Ghost stories are a literary genre known since ancient times. Ghost stories can be found in the books of ancient writers, in oral folk tales and even in the scrolls of ancient Egypt. It is likely that the existence of ghosts confused and fascinated people at a time when writing had not yet been invented. The English writer and historian Montague Rhodes James devoted all of his fiction to this genre, becoming the greatest master of “ghost stories.” His work was admired by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Jorge Luis Borges and Stephen King. Many of his stories were filmed, and the author's name invariably appears in all lists of the most significant writers who worked in the genre of mysticism. This edition includes selected stories about ghosts by M. R. James, each of which is an undisputed masterpiece of short prose.