Truthfully, this book was a whole lot better than I expected. Unfamiliar with the work of M.R. James, I imagined it much like the writing of Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, or one of his other contemporaries. In fact, often unlike the work of those named above, these stories are well-crafted, accessible, and bear multiple readings surprisingly well.
This collection features the stories compiled in two of his early collections, Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary, which generally depict the author, slightly altered in personality but recognisable nonetheless, discovering some dark secret hidden in an old house, an abandoned ruin, or simply a household item. Despite the formulaic pattern of storytelling employed in this anthology, the stories are both enjoyable and sufficiently chilling to withstand centuries of social change. At times almost suggestive of H.P. Lovecraft in their scale, the tales reproduced here follow James' development as a writer, an Eton professor telling A School Story to Cambridge don producing technical descriptions of the university's stained-glass windows on a Night in King's College chapel to the literary and historical authority he shows himself to be in texts such as The Tractate Middoth and Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance.