Page:James - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary .djvu/21

viii The stories themselves do not make any very exalted claim. If any of them succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.

Two of them—the first two in the volume—have appeared in print in the National Review and the Pall Mall Magazine respectively, and I wish to thank the Editors of those periodicals for kindly allowing me to republish them here. M. R. JAMES.