The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance

this is the second m.r. james story that seth included in his ghost stories for christmas series (after The Diary of Mr. Poynter: A Ghost Story for Christmas, which is about HAUNTED CURTAINS!!!). this one is equally bonkers. it's a genre chimera most accurately, albeit cumbersomely, described as a f......more

The weirdness in this story appeals. It wrote as a series of letters from a man who is called to a village on the disappearance of his uncle a verger around Christmas time . The great thing about this story is that it is set at Christmas and although James told his stories at meeting around Christma......more

Arguably one of M.R. James best tales, this is almost certainly his strangest. Even its title seems to go the wrong way (I mean, shouldn’t the “appearance” come first?). Its narrative seems to ramble. Its plot seems disordered too. At the beginning, the narrator—who describes himself as one who is “i......more

I normally love MR James ghost stories but this was a bit of an odd one. A missing Rector, suspected dead, a ghostly dream and a Punch and Judy show…......more

One thing that I have learnt from plumbing the depths of MR James ghost stories is that my perception of them all being very similar stories about antiquarians and ghosts is actually quite wrong as they are all pretty different. This here being a case in point. Very strange and distant this one, almos......more