A Thin Ghost and Others

A forged papal seal, a country house with a very unwelcome guest, a stained-glass window that shows more than it should — M.R. James returns with five more stories built on his signature trick: ordinary scholars and clergymen stumbling into something that was better left undisturbed. Nothing jumps out. Something worse happens — it simply arrives, and won't leave.

James is credited with inventing the modern ghost story's understated dread, and this collection shows the technique at its most refined: the horror is always in what he doesn't describe.