The Horror Master Whose Books Will Haunt Your Dreams

When it comes to living writers of horror and weird fiction, few names loom as large as Ramsey Campbell, who has been publishing steadily for more than half a century. “Future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood,” scholar S. T. Joshi once wrote of Campbell, while Guillermo del Toro called him “an absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that!”

Campbell grew up in the blitz-devastated landscape of post-war Liverpool, a background that has found its way into several of his stories. Like so many horror writers, much of his earliest work consisted of unusually artful pastiches of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, and Campbell himself has said, “the first book of Lovecraft’s I read made me into a writer.”

Yet over a career spanning more than 50 years, Campbell has developed and refined his own voice, to the extent that today there are entire anthologies written as tributes by authors who have been inspired by Campbell’s work, just as Campbell was once published (and sometimes still is) in anthologies that are tributes to Lovecraft.

After an early career in Lovecraft pastiches, Campbell set out to develop his own distinct style, even going so far as to condemn the late writer’s work. In later years, he softened his stance, both on Lovecraft’s writing and on turning out additional Lovecraft pastiches, but Campbell’s work was always determinedly his own from that point onward, whether he was writing about ancient beings from other dimensions or all-too-human serial killers.

Campbell was also a tireless advocate of other writers. In the early 1980s, he met a young writer and fellow Liverpool resident named Clive Barker. Barker was looking for an outlet willing to publish his short stories, and showed Campbell the manuscript for what would later become his breakout collection, The Books of Blood. Campbell ended up writing the introduction to the first edition of the now-legendary collection.

Ramsey Campbell has won more awards than any other British horror writer, and unlike many of his peers, whose output has dropped off over the years, he continues to publish new books and stories all the time. His latest novel, The Wise Friend, is a classically Campbellian tale of a haunting that may be much more than ghostly. For readers on the verge of discovering Campbell for the first time, or longtime fans wanting to brush up on his new releases and classics alike, the Ramsey Campbell books below are sure to keep you reading long into the night.