Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell
Campbell at the 2015 Liverpool Horror Festival
Campbell at the 2015 Liverpool Horror Festival
BornJohn Ramsey Campbell
(1946-01-04) 4 January 1946 (age 78)
Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Pen nameCarl Dreadstone, Jay Ramsay, Montgomery Comfort
OccupationWriter, film & literary critic, editor
Period1964-present
GenreHorror, thriller, dark fantasy, science fiction
Website
ramseycampbell.com

Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.

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",[1] and Robert Hadji has described him as "perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition",[2] 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."[3] In a 2021 appreciation of his collected works, The Washington Post said: "Taken together, they constitute one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction."[4]

  1. ^ Klein, T. E. D. "Ramsey Campbell: An Appreciation", quoted in Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2001) by S. T. Joshi
  2. ^ Robert Hadji, "[John] Ramsey Campbell" in Jack Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (NY and Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, 1986), p. 67
  3. ^ Joshi, S. T. "S. T. Joshi Interview". The Temple of Dagon. Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2007.
  4. ^ Sheehan, Bill (27 October 2021). "Ramsey Campbell is a must-read for horror fans. Here's where to start". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 December 2021.