British Library Tales of the Weird-The Lost Stradivarius

One of the best examples of cursed-antique literature, which would influence M. R. James and his Cambridge set along with many writers of the early-twentieth century periodicals and pulp magazines. Told in an impressively timeless-feeling epistolary form as the tale wends from coming-of-age tale towards occult, pagan weirdness. The discovery of a beautiful Stradivarius violin in a hidden cupboard at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, appears to be a stroke of good fortune for music student John Maltravers. But there is something sinister in the violin's history something corrupt which threatens to re-emerge as the bewitched Maltravers plays and replays a devilish tune he is powerless to resist. First published in 1895, The Lost Stradivarius has garnered a revered status as a true classic of strange fiction, described by the famed critic E. F. Bleiler as the novel M. R. James might have written, had he written novels.