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Anyone familiar with Ghost Stories of an Antiquary will have no difficulty in recognizing their provenance. It was my good fortune to know Dr. James for more than thirty years. Among my many debts to him is an introduction to the work of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, whom he always regarded as The Master.

Sufficient time has now elapsed since Dr. James's death to make some attempt to continue the tradition admissible or even welcome to his friends and readers. It is as such that these stories have been collected and revised now. They are in some sort a tribute to his memory, if not comparable with his work.

It may perhaps be just worth while to mention that none of them stands in any relation to anything which ever happened to me, or to anyone else of whom I have heard. The documents and inscriptions quoted do not (with one exception) exist, as far as I know.

Three of the stories--The Sundial, Between Sunset and Moonrise and The Blank Leaves--have been printed in a magazine which used to appear at Christmas-time under the aegis of the Leeds Parish Church. I have to thank Canon W. M. Askwith, Vicar of Leeds, for permission to reproduce them.

R. H. M. Wells,

Michaelmas, 1942.