Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904 original; edició 2011)

Please note that I gave this 3.5 stars but since Goodreads does not have half stars I rounded up to 4 stars.

These are not your typical horror stories. I did like them though. James has a subtle style to his writing and stories. I think that he assumes his readers are going to imagine more things that can be worse than what he will write so a lot of things are left to your imagination in some of the stories.

The stories are the following:

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book"-3 stars. Not very scary. And I am going to say I did a lot of wait what while reading this one.

"Lost Hearts"- 5 stars. I loved this one from beginning to end. So good! Maybe because once you as a reader realize what is going on you want to keep the main character safe (who was a boy at the time of the story).

"The Mezzotint"-3 stars. This was honestly pretty boring to me. Not terrible, just not very interesting.

"The Ash-tree"-3 stars. I thought it was an interesting idea that fell kind of flat. This one I had to read twice because I found myself skimming too much to get to the punchline.

"Number 13"-5 stars. This one was really good and I have to say nothing with 13 in it is ever going to be good news!

"Count Magnus"-2.5 stars. Once again, just not very interesting to me and I did find myself skimming this story.

"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad''-3 stars. I don't understand what was going on in this story at all. I think the unknown is supposed to be scary in this one, but to me it seemed easily gotten rid of (the big bad) that I don't know how scared I was supposed ot be by it.

"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas"-2.5 stars. Wish that maybe Lost Hearts had been the last one for this collection instead of this one. Once again though I understand what M.R. James was trying to do, I just found it lackluster in execution. ( )

Real witches have friends
the kind that come out at night
creeping to your room. ( )

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James  
A fantastic collection of creepy atmospheric horror tales written back in the day. I felt that these stories lost nothing with the passage of time. In fact, I appreciated the fact that these tales weren't gory at all. I guess I've gotten used to explicit scenes in my horror, and these shorts served to remind me that blood and guts don't necessarily have to play a part. My imagination often supplies something scarier than the author may have intended and I like that. I highly recommend this excellent, (free for Kindle), collection. ( )

DNF

Although I'm not big on short stories I thought this might be a fun Halloween-y thing to read. But the first one didn't do anything for me so I won't continue, it's on to something else.

Ghost stories really don't get a heck of a lot better than many of these. I've listed my individual ratings for each of the 8 stories, rating some as low as 3 (surprisingly - one of which has a reputation for being among the best, The Mezzotint) - but they are all worthwhile. The particular mood and atmosphere of the reading has an impact, I suspect - - as does whether or not you have read spoilers.
It is a pure joy to read someone write on a subject about which they are a seasoned professional (M R James being a paleographer and medievalist scholar) - and see them have a little fun with it. You can imagine the ideas coming to him as he poured over some ancient work or location and having his mind take a side trip, perhaps disturbing himself enough to encourage him to share the feeling.
Lost Hearts strikes me as a great vehicle for Tim Burton to get morbid and stylistic with. Number 13 inadvertently became a bedtime story for my 9yr old (she listened to the first 75%, then had me tell her the ending in the morning), and Oh, Whistle is among the best of the batch (illustrated in an overly-revealing way on the cover pictured).

As for anyone who finds the text too antiquated and bogged down with locations, history, and so forth - just trust it to pull you along, don't get hung up - context will give you all you need. If my 9yr old can follow enough to speculate on the resolution, we all can. Looking forward to more.

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" 5/5
"Lost Hearts" 4/5
"The Mezzotint" 3/5
"The Ash-tree" 4/5
"Number 13" 5/5
"Count Magnus" 3/5
"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad''" 5/5
"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" 3/4 ( )