From "The Ash Tree": Everyone who has traveled over Eastern England knows the smaller country-houses with which it is studded -- the rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some eighty to a hundred acres. . . . I have to tell you of a curious series of events which happened in such a house as I have tried to describe. It is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good deal has been done to the building since the period of my story, but the essential features I have sketched are still there -- Italian portico, square block of white house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The one feature that marked out the house from a score of others is gone. As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right a great old ash tree growing within half a dozen yards of the wall, and almost or quite touching the building with its branches. I suppose it had stood there ever since Castringham ceased to be a fortified place, and since the moat was filled in and the Elizabethan dwelling-house built. At any rate, it had well-nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690. In that year the district in which the Hall is situated was the scene of a number of witch-trials. Also includes the classic M.R. James tales, "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook," "Lost Hearts," "The Mezzotint," "Number 13," "Count Magnus," "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'," and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas."

蒙塔古•罗兹•詹姆斯（Montague Rhodes James,1862－1936）

著名英国作家，中世纪研究学者，生于英格兰肯特郡，毕业于剑桥大学，先后担任过剑桥大学国王学院及伊顿公学教务长，以其创作的一系列经典灵异小说享誉欧美。通过使用更具现实主义色彩的背景设定，M.R.詹姆斯将西方灵异小说创作提升到了一个新的艺术高度。著名现代恐怖小说家H.P.洛夫克拉夫特盛赞他是“最伟大的超现实主义小说大师”。

M.R.詹姆斯生前出版有四部灵异小说集：《古文物专家的鬼故事》（Ghost Stories of an Antiquary），《古文物专家的鬼故事续》（More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary），《消瘦幽灵及其他鬼故事》（A Thin Ghost and Others），《警示好奇者及其他鬼故事》（A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories）。2005－2006年，以上四部小说集被合为两卷收入著名的经典文学丛书——企鹅经典。