M.R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has everproduced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are alsosuperb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing backgroundand chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. James,Stories I Have Tried To Write , which accompanies these thirty tales.Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, MyLad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic'sScrapbook'. There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have thejoy of reading them for the first time. For me, M.R. James is one of these. Ruth Rendall