SOURCE: Sullivan, Jack. “Ghost Stories of Other Antiquaries.” In Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood, pp. 91-99. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978.

In the following excerpt from Chapter IV of his book, Sullivan looks specifically at ghost story authors who wrote in the tradition of M. R. James, especially Wakefield.

The publication of M. R. James's Ghost Stories of an Antiquary set in motion a spectral procession of tales about confrontations between antiquaries and beguilingly far-fetched horrors: in E. G. Swain's “The Place of Safety,” the Vicar of Stoneground Parish is visited at night by an order of gigantic monks from the sixteenth century; in R. H. Malden's “The Dining Room Fireplace,” a travelling collector is scared out of his wits by a Dublin fireplace which breathes; in L. P. Hartley's “The Travelling Grave,” an antiquary is swallowed up by a mobile grave...