Read about the read-world location of this story on wikipedia.

Interesting account of a visit to Steinfeld, in which Helen Grant compares the real abbey to the one described by M.R. James.

This story was inspired by James’s own study of the stained glass at Ashridge Park in 1904. The glass is now in the Victoria & Albert museum in London, and the park is now home to Ashridge Business School (check out the cool virtual tour!)

To illustrate how widely glass from Germany and Belguim circulated in Britain, here some more of the Steinfeld stained glass shows up in a church in Wales!

An excellent review of the 1974 tv version.

The origin of this ominous phrase appears to be Napoleonic!

A useful guide for those who wish to get their head around the cryptographic puzzles solved by Mr Somerton.

This definitive anthology of and commentary on James work is now available as an e-book.

You can currently watch the BBC’s classic M.R. James tv adaptations at the BFI Mediateque centres.