Résumé
Résumé de Un fantôme évanescent et autres histoires
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love candlelit ghost stories, old houses and cathedral closes, antiquaries with their diaries and letters, and quiet dread that grows out of everyday scenes and a dry sense of humour.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
A Thin Ghost and Others is a set of five ghost stories by M. R. James, a scholar of medieval manuscripts who wrote tales of fear for reading aloud among friends. The stories move between cathedral closes, country houses, an auction room and a London suburb in 1718. Each one begins in an ordinary, well-furnished world of clergymen, antiquaries, landlords and housekeepers, and each one sets something old and hungry loose in it.
In this summary you meet the five tales in turn. They are The Residence at Whitminster, The Diary of Mr. Poynter, An Episode of Cathedral History, The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, and Two Doctors. You hear who the people are, what they find, and how the dread builds, while the endings stay hidden. Let us begin at Whitminster, in December 1730, in the study of a doctor of divinity who is waiting for bad news.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A dying boy's warning haunts WhitminsterFree
- 2A pretty pattern brings an ugly guest
- 3A cracked tomb stirs under the choir
- 4A rector vanishes and a puppet show waits
- 5Two physicians and a bundle of statements
- 6How the five tales are told
Point clé 1 sur 6
A dying boy's warning haunts Whitminster
The first tale opens in December 1730 in the study of Dr. Ashton, a prebendary of the minster at Whitminster. His wife hurries in, deeply anxious. Their young nephew Frank Sydall lies gravely ill, and she begs her husband to have the minster clock stopped from chiming above the boy's bedroom. The doctor agrees and then sends for another person in the household, Lord Saul.
Saul is a thin Irish viscount of about sixteen, sent by his father, the Earl of Kildonan, to live with the Ashtons as a pupil. The Earl's letter admits that the boy wanders among old graves and that his nurse called him possessed. Saul arrives on a September night, and trouble follows him from the carriage door. A horse rears, a wheel crushes a man's foot, and soon the servants adore him while the town's maids become hard to find.
Dr. Ashton's diary then narrows to a few days. A prized black cockerel goes missing, and from a window the doctor watches the two boys at a strange game. Frank stares at something glittering in his palm, Saul stands behind him and lays a hand on his head, and Frank collapses. Fever and terror follow, and Frank cries out to be kept safe from something he sees.
A century later Dr. Henry Oldys moves into the same house with his niece Mary. A garden boy finds a smooth round glass tablet, and Mary sees scenes inside it. That night her uncle meets something dreadful in a dark, unused bedroom full of strange red flies. The housekeeper, Mrs. Maple, then finds a sealed box of keys with a note from Dr. Ashton about a locked press and a chest of drawers.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Un fantôme évanescent et autres histoires
What is A Thin Ghost and Others about?
It collects five ghost stories by M. R. James. Each takes a household, cathedral or parish and shows an old presence stirring when someone opens a box, copies a pattern, mends a tomb or sleeps on a pillow.
What does the title A Thin Ghost mean?
It comes from a saying in the first story, spoken by a sexton, that a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost.
Which stories are in A Thin Ghost and Others?
The five tales are The Residence at Whitminster, The Diary of Mr. Poynter, An Episode of Cathedral History, The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance, and Two Doctors. Each is a separate story with its own people and place.
Is A Thin Ghost and Others easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that matters here: the tales are short, the voices are lively and clear, and many are told as letters, diaries or a verger's talk by the fire, so each scene is easy to follow.
Why do the stories use diaries and letters?
M. R. James liked the idea of papers found by chance, so the tales come as letters, journals and witness statements. This gives a plain, believable voice and lets the fear build from small, concrete details.