For the true bibliophile, the obsessive, MR James-ian seeker after obscure and esoteric tomes, this book will prove irresistible. The British Library (whose famous reading room was, of course, the setting for a key scene in James's Casting the Runes) has published a weighty volume dealing with what many would consider to be the 'Golden Age' of British supernatural writing. Its 130-year-span covers the consolidation of the genre - its development out of the initial Gothic imaginings of Walpole, Radcliffe, Lewis and others into a flexible, often subtle, literary form which would occupy the efforts of both penny-dreadful hacks and exquisite craftsmen, resulting in a wealth of short stories and, increasingly, full-length novels.

Some 200 authors are covered in detail here - each with a biography and bibliography covering all their work in the realm of the supernatural. The sheer range (and sometimes deadening repetition) of the supernatural tale is clearly revealed, as well as the tendency towards generic cross-fertilisation - occult detectives, ghostly romances and comic horrors abound. Major genre figures like Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany rub shoulders with occasional visitors from the world of mainstream fiction - Mrs Gaskell, say, or DH Lawrence - and pulp favorites like Sax Rohmer and Dennis Wheatley. Plenty of space is given to minor, neglected and forgotten figures, prompting one to further exploration of one's own; who would not like to track down such MP Dare stories as The Demoniac Goat and The Haunted Draws ? Or the work of Martin Armstrong, author of the first 'posessed lawnmower' story in the history of literature? The enormous contribution of female writers to the genre also emerges - from Edith Nesbit (who wrote far scarier things than The Railway Children) to Lady Cynthia Asquith, editor of The Ghost Book.

Wilson's foreword is an excellent introduction to the subject, with plenty to say on the relationship between changing patterns of belief in the supernatural and their counterparts in supernatural fiction and its development, the persistence (and transformation) of key themes and figures over the years and the genre's literary and publishing contexts. Ramsey Campbell (whose work is a prime example of how the classic 'Jamesian' tale of dread can be successfully written in a completely modern context) provides a nice introduction, adducing plenty of evidence to show that the 'Golden Age' of supernatural writing - that illusory construct beloved of the nostalgic - is still alive and well.

All in all, this is an essential purchase - despite a price tag as hefty as the book itself - for lovers, scholars or collectors of supernatural fiction. And unlike some of MR James's unfortunate bibliophiles, you won't suffer anything worse than a dented bank balance.