Weird Friction

Thank you to everyone who responded! I'm glad to hear what people like (or don't) about this project. For the new people and anyone who may have been unaware, you can see my backlog of book photo posts in gallery form here: instagram.com/weird_fricti...

I have always adored ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’. My favourite is ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’ (guy comes into possession of a cursed drawing of a demon). Conan Doyle level craft of condensed suspense. I re-read them often.

Thanks!

Thanks! I understand, I'm a bit of a lurker myself. I try to keep my personality and opinions to a minimum here, so that the focus is always on the books not on me as a person. But this also means I don't engage with too much outside of my own posts.

That's great! One of my favorite of his stories so I am glad to have spread the word about it (as disturbing as it may be). Thank you

Thank you both, I think? I don't don't mean to brag or make anyone jealous. That's part of why I don't really share anything about my real life or identity, it's not boastful if no one knows who I am and I present myself as a simple narrator of photo captions.

That's great to know. I'm glad this page has inspired some people to look into this stuff. I try to make it as informative as I can within the character limit and hope if people like it they'll look deeper themselves.

"The Traveling Grave and Other Stories" by L.P. Hartley, published by Arkham House in 1948.
A collection of eerie short stories by English writer Leslie Poles Hartley, published for the American market in a limited print run of about 2,000 copies.
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Yesterday's 'featured book' 💀

Mr. Wellman has his own corner shelf now. 📚

Look up some of his stories. Damn creepy great stuff.

Has anyone ever read a book because they saw it here? Did you like it? Is this account helpful?

Im always playing old 30s/40s jazz when im taking the photos for these old books so it's appropriate!

Stephen King, T.E.D. Klein, S.T. Joshi, and others have named "Demons by Daylight" as one of the most important books in the development of horror literature, due to its role in shifting the genre toward a more modern, mature, and psychological style.
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Yesterday's 'featured book' 📖

Paperback book cover for the Caroll & Graf edition of Ramsey Campbell’s Demons By Daylight.

1990 Caroll & Graf mass market paperback edition. Continents are the same as the Arkham House first edition with a new foreward by Ramsey Campbell.

A mass market paperback edition of "Demons by Daylight" was released by Jove Books in 1979.
The editors omitted one story from the first edition, “The Second Staircase” and replaced it with two others, “Reply Guaranteed” and “The Telephones”.

Stephen King, T.E.D. Klein, S.T. Joshi, and others have named "Demons by Daylight" as one of the most important books in the development of horror literature, due to its role in shifting the genre toward a more modern, mature, and psychological style.
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"Demons by Daylight" by Ramsey Campbell, published by Arkham House in 1973.
Campbell’s second book, this collection of short stories marked a stylistic departure from his earlier Lovecraft-inspired work and a development of his own style of more psychological horror fiction.
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‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ will be published by Oxford University Press on 10 September 2026. Set your watches, mark your calendars, and spread the word!

"A Thin Ghost and Others" by M.R. James, published by Edward Arnold in 1919.
This is a 1925 fourth printing of M.R. James's third collection of supernatural stories. These tales are among his best "puzzle stories," with the horror implied by ominous details scattered throughout.

"Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James" edited by Stephen Jones, published by Jo Fletcher Books in 2012.
A premium-quality omnibus collection of M.R. James' supernatural fiction, story fragments, and related writings.
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"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" M.R. James' first collection of supernatural fiction.
Originally published in 1904, this is a nice illustrated paperback edition published by Dover in 1971. It includes the original illustrations by James McBryde taken from the 1904 first edition.

Happy birthday to English medievalist scholar and early Weird Fiction writer M.R. James! Born on August 1, 1862.
James had a successful academic career serving as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge; Provost of Eton College; and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

Interesting to hear that. I will have to look it up. I know James had notoriously bad handwriting so it's not surprising

I regret to announce the passing of one of our cats, Louie. He was a rescue and an indoor/outdoor cat for most of his life but he had been indoor-only for the past few years. He hasn't appeared here as often as our other cats since he didn't generally prefer the library room. #catsky

This book is composed of approximately 100 letters of varying lengths, spanning from his early years through much of his adult life. It also includes a foreword by British actor and director Mark Gatiss, who has been a contemporary advocate for James’s supernatural fiction.
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"Casting the Runes: The Letters of M. R. James", edited by Jane Mainley‑Piddock, published by Unbound in 2023.
The first-ever published selection of personal correspondence from foundational Weird Fiction writer M.R. James, drawn from the archives at Cambridge University.
#booksky
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