A Warning to the Curious

"A Warning to the Curious" is a ghost story by English writer M. R. James, first published in The London Mercury in August 1925 and collected in James' book A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories that same year. The tale tells the story of Paxton, an antiquarian and archaeologist who holidays in "Seaburgh" (a disguised version of Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and inadvertently stumbles across one of the three lost crowns of East Anglia, which legendarily protect the country from invasion. Upon digging up the crown, Paxton is stalked by its supernatural guardian. Written a few years after the end of the First World War, "A Warning to the Curious" ranks as one of M. R. James's bleakest stories.