubbock;
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY: Preface; Canon Alberic's Scrap-book; Lost Hearts; The Mezzotint; The Ash-tree; Number 13; Count Magnus; 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'; The Treasure of Abbot Thomas;
MORE GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY: Preface; A School Story; The Rose Garden; The Tractate Middoth; Casting the Runes; The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral; Martin's Close; Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance;
A THIN GHOST AND OTHERS: Preface; The Residence at Whitminster; The Diary of Mr Poynter; An Episode of Cathedral History; The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance; Two Doctors;
A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES: Acknowledgments; The Haunted Dolls' House; The Uncommon Prayer-Book; A Neighbour's Landmark; A View from a Hill; A Warning to the Curious; An Evening's Entertainment;
OTHER GHOST STORIES: Preface to Collected Ghost Stories (1931); There was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard; Rats; After Dark in the Playing Fields; Wailing Well; The Experiment; The Malice of Inanimate Objects; A Vignette;
FRAGMENTS: The Fenstanton Witch; Marcilly-le-Hayer; John Humphreys; A Night in King's College Chapel; The Game of Bear; Speaker Lenthall's Tomb; Merfield House;

TWELVE MEDIEVAL GHOST-STORIES

ARTICLES: Stories I Have Tried to Write; Some Remarks on Ghost Stories; Ghosts—Treat Them Gently!; Ghost Story Competition; Introduction for Ghosts & Marvels; The Novels and Stories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu; MRJ's Prologue to Madam Crowl's Ghost; MRJ's Epilogue to Madam Crowl's Ghost; MRJ's Introduction to Uncle Silas; Letters: MRJ to Gwendolen McBryde; Letters to a Child;

THE FIVE JARS: MRJ's delightful supernatural novel for younger people;

AUDITOR AND IMPRESARIO: A spoof on Dr Faustus from the pages of The Cambridge Review

APPENDICES: I: James Wilson's Secret by Rosemary Pardoe and Jane Nicholls; II: The Black Pilgrimage by Rosemary Pardoe and Jane Nicholls; III: Irony and Horror: The Art of M. R. James by Samuel D. Russell; IV: Ghosts in Medieval Yorkshire by Jacqueline Simpson; V: An M. R. James Letter Introduced and annotated by Jack Adrian

M. R. JAMES: A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. R. JAMES ON FILM, RADIO, AND TELEVISION.

A Pleasing Terror annotates all of the stories written by M. R. James, and there are thirty-three illustrations by Paul Lowe.