3 h 36 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A sound in the next room. A shape beneath a sheet. How little does it take to make you afraid?
In A Thin Ghost and Others, M. R. James brings scholars, clergymen, travellers and collectors into contact with something old and troubling. Libraries, churches and country houses offer familiar shelter, but the past holds dark secrets. These five ghost stories let fear gather slowly, until an ordinary room no longer feels safe.
The collection explores scholars who walk into old trouble, ordinary places that hide old wrongs, and dread built from what remains unseen. A movement at the corner of the eye or a touch that feels wrong carries the threat. James pairs this quiet unease with a dry sense of humour, keeping terror close to everyday life.
What you’ll discover
- Curiosity meets old trouble Follow antiquaries and collectors whose love of the past brings them close to danger.
- Familiar places turn uneasy Enter cathedral closes, village inns and university rooms where ordinary surroundings conceal old wrongs.
- The terror of half glimpses Watch a shape, a movement or a sound make the unseen feel terribly near.
- Restraint that deepens fear Discover how dread grows without grand villains or long speeches about evil.
- Humour beside the shadows Enjoy a dry sense of humour alongside the collection’s slow and quiet horror.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dying boy's warning haunts Whitminster
- A pretty pattern brings an ugly guest
- A cracked tomb stirs under the choir
- A rector vanishes and a puppet show waits
- Two physicians and a bundle of statements
- How the five tales are told
Who’s who
- Lord SaulA pale Irish viscount of sixteen who is sent to Whitminster as a pupil and who seems to be drawn to graveyards.
- Dr. AshtonA strongly built and stern prebendary of Whitminster who takes in two boys and keeps a careful diary of what follows.
- Mary OldysDr. Oldys's niece, fond of novels, who looks into a glass tablet found in the garden of the old prebendal house.
- James DentonAn antiquary at Rendcomb Manor who buys an old diary and has a pattern from it copied for his new curtains.
- Mr. WorbyThe head verger of Southminster, who knows the cathedral's secrets and tells the story of its altar tomb.
- Mr. LakeA scholar sent to study the cathedral's archives, who lodges with Worby and writes down his story.
- W. R.A letter writer who goes to a country town to help search for his missing uncle, the rector.
- Dr. QuinnA plain, honest Islington physician in 1718 who is troubled by dreams of a chrysalis.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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A Thin Ghost and Others
by M. R. James · 1919
A sick boy begs his aunt to stop the minster clock, and Lord Saul is summoned to the study at Whitminster.
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In short
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.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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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.
The author
M. R. James
1862–1936 · English ghost story writer
M. R. James was an English medieval scholar — Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and later of Eton — who became the acknowledged master of the English ghost story. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary collects the first and most famous of his quietly terrifying tales.
More by M. R. James
All 3 booksMore like this
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