Ramsey Campbell
Encyclopedia
John Ramsey Campbell is an English
horror fiction
author.
Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein
has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T. Joshi
stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft
or Blackwood
."
, an experience he has discussed in detail in the introduction and afterword to the restored text of The Face That Must Die. Although both parents lived in the same house, Campbell states, "I didn't see my father face to face for nearly twenty years, and that was when he was dying."
His early work was greatly influenced by the work of H. P. Lovecraft
. His first collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
, is a volume of Cthulhu Mythos
stories published by Arkham House
in 1964. At the suggestion of August Derleth
, he rewrote many of his earliest stories, which he had originally set in the Massachusetts
locales of Arkham
, Dunwich
and Innsmouth
, and relocated them to English settings in and around the fictional Gloucestershire
city of Brichester, near the River Severn
, creating his own Severn Valley
milieu for Lovecraftian horrors. Brichester was deeply influenced by Campbell's native Liverpool, and much of his later work is set in the real locales of Liverpool
and Merseyside
. In particular, his 2005 novel Secret Stories (published in the U.S. in an abridged edition as Secret Story (2006)) both exemplifies and satirizes Liverpudlian speech, characters, humor, and culture.
With the collection Demons by Daylight
(1973), Campbell set out to be as unlike Lovecraft as possible. In 1969, he had written "Lovecraft in Retrospect", an essay for the fanzine
Shadow, "condemning [Lovecraft's] work outright." However, in his 1985 book Cold Print, which collects his Lovecraftian stories, Campbell disavowed the opinions expressed in the article, stating: "I believe Lovecraft is one of the most important writers in the field" and
"the first book of Lovecraft's I read made me into a writer." Demons by Daylight includes "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which uses Lovecraft's documentary narrative technique without slipping into parody of his writing style. Other tales, such as "The End of a Summer's Day" and "Concussion", show the emergence of Campbell's highly distinctive mature style, of which S. T. Joshi
has written:
Subsequently, Campbell has published a number of other collections; many of his most popular stories can be found in the 1993 collection Alone with the Horrors.
Campbell has written many novels, both supernatural and non-supernatural. They include The Face That Must Die (cut by the publisher on its first release in 1979 and issued complete in 1983), the story of a homophobic serial killer
told largely from the killer's point of view. A more sympathetic serial murderer appears in the later novel The Count of Eleven (1991), which displays Campbell's gift for word play
, and which the author has said is disturbing "because it doesn't stop being funny when you think it should". Other non-supernatural novels, such as The One Safe Place (1995), use a highly charged thriller narrative to examine social problems such as the deprivation and abuse of children.
Campbell's supernatural horror novels include Incarnate (1983), in which the boundaries between dream and reality are gradually broken down; and Midnight Sun (1990), in which an alien entity apparently seeks entry to the world through the mind of a children's writer. In its fusion of horror with awe, Midnight Sun shows the influence of Algernon Blackwood
and Arthur Machen
as well as Lovecraft. Having spent a number of months working full-time in a Borders
store, he wrote The Overnight (2004), about bookshop staff trapped in their hellish workplace during an overnight shelf-filling shift. Also notable is the novella Needing Ghosts, a nightmarish work that blends the horrific and the comic.
A lifelong enthusiast of film
(old movies feature prominently in two of his novels, Ancient Images and The Grin of the Dark), Campbell wrote three novelisations of Universal horror films in 1976. They were published under the house name
Carl Dreadstone. It should be noted that
three further novelisations which appeared under this house name were not by Campbell but written by other authors. Campbell also contributed numerous articles on horror cinema to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
(1986) He reviewed films and DVDs weekly for BBC Radio Merseyside
until 2007. He writes a monthly film column, "Ramsey´s Ramblings", for Video Watchdog
magazine.
