The Stoneground Ghost Tales (Ghost Stories)

The Stoneground Ghost Tales was first published in 1912 by Heffer & Sons of Cambridge. Its author, Edmund Gill Swain (1861-1938), was a cleric, antiquary and colleague of M.R.James. Swain was born in Stockport in Cheshire and was educated at Manchester Grammar School before reading Natural Sciences at Cambridge. After ordination in 1886, he was appointed Chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge, and was one of the privileged few to enjoy the original readings of James’s famous annual Christmas ghost stories.

In 1905, Swain became vicar of Stanground—now a suburb of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire—where he resided until 1916. This erstwhile parish is the thinly-disguised location of “Stoneground”, where all of the tales in this volume are set.

The central character of The Stoneground Ghost Tales is the Rev. Roland Batchel, vicar of Stoneground. He is a gentle, avuncular protagonist who enjoys a slightly wry sense of humour, as befits an erudite, English minister of the cloth. The style and subject matter of his tales is similar to that of James’s own stories. They are mildly unsettling tales, although they lack the malevolence that characterises those of James.