The great M. R. James is the undisputed master of the ghost story.
So what happened when he set his sights on writing a fairy tale?
Nothing less than eerily bewitching magic... In this brilliant tale
which takes the form of a letter to a girl called Jane, the unnamed
main character, a man much like James himself, a studious and quiet
gentleman, tells of his strange experiences recently. His five
senses have been behaving oddly lately - he begins to hear
whispering words in the rush of a stream; stopping for a rest, he
dreams of a strange plant growing between tree-roots in a wood
through which the stream runs. On waking, and led along by the
stream's whispering, he finds that the place and the plant are
indeed real. He eats part of it, and a very peculiar thing happens
- suddenly he can see under the ground Astonished and fascinated,
he walks on. To his amazement, his new deeper vision enables him to
spy, buried a few inches beneath the surface, a mysterious metallic
box. Intrigued, he digs it up, but it seems completely sealed. Late
that night, back in his room, just when the moon shines directly
onto the box, cracks appear Inside are five jars, with odd ancient
writing on them giving tantalizing hints of what their contents
might be able to do... Now begins a fascinating journey into a
world none of us mere mortals can usually see: a world of weird
enchantment, where all is not as it seems, where fantastic beauty
is commonplace, where strange beings are hidden just out of sight
everywhere, and yet disturbing danger lurks around every corner...
Told in James' matter-of-fact prose, this journey into the unknown
stirs rich colours into a cloud of imaginative fancy, stunningly
creating an alternative world, just next to ours, which is both
captivating and eerie. This edition contains 7 evocative
illustrations by Gilbert James, which are precursors, in their
combination of fine line-work and otherworldly atmosphere, to the
work of Edward Gorey. Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 at
Goodnestone in Kent. He attended King's College, Cambridge, and
later became its provost, leaving to take up the provost's position
at Eton College. He published many scholarly antiquarian works, but
quickly became known for his ghost stories, which are now
recognized as the finest in the genre; of these, four collections
were published. He died at Eton in 1936.
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