Outside the world of horror, he has written a series of fantasy stories starring Ryre the Swordsman, an original creation. Many of these stories were published in the collection Far Away & Never. In 1976 he "completed" three of Robert E. Howard
's unfinished Solomon Kane
stories, "Hawk of Basti", "The Castle of the Devil" and "The Children of Asshur". He has also written a few works of science fiction
, such as the novella Medusa (1973) and the short story "Slow" (collected in Told by the Dead
), but has stated that his science fiction "tried to deal with Themes, too consciously, I feel".
Campbell has also edited a number of anthologies, including New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980), New Terrors (1980) and (with Stephen Jones
) the first five volumes of the annual Best New Horror series (1990–1994). His 1992 anthology Uncanny Banquet
was notable for including the first ever reprint of the obscure 1914 horror novel The Hole of the Pit by Adrian Ross
.
Ramsey Campbell, Probably, a collection of Campbell's book reviews, film reviews, autobiographical writings and other nonfiction, was published in 2002. The book included reminiscences and appreciations of authors such as John Brunner
, Bob Shaw
and K. W. Jeter
and an extensive, negative critique of Shaun Hutson
's Heathen, parody
ing Hutson's style.
He married Jenny Chandler, daughter of A. Bertram Chandler
, on 1 January 1971; has two children, Tamsin (born 1978) and Matthew (born 1981); and still lives on Merseyside.
He is the Lifetime President of the British Fantasy Society
.
's reader's guide to Campbell, Ramsey Campbell (1988), provides an overview of his work up to 1987. There is an extensive critical analysis of Campbell's work in S. T. Joshi
's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and an essay on his later work in Classics and Contemporaries (2009). Joshi has also written a book-length study, Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (2001), and edited The Count of Thirty (Necronomicon Press
1994), which contains critical appreciations by various authors and a long interview with Campbell himself.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
author.
Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein
T. E. D. Klein
Theodore "Eibon" Donald Klein is an American horror writer and editor.Klein has published very few works, but they have all achieved positive notice for their meticulous construction and subtle use of horror: critic S. T...
has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
or Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...
."
Overview
Campbell's childhood and adolescence were marked by the rift between his parents and his mother's developing schizophreniaSchizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, an experience he has discussed in detail in the introduction and afterword to the restored text of The Face That Must Die. Although both parents lived in the same house, Campbell states, "I didn't see my father face to face for nearly twenty years, and that was when he was dying."
His early work was greatly influenced by the work of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
. His first collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by British author J. Ramsey Campbell, who dropped the initial from his name in subsequent publications. It was released in 1964 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,009 copies and was the author's...
, is a volume of Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
stories published by Arkham House
Arkham House
Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
in 1964. At the suggestion of August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
, he rewrote many of his earliest stories, which he had originally set in the Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
locales of Arkham
Arkham
Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers....
, Dunwich
Dunwich
Dunwich is a small town in Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB.Dunwich was the capital of East Anglia 1500 years ago but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion. Its decline began in 1286 when a sea surge hit the East Anglian coast, and...
and Innsmouth
Innsmouth
Innsmouth is a fictional town in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Lovecraft Country setting of the Cthulhu Mythos.Lovecraft first used the name "Innsmouth" in his 1920 short story "Celephaïs" , where it refers to a fictional town in New England...
, and relocated them to English settings in and around the fictional Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
city of Brichester, near the River Severn
River Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...
, creating his own Severn Valley
Severn Valley (Cthulhu Mythos)
The Severn Valley is the setting of several fictional towns and other locations created by horror writer Ramsey Campbell. Part of the Cthulhu Mythos started by H. P. Lovecraft, the fictional milieu is arguably the most detailed mythos setting outside of Lovecraft Country itself.-Real-world...
milieu for Lovecraftian horrors. Brichester was deeply influenced by Campbell's native Liverpool, and much of his later work is set in the real locales of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and Merseyside
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
. In particular, his 2005 novel Secret Stories (published in the U.S. in an abridged edition as Secret Story (2006)) both exemplifies and satirizes Liverpudlian speech, characters, humor, and culture.
