Other editions of book The Five Jars

The great M. R. James is the undisputed master of the ghost story. So what happened when he set his sights on writing a fairy tale? Nothing less than eerily bewitching magic... In this brilliant tale which takes the form of a letter to a girl called Jane, the unnamed main character, a man much like James himself, a studious and quiet gentleman, tells of his strange experiences recently. His five senses have been behaving oddly lately - he begins to hear whispering words in the rush of a stream; stopping for a rest, he dreams of a strange plant growing between tree-roots in a wood through which the stream runs. On waking, and led along by the stream's whispering, he finds that the place and the plant are indeed real. He eats part of it, and a very peculiar thing happens - suddenly he can see under the ground! Astonished and fascinated, he walks on. To his amazement, his new deeper vision enables him to spy, buried a few inches beneath the surface, a mysterious metallic box. Intrigued, he digs it up, but it seems completely sealed. Late that night, back in his room, just when the moon shines directly onto the box, cracks appear! Inside are five jars, with odd ancient writing on them giving tantalizing hints of what their contents might be able to do... Now begins a fascinating journey into a world none of us mere mortals can usually see: a world of weird enchantment, where all is not as it seems, where fantastic beauty is commonplace, where strange beings are hidden just out of sight everywhere, and yet disturbing danger lurks around every corner... Told in James' matter-of-fact prose, this journey into the unknown stirs rich colours into a cloud of imaginative fancy, stunningly creating an alternative world, just next to ours, which is both captivating and eerie. This edition contains 7 evocative illustrations by Gilbert James, which are precursors, in their combination of fine line-work and otherworldly atmosphere, to the work of Edward Gorey. Montague Rhodes James was born in 1862 at Goodnestone in Kent. He attended King's College, Cambridge, and later became its provost, leaving to take up the provost's position at Eton College. He published many scholarly antiquarian works, but quickly became known for his ghost stories, which are now recognized as the finest in the genre; of these, four collections were published. He died at Eton in 1936.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Here is a fascinating journey into a world none of us mere mortals can usually see: a world of weird enchantment, where all is not as it seems, where fantastic beauty is commonplace, where strange beings are hidden just out of sight everywhere, and yet disturbing danger lurks around every corner… Told in James’ matter-of-fact prose, this journey into the unknown stirs rich colours into a cloud of imaginative fancy, stunningly creating an alternative world, just next to ours, which is both captivating and eerie.

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

Here is a fascinating journey into a world none of us mere mortals can usually see: a world of weird enchantment, where all is not as it seems, where fantastic beauty is commonplace, where strange beings are hidden just out of sight everywhere, and yet disturbing danger lurks around every corner… Told in James’ matter-of-fact prose, this journey into the unknown stirs rich colours into a cloud of imaginative fancy, stunningly creating an alternative world, just next to ours, which is both captivating and eerie.

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