A Huddersfield writer and broadcaster has launched a new supernatural book.

As a nation, we seem to be enthralled by tales of horror.

And Tony Earnshaw is hoping his new book ‘The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark’ will be welcomed as it is a chilling anthology of classic ghost stories originally written by M.R. James.

Those that remember the Seventies may recall a series of dramas under the umbrella title A Ghost Story for Christmas, broadcast by the BBC.

Viewers were thrilled and terrified by Clark’s atmospheric adaptations of James’ sinister contemporary tales.

They brought an eerie touch to yuletide television and this book represents a literary time capsule of those short classic films.

The collection is compiled, edited and introduced by Earnshaw, author of the highly regarded Beating the Devil – The Making of Night of the Demon.

He said: “I specialise in writing about the cinema and latterly have dipped a toe into classic television.

“My new book is called ‘The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark’ and is an anthology of classic ghost stories by M.R. James.

“The twist is that they were all adapted for TV by the filmmaker Lawrence Gordon Clark and went out at Christmas on successive years in the Seventies.

“The collection features a foreword by Mark Gatiss who wrote the recent Christmas adaptation The Tractate Middoth for the BBC and Clark introduces each story with reminiscences about casting, shooting, adapting and location scouting.

“I live in Huddersfield and Clark was for a long time a resident director at Yorkshire Television where he made one of his films, Casting the Runes, in 1979”.

Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock and Doctor Who) is responsible for the foreword.

Gatiss is a former Bretton Hall student.

The book also includes a reprint of an unfilmed ‘Count Magnus’ script by Basil Copper, as well as other material including unpublished behind-the-scenes photographs.

The publisher, Spectral Press, specialises in ghostly, supernatural tales and limited edition works.

The book will be a definitive volume – the last word on Lawrence Gordon Clark’s career in ground-breaking supernatural television.

For details contact spectralpress@gmail.com