With the collection Demons by Daylight
Demons by Daylight
Demons by Daylight is a collection of stories by author Ramsey Campbell. Released in 1973, it was the author's second short-story collection, after The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. Like the earlier book, it was published by Arkham House...
(1973), Campbell set out to be as unlike Lovecraft as possible. In 1969, he had written "Lovecraft in Retrospect", an essay for the fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Shadow, "condemning [Lovecraft's] work outright." However, in his 1985 book Cold Print, which collects his Lovecraftian stories, Campbell disavowed the opinions expressed in the article, stating: "I believe Lovecraft is one of the most important writers in the field" and
"the first book of Lovecraft's I read made me into a writer." Demons by Daylight includes "The Franklyn Paragraphs", which uses Lovecraft's documentary narrative technique without slipping into parody of his writing style. Other tales, such as "The End of a Summer's Day" and "Concussion", show the emergence of Campbell's highly distinctive mature style, of which S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
has written:
Certainly much of the power of his work derives purely from his prose style, one of the most fluid, dense and evocative in all modern literature.... His eye for the details and resonances of even the most mundane objects, and his ability to express them crisply and almost prose-poetically, give to his work at once a clarity and a dreamlike nebulousness that is difficult to describe but easy to sense.
Subsequently, Campbell has published a number of other collections; many of his most popular stories can be found in the 1993 collection Alone with the Horrors.
Campbell has written many novels, both supernatural and non-supernatural. They include The Face That Must Die (cut by the publisher on its first release in 1979 and issued complete in 1983), the story of a homophobic serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
told largely from the killer's point of view. A more sympathetic serial murderer appears in the later novel The Count of Eleven (1991), which displays Campbell's gift for word play
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
, and which the author has said is disturbing "because it doesn't stop being funny when you think it should". Other non-supernatural novels, such as The One Safe Place (1995), use a highly charged thriller narrative to examine social problems such as the deprivation and abuse of children.
Campbell's supernatural horror novels include Incarnate (1983), in which the boundaries between dream and reality are gradually broken down; and Midnight Sun (1990), in which an alien entity apparently seeks entry to the world through the mind of a children's writer. In its fusion of horror with awe, Midnight Sun shows the influence of Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...
and Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
as well as Lovecraft. Having spent a number of months working full-time in a Borders
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
store, he wrote The Overnight (2004), about bookshop staff trapped in their hellish workplace during an overnight shelf-filling shift. Also notable is the novella Needing Ghosts, a nightmarish work that blends the horrific and the comic.
A lifelong enthusiast of film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
(old movies feature prominently in two of his novels, Ancient Images and The Grin of the Dark), Campbell wrote three novelisations of Universal horror films in 1976. They were published under the house name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Carl Dreadstone. It should be noted that
three further novelisations which appeared under this house name were not by Campbell but written by other authors. Campbell also contributed numerous articles on horror cinema to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural is a reference work on horror fiction in the arts, edited by Jack Sullivan. The book was published in 1986 by Viking Press....
(1986) He reviewed films and DVDs weekly for BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside and north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station to launch on 22 November 1967 initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire....
until 2007. He writes a monthly film column, "Ramsey´s Ramblings", for Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog is a bimonthly, digest size film magazine started in 1990 by publisher/editor Tim Lucas and his wife, art director and co-publisher Donna Lucas....
magazine.
Outside the world of horror, he has written a series of fantasy stories starring Ryre the Swordsman, an original creation. Many of these stories were published in the collection Far Away & Never. In 1976 he "completed" three of Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
's unfinished Solomon Kane
Solomon Kane
Solomon Kane is a fictional character created by the pulp-era writer Robert E. Howard. A late 16th / early 17th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a sombre-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms...
stories, "Hawk of Basti", "The Castle of the Devil" and "The Children of Asshur". He has also written a few works of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, such as the novella Medusa (1973) and the short story "Slow" (collected in Told by the Dead
Told by the Dead
Told by the Dead is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, published by PS Publishing in 2003. The first edition contains a foreword by Poppy Z...
