M.R. 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.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, This 1904 classic collects the earliest ghost stories of author M.R. James. While not gruesome by any means, these classic tales of apparitions and other supernatural horrors remain chilling to this day. Features "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book," "Lost Hearts" "The Mezzotint," "The Ash-Tree," "Number 13," "Count Magnus," "'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad,'" and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas."

More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1911. The follow-up volume to "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" collects seven more of Montague Rhodes James's classic horror stories, including "A School Story," "The Rose Garden," "Casting the Runes," and "Martin's Close."

A Thin Ghost and Others by M. R. James. M.R. James has been credited (perhaps unfairly) with creating the ghost story genre. But what most people don't know is that he was also a respected Medieval scholar. A Thin Ghost and Others is M. R. James' third collection of ghost stories, published in 1919.