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Audiobook edition · 4 h 9 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the object you cannot resist examining is the one you should leave alone?
In A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories, M. R. James gathers six tales where curiosity opens the way to fear. Country houses, churches, and seaside holidays offer familiar ground. Yet a miniature house, an old prayer book, or borrowed binoculars brings something threatening into reach.
In the title story, Paxton searches the Suffolk coast for an ancient crown that local tradition regards as protection for the country. Elsewhere, collectors, visitors, and children listening to a grandmother’s story encounter disturbing traces of the past. Explanations come in fragments, while ordinary places grow harder to trust.
What you’ll discover
- A house worth examining The Haunted Dolls’ House turns a collector’s prized miniature into the scene of a disturbing drama.
- The past will not rest The Uncommon Prayer-Book and The Neighbour’s Landmark draw fear from old books and a troubling landscape.
- A view beyond sight A View from a Hill makes borrowed binoculars reveal countryside that ordinary eyes cannot reach.
- Treasure with a guardian A Warning to the Curious places Paxton’s search beneath the threat of a watchful supernatural presence.
- A sinister evening story An Evening’s Entertainment brings strange local activities into a grandmother’s account for listening children.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like ghost stories told in a calm voice, English villages and old churches, antiquarian puzzles, and a chill that grows from small, well-observed details.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A collector buys a doll's house with a past
- Prayer books lie open in a locked chapel
- A pamphlet's two lines point to Betton Wood
- A borrowed pair of binoculars shows too much
- A nervous guest confesses to a buried crown
- A grandmother warns the children off a lane
- Curiosity, greed and old wrongs drive the hauntings
- James tells each tale in a plain, quiet voice
Who’s who
- Mr DilletA collector who buys a Gothic doll's house at a bargain price and watches it come to life at night.
- Mr DavidsonAn antiquarian who finds open Prayer Books in a country chapel and sets out to learn why.
- Mr PhilipsonThe owner of Betton Court, who hosts a book-loving guest and knows more about the local wood than he first admits.
- FanshaweA scholar on holiday who borrows heavy old binoculars and sees a gallows on a hill that is wooded.
- Squire RichardsThe host of the Hall, who knew the watchmaker who made the glasses and did not like him.
- PaxtonA nervous young hotel guest who has dug up an Anglo-Saxon crown and cannot rest until it is returned.
- Henry LongThe narrator's golfing friend, who helps Paxton and listens to his strange confession.
- The GrandmotherAn old woman at the fireside who tells the children why they must never pick blackberries in one lane.
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A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories
by M. R. James · 1925
A doll's house stages a murder each night at one, while a crown draws an unseen follower.
Medium level2–5 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
What would you do if a doll's house began to act out a crime in front of you at one in the morning? That is the fate of Mr Dillet, a collector who pays about sixty guineas for a Gothic model mansion and carries it home in his car.
A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 20 min1 h 50 min fast, 2 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 33,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1925by M. R. James
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A collector buys a doll's house with a past
The first tale, The Haunted Doll's House, opens in a dealer's shop. Mr Dillet bargains with Mr Chittenden over a Gothic doll's house. The dealer asks seventy-five pounds, Mr Dillet offers fifty, and they settle near sixty guineas. Each man knows the other is playing a game.
Then the buyer drives away. Mrs Chittenden says thank God it is gone, and her husband says they will have no more of it. A seller who is glad to lose a rare prize is a seller who knows something.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1925
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 40 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
James, M. R. A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-warning-to-the-curious-and-other-ghost-stories.
James, M. R. (2026). A warning to the curious, and other ghost stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-warning-to-the-curious-and-other-ghost-stories (Original work published 1925)
James, M. R. A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-warning-to-the-curious-and-other-ghost-stories.
@book{james2026warning,
author = {James, M. R.},
title = {A Warning to the Curious, and Other Ghost Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-warning-to-the-curious-and-other-ghost-stories},
note = {First published 1925}
}
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What is A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories about?
It holds six ghost stories by M. R. James: a haunted doll's house, open Prayer Books in a chapel, a walker in a wood, enchanted binoculars, a buried crown, and a grandmother's tale of a cursed lane.
What happens in the story A Warning to the Curious?
A young man named Paxton digs up an Anglo-Saxon crown said to guard the coast, then feels followed by a figure he cannot face. Two golfing friends at the hotel listen and agree to help him.
Is A Warning to the Curious based on a true story?
No, it is fiction. James set it in a real-sounding Suffolk-like coast and used a real tale of the Rendlesham crown found in 1687 and melted down, but the Agers and Paxton are invented.
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
See all their booksMore like this
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