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The Haunted Dolls' House
"The Haunted Dolls' House" (1923) is a short story by M. R. James, collected by him in ''A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories'' (1925). It was commissioned by Queen Mary, wife of George V, as a miniature book for her famous Dolls' House, which can still be seen in Windsor Castle. It is in many ways a typical James story, thematically linked to other works of his, especially "The Mezzotint". Though usually considered a story for adults, it has also been claimed as children's fiction. Synopsis The story opens in the middle of a conversation between the antique dealer Mr Chittenden and his potential customer Mr Dillet. They discuss a collector's item in Chittenden's stock and haggle over it; a price is agreed, the sale is made, and Dillet leaves. Chittenden's wife comments that she is glad the thing has gone, and gone to that customer. Dillet has his purchase carefully driven home then unpacks it and examines it in detail. It is a dolls' house in Strawberry Hil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Warning To The Curious And Other Ghost Stories
''A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories'' is the title of M. R. James' fourth and final collection of ghost stories, published in 1925. Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medievalist scholar; Provost of King's College, Cambridge. He wrote many of his ghost stories to be read aloud in the long tradition of spooky Christmas Eve tales. His stories often use rural settings, with a quiet, scholarly protagonist getting caught up in the activities of supernatural forces. The details of horror are almost never explicit, the stories relying on a gentle, bucolic background to emphasise the awfulness of the otherworldly intrusions. Contents of the original edition * " The Haunted Dolls' House" * "The Uncommon Prayer-Book" * "A Neighbour's Landmark" * "A View from a Hill" * "A Warning to the Curious "A Warning to the Curious" is a ghost story by British writer M. R. James, included in his book '' A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories'' first published in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the Royal Collection Trust. The British monarch owns some of the collection in right of the Crown and some as a private individual. It is made up of over one million objects, including 7,000 paintings, over 150,000 works on paper, this including 30,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 450,000 photographs, as well as around 700,000 works of art, including tapestries, furniture, ceramics, textiles, carriages, weapons, armour, jewellery, clocks, musical instruments, tableware, plants, manuscripts, books, and sculptures. Some of the buildings which house the collection, such as Hampton Court Palace, are open to the public and not lived in by the Royal Family, whilst others, such as Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, are both residences an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Gutenberg Canada
Project Gutenberg Canada, also known as Project Gutenburg of Canada, is a Canadian digital library founded July 1, 2007 by Dr. Mark Akrigg. The website allows Canadian residents to create e-texts and download books, including those that are otherwise not in the public domain in other countries. It is not formally affiliated with the original Project Gutenberg, though both share the common objective of making public domain books available for free to the general public as e-books. Project Gutenburg Canada primarily focuses on works by Canadian authors or about Canada, as well as works in Canadian French. Distributed Proofreaders Canada began contributing ebooks to Project Gutenberg Canada when launched on December 1, 2007. Canadian public domain In Canada, the copyright period for works is 50 years after the year the author has died. Therefore, if the book was published during the author's lifetime and the author died 51 years ago or more, the book is in the Canadian public dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toby Litt
Toby Litt is an English writer and academic in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. Life Litt was born in Ampthill in 1968. He was educated at Bedford Modern School, read English at Worcester College, Oxford and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia where he was taught by Malcolm Bradbury. A short story by Toby Litt was included in the anthology ''All Hail the New Puritans'' (2000), edited by Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoe, and he has edited ''The Outcry'' (2001), Henry James's last completed novel, for Penguin in the UK. In 2003 he was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists', although his work since then has met with mixed reviews, one reviewer in the Guardian writing that his novel ''I Play the Drums in a Band Called Okay'' "goes on ... and on, and on. There is plenty of story here, but little plot, and no tension." He edited the 13th edition of ''New Writing'' (the British Cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Vignette
"A Vignette" is a ghost story written in 1935 by the British author and academic M. R. James. At just over 2,000 words, it is the shortest of his stories and was the last he wrote.Musson, JeremyHow M.R. James wove country house architecture into his ghost stories ''Country Life (magazine), Country Life'', 30 December 2021 It is an unusually autobiographical story that seems to be based on an incident in James’s early life in Great LivermereScovell, AdamAnalogue Ambles: M. R. James’ haunted childhood home Caught by the River website, 31 October 2019 when, it is said, he had an experience in a haunted Plantation. "A Vignette" was first published in November 1936 in the literary journal ''The London Mercury'' five months after his death.'A Vignette.' ''The London Mercury And Bookman'', Vol. XXXV No. 205, November, 1936, pp. 18–22 Synopsis The story begins with the garden of a country rectory, the childhood home of the narrator, which is next to a large park separated from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tractate Middoth
