The Short Story That Terrified Me Most: ‘A Warning to the Curious’

A spine-freezing incident whilst reading the ghostly tales of MR James

NOTE: This is a little outside what I usually write about, but it is in response to October’s writing prompt in Fanfare on Medium.

Photo by Julius Drost on Unsplash

Most regular readers of mine know I’m a big fan of horror. I have read and indeed written extensively in the genre. One of the greatest influences on my horror-thriller mysteries are the ghost stories of Montague Rhodes James, whose academic career at Eton College and Cambridge University was overshadowed by his literary endeavours. It was also one of MR James’s tales that sent my imagination into overdrive one night in a Jerusalem hotel, culminating in what was probably a hallucination but nonetheless chilled me to the bone.