The Antiquary and the Crocodile

Helen Grant has published an ebook for M.R. James enthusiasts. Having read the essays on the origins and influences of MRJ's tales, I can testify to their quality and liveliness. Here is the blurb.

As she relates in the first of these articles, a move abroad found her living within a short distance of the setting of one of MRJ's tales. She could not resist visiting it, and having visited it, she wrote a piece comparing the fictional and real-life location. She went on to visit other foreign settings of MRJ's stories, and to examine other aspects of their backgrounds, including local folklore. The result is a series of eight articles spanning the period 2004 – 2008, with some later updates. All these articles originally appeared in the M.R.James Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter. This eBook was produced with the aim of collecting the articles in one place for the benefit of anyone with a scholarly interest in the stories of M.R.James.

The book is non-fiction but contains a fiction extra, "The Game of Bear."