A college clock strikes eleven on a winter’s evening in the historic university town of Cambridge at the end of the nineteenth century. In Dr James’s rooms a group of friends is gathered. A fire flickers in the grate while some of the guests help themselves to whisky from a decanter on the sideboard. Silently, James places a lighted candlestick by his chair, shuffles his papers a little, and begins to read...

This is how the classic ghost stories of M. R. James were presented to the world. For the first time, in this definitive, critically-acclaimed four-part recording, are collected all of James’s published tales of ‘pleasing terror’.

The 8 stories featured in Part One are: Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book; Lost Hearts; Count Magnus; Number 13; ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’; The Mezzotint; The Ash-tree; The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.