Just as Stephen King is regarded as the best and most popular living American horror writer, James Herbert is arguably the finest living British author in the horror genre. A contemporary of King’s, Herbert also made his debut at around the same time – the mid-seventies – with his horror novel Rats. A chilling disaster novel featuring giant, man-eating rats, Herbert’s first book is very different from many of the later books which cemented his reputation at the forefront of supernatural fiction. Today, he is better known for supernatural scares rather than the science fiction horror of Rats and his other early novels, The Fog, Lair and Domain. The Survivor and Shrine, for example, are ghost stories, whilst in Haunted Herbert introduced the psychic investigator and ghost hunter David Ash, who was later to reappear in The Ghosts of Sleath. Other novels by Herbert could almost be classed as straight thrillers, with few traditional horror elements. Books that can be included in this category are The City, Sepulchre and Spear, all of which include conspiracy theories or unsolved mysteries at their heart. All of this demonstrates that Herbert, like King, is actually a hugely versatile as well as talented writer, not restricted by genre labels. Another thing that Herbert has in common with King, as the recent BBC adaptation of his novel The Secret of Crickley Hall shows, is that he is fast becoming the darling of film and TV.
Top Posts & Pages
Liddell’s Ghost
Click image to read my short story, 'Liddell’s Ghost' in Cygnus, the Journal of Speculative Fiction.
Changed
Click image to read my short story 'Changed' in The Cynic Online Magazine.
First Date
Click image to read my short story 'First Date' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
Ghost Walk
Click image to read my short story 'Ghost Walk' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
M R James
-
Ghosts of Christmas Past
‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
-
M R James’s Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll […]
-
A Warning to the Curious
Here’s a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
-
Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn’t much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
-
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here’s a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I’ve been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
Posts I Like
Ghost Cities 