Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was an English author and medievalist scholar. He served as the provost of King's College, Cambridge, from 1905 to 1918, and of Eton College from 1918 to 1936. James is best known for his ghost stories, which are considered by many critics and authors as the finest in the English language and widely influential on modern horror. His scholarly work is still highly regarded, and he is credited with redefining the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors.