James developed a clear formula for his ghost stories, which usually runs: bachelor who is either a scholar or collector of antiquities (or something history-related) comes into possession of an object from the past and then wishes he hadn’t.Īnd this story, the final pick in this selection of James’s best ghost stories, largely conforms to this pattern. Did Haynes have something to do with the death of his predecessor? The narrator thinks so.īy now it should be apparent that M. But he soon begins to be haunted by strange, carved figures in the stalls of Barchester Cathedral. ‘ The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral’.Īn archdeacon dies in mysterious circumstances and his replacement, an ambitious man named Haynes, settles into the role. This is a slightly unusual James story in that it ends happily (not to give away too many spoilers), with the announcement of a marriage, though it doesn’t end happily for all parties.ĩ. A mysterious figure, a clergyman dressed in black and shrouded in cobwebs, also appears in search of the document, which, it transpires, contains a key piece of evidence regarding the inheritance of a family estate. James universe, it’s that you should never disturb concealed treasure, and if you do, you should promptly put it back …Ī university librarian is tasked with locating a tractate (a kind of treatise or essay) in the library. And in this story, a scholar of medieval history (so far, so quintessential James) recounts how he found a series of clues which led him to hidden treasure: gold which belonged to an abbot. James’s ghost stories, objects are usually the link between the present and some horrifying past.

Is this tree somehow connected to the events of fifty years earlier? Half a century later, the landowner’s grandson takes up residence in the same house, and discovers the ash-tree in the grounds of the estate is causing problems.

Witchcraft is the main subject of this James tale, which takes us back to 1690 and a witch trial.Ī landowner ensures a local woman is condemned as a witch and subsequently executed, but this same landowner dies shortly afterwards in mysterious circumstances. Severe arachnophobes may wish to skip this story, because of its ending, but it’s a classic James story so is well worth reading.

The collected ghost stories of mr james