"The Tractate Middoth" is a short ghost story by British author M. R. James. It was published in 1911 in '' More Ghost Stories'', James's second collection of ghost stories. Plot Mr. Garrett, an employee of a university library, searches for a Mishnaic tractate for an impatient library patron named John Eldred. While searching, he encounters a black-clad clergyman who also seems interested in the book. The clergyman's appearance–his head appears to be enshrouded in cobwebs and he smells of mould and dust–causes Garrett a severe shock and he faints. He is sent home to recover and later decides to recuperate at the seaside. On the train to his destination, he meets the elderly Mrs. Simpson and her daughter, proprietors of a boarding house who offer him lodgings. Over the course of his stay, they become very friendly. The Simpsons confide in him that they are losing a struggle with a rival heir to the estate of an eccentric clergyman named Rant, who died two decades earli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ash-tree
"The Ash-tree" is a ghost story by British writer M.R. James, included in his 1904 collection '' Ghost Stories of an Antiquary''. Plot summary In 1690, the English county of Suffolk is wracked with a fear of witches. Many girls and women are accused of casting spells and causing mayhem. One such accused woman is a Mrs. Mothersole, a wealthier noblewoman who has property of her own. The only evidence of her witchcraft are eyewitness accounts by Sir Matthew Fell, the owner of a local seat named Castringham. Outside his bedroom window grows a monstrous ash tree, where on moonlit nights he would sometimes supposedly see Mrs. Mothersole climbing the trunk and snipping branches with a dagger. She always escaped and disappeared before he could catch her. Despite her pleas, she is found guilty and hanged. Before the noose is pulled, she dully intones "There will be guests at the Hall". She is buried in the local graveyard. A few weeks later, Sir Matthew and the local vicar are walking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in what is now Northern Germany. Area Definitions of what constitutes East Anglia vary. The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia, established in the 6th century, originally consisted of the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and expanded west into at least part of Cambridgeshire, typically the northernmost parts known as The Fens. The modern NUTS 3 statistical unit of East Anglia comprises Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (including the City of Peterborough unitary authority). Those three counties have formed the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia since 1976, and were the subject of a possible government devolution package in 2016. Essex has sometimes been included in definitions of East Anglia, including by the London Society o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gothic Fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poetry, Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian literature, Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë family, Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Stalls Of Barchester Cathedral
"The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" is a ghost story by British writer M. R. James, originally published in 1910. It is included in his collection ''More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary''. Plot summary Archdeacon Pultney of Barchester Cathedral dies mysteriously and the new Archdeacon Haynes takes his place. Haynes is very talented and performs the duties of his office with great zeal, however he is haunted by the carved figures in the stalls of Barchester Cathedral. Adaptations The story was adapted in 1971 for BBC's ''A Ghost Story for Christmas'' as ''The Stalls of Barchester ''The Stalls of Barchester'' is the first of the BBC's ''A Ghost Story for Christmas'' strand, first broadcast on BBC 1 at 11.00pm on 24 December 1971. Based on the story " The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" from the 1911 collection ''More Ghost ...''. References External links * * Full text of "The Stall of Barchester Cathedral"*A Podcast to the Curious Episode 13 - The Stalls of Barchester Cath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Warning To The Curious
"A Warning to the Curious" is a ghost story by British writer M. R. James, included in his book ''A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories'' first published in 1925. The tale tells the story of Paxton, an antiquarian and archaeologist who holidays in "Seaburgh" (a disguised version of Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and inadvertently stumbles across one of the three lost crowns of East Anglia, which legendarily protect the country from invasion. Upon digging up the crown, Paxton is stalked by its supernatural guardian. Written a few years after the end of the First World War, "A Warning to the Curious" ranks as one of M. R. James's bleakest stories. Synopsis The story is written in M. R. James's typical style, and uses a multi-layered narrative device to tell the tale. Time is taken to describe a pleasant traditional Victorian holiday resort, Seaburgh. The narrator states that he collects stories about the area as a result of his happy memories there as a child, and that this is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
'Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad'
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" is a ghost story by British writer M. R. James, included in his collection ''Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'' (1904). The story is named after a 1793 poem of the same name penned by Robert Burns. Plot Parkins, the protagonist, is a young "Professor of Ontography" at Cambridge University, who when the story opens is about to embark on a golfing holiday at the town of Burnstow (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the east coast of England. He has secured a room at The Globe Inn for the duration of his stay, though he is somewhat uncomfortable that the room will contain a second bed. At dinner in his College, an archaeological colleague asks him to investigate the grounds of a ruined Templar preceptory near the Globe, with a view to its suitability for a dig. On his first day at Burnstow, after a round of Golf with Colonel Wilson, another guest at the Globe, Parkins proceeds to find and examine the site of the preceptory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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