), but has stated that his science fiction "tried to deal with Themes, too consciously, I feel".
Campbell has also edited a number of anthologies, including New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980), New Terrors (1980) and (with Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones (author)
Stephen Jones is an editor of horror anthologies, and the author of several book-length studies of horror and fantasy films as well as an account of Lovecraft's early British publications....
) the first five volumes of the annual Best New Horror series (1990–1994). His 1992 anthology Uncanny Banquet
Uncanny Banquet
Uncanny Banquet is an anthology of reprinted horror stories edited by Ramsey Campbell and published by Little, Brown in 1992. The editor's intention, expressed in the introduction, was to "collect a range of stories as remarkable as the accredited classics of the field but less well known"...
was notable for including the first ever reprint of the obscure 1914 horror novel The Hole of the Pit by Adrian Ross
Adrian Ross
For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
.
Ramsey Campbell, Probably, a collection of Campbell's book reviews, film reviews, autobiographical writings and other nonfiction, was published in 2002. The book included reminiscences and appreciations of authors such as John Brunner
John Brunner (novelist)
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
, Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980...
and K. W. Jeter
K. W. Jeter
Kevin Wayne Jeter is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters...
and an extensive, negative critique of Shaun Hutson
Shaun Hutson
Shaun Hutson is a writer of novels including horror novels and dark urban thrillers. A native of Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire, England, Hutson now lives and writes in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire....
's Heathen, parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
ing Hutson's style.
He married Jenny Chandler, daughter of A. Bertram Chandler
A. Bertram Chandler
Arthur Bertram Chandler was a British-Australian science fiction author. He also wrote under the pseudonyms George Whitley, George Whitely, Andrew Dunstan, and S.H.M....
, on 1 January 1971; has two children, Tamsin (born 1978) and Matthew (born 1981); and still lives on Merseyside.
He is the Lifetime President of the British Fantasy Society
British Fantasy Society
The British Fantasy Society began in 1971 as the British Weird Fantasy Society, an offshoot of the British Science Fiction Association. The society is dedicated to promoting the best in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres....
.
Novels
- The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976) (Revised text: 1985)
- The Bride of Frankenstein (1977) (novelisation of the 1935 film, written as Carl Dreadstone)
- Dracula's Daughter (1977) (novelisation of the 1936 filmDracula's DaughterDracula's Daughter is a 1936 American vampire horror film produced by Universal Studios, a sequel to the 1931 film Dracula. Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay by Garrett Fort, the film stars Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill and, as the only cast member to return from the...
, written as Carl Dreadstone) - The Wolf Man (1977) (novelisation of the 1941 film, written as Carl Dreadstone)
- The Face That Must Die (1979) (Restored text: 1983)
- The Parasite (1980) (published in the US with a different ending as To Wake the Dead)
- The Nameless (1981)
- The Claw (1983) (AKA Night of the Claw, Claw ) (written as Jay Ramsay)
- Incarnate (1983)
- Obsession (1985)
- The Hungry Moon (1986)
- The Influence (1988)
- Ancient Images (1989)
- Midnight Sun (1990)
- Needing Ghosts (1990)
- The Count of Eleven (1991)
- The Long Lost (1993)
- The One Safe Place (1995)
- The House on Nazareth Hill (1996) (AKA Nazareth Hill)
- The Last Voice They Hear (1998)
- Silent Children (2000)
- Pact of the Fathers (2001)
- The Darkest Part of the Woods (2003)
- The Overnight (2004)
- Secret Stories (2005) (Abridged US edition, Secret Story, 2006)
- The Grin of the Dark (2007)
- Thieving Fear (2008)
- Creatures of the Pool (2009)
- Solomon Kane (MovieSolomon Kane (film)Solomon Kane is a 2009 epic action film directed by Michael J. Bassett based on the pulp magazine character Solomon Kane created in 1928 by Robert E. Howard. James Purefoy stars in the title role. Despite optioning the rights in 1997, filming did not begin until January 2008. The film is an origin...
novelisation, 2010) - The Seven Days of Cain (2010)
- Ghosts Know (2011)
- The Kind Folk (2012)
Collections
- The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome TenantsThe Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome TenantsThe Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by British author J. Ramsey Campbell, who dropped the initial from his name in subsequent publications. It was released in 1964 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,009 copies and was the author's...
