Original and Excellent: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Part 1

Montague Rhodes James is a memorable name, to say the least, which is part of the reason that I was so surprised that I had absolutely no memory of having heard it before I read Lovecraft sing the praises of his ghost stories in his essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature."

James wrote quite a bit in his day, but he's apparently best known for his ghost stories. Several of them were collected in a two volume collection called Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, and today I'm talking about the first volume specifically.

Justice, Duty, Mercy, and Revenge: A Surprisingly Good Ghost Story

Let's be honest: lazily-written ghost stories are pretty common. That's not what I'm talking about today.

"The Ghost Guard" by Bryan Irvine (Archive version or Wikisource version) is a surprisingly good ghost story. One that, in the veil of a fairly trite genre, managed to say, or at least hint, interesting things about valuable ideas like justice, duty, mercy, and revenge.

It's not unpredictable, and it's not complex, but it does a good job of building up atmosphere and a peculiar sense of ambivalence about the main character.