Montague Rhodes James (1862 - 1936), who wrote as M. R. James, was an English medieval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905-1918), and of Eton College (1918-1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic cliches of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story."