A PSA for those who already enjoy supernatural and weird tales or who are just starting to dabble in them and wondering who to read. Ash-Tree Press, a terrific Canadian small press, has released A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings of M. R. James in Kindle and ePub (Nook, Kobo, etc.) formats. The almost 700-page tome was first published in 2001 and is out of print. Copies go for hundreds of dollars….
You can buy the eBook version for $9.99.
Readers and writers of supernatural fiction know M. R. James…or certainly should. He is one of the very best and most influential writers of the form. His Collected Ghost Stories has been in print since it was published in 1931. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary was a book I read early on when I started devouring ghost stories. My wife and I read it aloud to each other, taking turns on the stories, and we still talk about how unnerving various scenes were despite the fact we were in a well-lit room with each other. The seed idea for my forthcoming story, “Last Testament”, came to me while listening to a live performance of James’ “The Mezzotint.”
As the page count of the print edition suggests, this is a big book. It contains not only all of James’ supernatural fiction, but also a long list of essays and letters he penned not only on his own work, but on other authors’ and the field in general. The Five Jars, a YA fantasy novel he wrote, is also in there. The stories are annotated, there are additional essays by other writers on James and supernatural fiction, and the bibliography opens the door to further study and exploration of James’ work.
In short, as the promotional copy says, this is, “…the only edition of M. R. James’s supernatural stories you will ever need.”
Learn more about the book on the Ash-Tree Press site here and then go and buy it over here. While you’re there, you can pick up lots of other fantastic Ash-Tree titles for your eReader of choice.
Enjoy.
