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A somewhat more mixed selection than the first volume, but very worthwhile. This second Penguin volume features the master's later stories, which I would have to agree with fan consensus aren't usually up to the standard of his earlier classics. That being said, lesser M. R. James is rarely less than entertaining, and even the poorer ones have some merit. I have read much criticism of Two Doctors, but I think it's a decent enough tale featuring a chrysalis dream sequence of pure nightmare imager...
It was a small book with three short stories (that were supposed to be scary) that I picked up randomly from the local bookshop. I am already a bit wary of Horror genre and it's difficult to convince myself that you can actually get scared by "reading Horror stories".The stories with complicated prose were an utter disappointment and reading them actually felt like a task. Hopefully someday I might pick up a book from Horror genre again and actually get scared.
An anthology of M. R. James chilling ghost stories.Contains several of my favourites including the title story and "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad."Just the thing for a quiet Sunday afternoon.
This story had a lot of potential, which it sadly did not meet. Instead, the doll house simply recounts every night how a series of murderers occurred in the home it was designed after.
The other anthologies for his stories were better. Think this one had the weakest of the batch, but still entertaining to read. Think my favorite was just the little medieval ghost stories due to how funny some of them were. This guy sees a horse walking upright and tells it to stop and it does lmao or the other dude that gets so sick after every time he talks to this one ghost even though he was doing it a solid by dedicating 180 masses to it like come on jdjdshjs the past is funny tbh
In my opinion, the stories in the first volume (Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories) were more memorable. However, this is still an excellent collection of ghost stories. The articles in the appendix were also very interesting as they illuminated James' thoughts on writing and what makes for a good ghost story.
M.R. James is meant to be one of the best writers of ghost stories, and certainly his beginnings are very atmospheric. He is very good at scene-setting and building you up... Only for a number of his stories to end in 2 maybe 3 paragraphs; the supernatural equivalent of "they all went home for tea".Some of the stories are really good - I particularly enjoyed "A Warning to the Curious", "Rats", and "the Wailing Well". Plenty were really good to start (I loved the premise of "A View From A Hill")
Again, these stories are super hit or miss. The ones that hit left chills and were rather enjoyable.
This second collection of ghost stories from the early twentieth century master M.R. James pulls works from his later catalog. It has often been suggested that James' later stories fall well short of his best work, and despite editor S.T. Joshi's claims to the contrary, this largely seems to be true.James doesn't stray far from his traditional scenarios with these stories. They still mostly deal with a narrator (who irritatingly keeps interrupting throughout certain stories) who has heard rumors...
The two Penguin editions of James' ghost stories are divided up among his better (and better-known) ones, which are largely in the previous volume and his lesser works in this one. But lesser works by M.R. James are mostly still pretty great.The main claim to fame in this volume are several short stories that weren't published by James in his collections, and which are therefore not contained in the Collected Ghost Stories. Sadly, most of these aren't anything particularly great, though "The Fen...
These were quite good. They show their age but don’t suffer from the overwrought florid language of a lot of people writing fantastic fiction during this time period.Per Joshi’s introduction these later works are not a good as James’ earlier collections (this is the second set of stories Penguin has published, collecting James’ 3rd and 4th collections); I’ll need to track down a cheap copy of the other Penguin volume based on the strength of these.
I loved this book. I think that it is hard to find really good ghost stories. These are great! If you like Victorian fiction, you should love these.
In this second collection of M.R. James's ghost stories, the quality begins to fade. I sense he was running out of ideas.There are two standout pieces: 'A Warning to the Curious' ranks as one of his best stories. The title story is a rehashing of his previous work, 'The Mezzotint', but is still entertaining. Unfortunately, there's little else of note.
I was unfamiliar with the author and his stories. I bought this book as a gift for a friend and she loved it. I also enjoyed the stories. We are now both going to read the first volume of the author's ghost stories.
These stories were more gothic than horror. I didn't think The Haunted Dolls' House was particularly good but some of the other stories were entertaining but not memorable. There was a strange one about a dead hairy man stalking people and a witch one that i thought was ok.