(1964, as J. Ramsey Campbell) - Demons by DaylightDemons by DaylightDemons by Daylight is a collection of stories by author Ramsey Campbell. Released in 1973, it was the author's second short-story collection, after The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. Like the earlier book, it was published by Arkham House...
(1973) - The Height of the ScreamThe Height of the ScreamThe Height of the Scream is a collection of horror stories by author Ramsey Campbell. Released in 1976 in an edition of 4,348 copies, it was the author's third collection of stories to be published by Arkham House....
(1976) - Dark CompanionsDark CompanionsDark Companions is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, first published by Fontana Books in 1982. It contains an introduction by the author.The stories included are:* "The Chimney"* "Down There"* "Above the World"* "Napier Court"...
(1982) - Cold PrintCold PrintCold Print is a collection of Lovecraftian horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, first published in 1985 and reissued in an expanded edition in 1993 by Headline....
(1985; expanded edition 1993. Contains the stories from The Inhabitant of the LakeThe Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome TenantsThe Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by British author J. Ramsey Campbell, who dropped the initial from his name in subsequent publications. It was released in 1964 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,009 copies and was the author's...
as well as later material in the Lovecraft vein) - Night Visions: The Hellbound Heart (1986. Contains stories by Campbell, Clive BarkerClive BarkerClive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
and Lisa TuttleLisa TuttleLisa Tuttle is an American-born science fiction, fantasy, and horror author. She has published over a dozen novels, five short story collections, and several non-fiction titles, including a reference book on feminism. She has also edited several anthologies and reviewed books for various...
) - Dark Feasts: The World of Ramsey CampbellDark Feasts: The World of Ramsey CampbellDark Feasts: The World of Ramsey Campbell is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, published by Robinson Publishing in 1987. It is dedicated to T. E. D...
(1987) - Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and DeathScared Stiff: Tales of Sex and DeathScared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death is a collection of horror stories on sexual themes by Ramsey Campbell, first published in the United States in 1987 by Scream/Press. The first British edition was published in 1989 by Macdonald. The book includes an introduction by Clive Barker and an afterword...
(1987) - Waking NightmaresWaking NightmaresWaking Nightmares is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, first published in 1991 by Tom Doherty. The first British edition was published in 1992 by Little, Brown...
(1991) - Alone with the HorrorsAlone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961-1991Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961-1991 is a collection of fantasy and horror stories by author Ramsey Campbell. Released in 1993 in an edition of 3,834 copies, it was the author's fourth collection of stories to be published by Arkham House...
(1993) - Strange Things and Stranger Places (1993)
- Ghosts and Grisly ThingsGhosts and Grisly ThingsGhosts and Grisly Things is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, first published by Pumpkin Books in 1998. It contains an introduction by the author.The book contains the following stories:* "The Same in Any Language"...
(1998) - Told by the DeadTold by the DeadTold by the Dead is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, published by PS Publishing in 2003. The first edition contains a foreword by Poppy Z...
(2003) - Inconsequential TalesInconsequential TalesInconsequential Tales is a collection of horror stories by Ramsey Campbell, published by Hippocampus Press in 2008. It contains an introduction by the author, "Truth or Consequences"; a theatrical sketch, "A Play for the Jaded" ; and the following stories:*"The Childish Fear" *"The Offering to the...
(2008) - Just Behind You (2009)
- The Inhabitant of the Lake & Other Unwelcome Tenants (2011)
As editor
- Superhorror (AKA The Far Reaches of Fear) (1976)
- New Terrors (Published in US as two separate volumes, New Terrors 1 and New Terrors 2) (1980)
- New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980)
- The Gruesome Book (1983)
- Fine Frights: Stories That Scared Me (1988)
- Best New Horror (with Stephen Jones) (1990)
- Best New Horror 2 (with Stephen Jones) (1991)
- Best New Horror 3 (with Stephen Jones) (1992)
- Uncanny BanquetUncanny BanquetUncanny Banquet is an anthology of reprinted horror stories edited by Ramsey Campbell and published by Little, Brown in 1992. The editor's intention, expressed in the introduction, was to "collect a range of stories as remarkable as the accredited classics of the field but less well known"...
(1992) - Best New Horror 4 (with Stephen Jones) (1993)
- Deathport (1993)
- Best New Horror 5 (with Stephen Jones) (1994)
- Meddling With Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M.R. James (2002)
- Gathering the Bones (with Jack Dann and Dennis EtchisonDennis EtchisonDennis William Etchison , is an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. Etchison refers to his own work as “rather dark, depressing, almost pathologically inward fiction about the individual in relation to the world.”Stephen King has called Dennis Etchison “one hell of a fiction...
) (2003)
Critical studies
Gary William CrawfordGary William Crawford
Gary William Crawford is an American writer and small press publisher.He is the founder and editor of Gothic Press, which since 1979 has published books and periodicals in the field of Gothic literature. From 1979 to 1987, Crawford produced six issues of the journal Gothic, which features...
's reader's guide to Campbell, Ramsey Campbell (1988), provides an overview of his work up to 1987. There is an extensive critical analysis of Campbell's work in S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and an essay on his later work in Classics and Contemporaries (2009). Joshi has also written a book-length study, Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (2001), and edited The Count of Thirty (Necronomicon Press
Necronomicon Press
Necronomicon Press is an American small press publishing house specialising in fiction, poetry and literary criticism relating to the horror and fantasy genres. It is run by Marc A. Michaud....
1994), which contains critical appreciations by various authors and a long interview with Campbell himself.
Selected literary awards
- 1976 The Doll Who Ate His Mother, World Fantasy Award nominee, Best Novel
- 1978 "The Chimney", World Fantasy AwardWorld Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
winner, Best Short Story - 1978 "In The Bag", British Fantasy AwardBritish Fantasy AwardThe British Fantasy Awards are administered annually by the British Fantasy Society and were first awarded in 1971. The membership of the BFS vote to determine recommendations, short-lists and winners of the awards...
winner, Best Short Story - 1980 "Mackintosh Willy", World Fantasy Award winner, Best Short Story
- 1981 To Wake the Dead (later, the Parasite), British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1982 The Nameless, World Fantasy Award nominee, Best Novel
- 1985 Incarnate, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1988 The Hungry Moon, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1989 The Influence, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1989 Ancient Images, Bram Stoker AwardBram Stoker AwardThe Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
winner, Best Novel - 1991 Midnight Sun, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1992 The Count of Eleven, British Fantasy Award nominee
- 1994 Alone with the Horrors, Stoker Award of the Horror Writers of America winner, Best Collection; World Fantasy Award winner, Best Collection
- 1994 The Long Lost, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Novel
- 1998 The House on Nazareth Hill, International Horror Guild winner, Best Novel; British Fantasy Award nominee, Best Novel
- 1999 Ghosts and Grisly Things, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Collection
- 2001 Silent Children, British Fantasy Award nominee, Best Novel
- 2003 Told by the Dead, British Fantasy Award winner, Best Collection
- 2003 The Darkest Part of the Woods, British Fantasy award nominee, Best Novel
- 2006 Secret Story, British Fantasy Award nominee, Best Novel
- 2008 Grin of the Dark, British Fantasy Society winner, Best Novel
- 2009 Thieving Fear, British Fantasy Society nominee, Best Novel
External links
- RamseyCampbell.com; official website
- Ramsey Campbell: Short Story Bibliography
- Database of secondary sources