Ramsey Campbell
Introduction to Fabrice du Welz's Calvaire (2004)
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Ramsey Campbell
by Robert Parkinson
The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain's most respected living horror writer”. He has been President of The British Fantasy Society for almost thirty years and has won more awards in the field of horror and supernatural fiction than any other writer in history. He has won numerous World and British Fantasy Awards, the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and Collection, the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Award for Literature in 1994. Believe me, the list goes on.
His early works were Lovecraftian pastiches and his first published collection from 1964, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants – from no less a legendary press than Arkham House - consisted entirely of tales in the Cthulhu Mytyhos tradition. As his writing matured he moved away from the Lovecraftian style and developed a voice which Stephen King has described as “so unique he should patent it”. The text below, taken from Ramsey’s website, displays this style quite succinctly;
Campbell's supernatural horror novels include Midnight Sun (1990), The Long Lost (1993), The House on Nazareth Hill (1996) and the book I regard as the finest of all his novels, The Darkest Part of the Woods (2004). His non-supernatural horror novels include The Face That Must Die (1979) which in my view is one of the finest portraits of a psychologically disturbed homophobe that I have ever read. The original issue of this novel was cut without Ramsey’s authorisation and it has had a chequered publishing history. A fully restored version of this classic novel was published by Millipede Press in August this year and is essential reading. His novella Needing Ghosts (1990) is a narrative that effortlessly portrays the mind of a deranged writer with plenty of blackly comic moments. Perhaps his finest non-supernatural novel is The Count of Eleven (1991), a hybrid of Laurel and Hardy slapstick humour with a serial-killer for the main character. Campbell has also published many collections of short stories, as well as a collection of his essays, forewords, afterwords and reminiscences under the title Ramsey Campbell, Probably (2002) .
He has had a life-long passion for genre film and has written extensively about it in magazines, books and still writes reviews for the BBC Radio Merseyside website. His official website with much more information about his life and work can be found here and his film reviews for the BBC website are here.
I personally regard him as the greatest living English writer in any field, and through my association with The British Fantasy Society have come to know him well. He is not only a great writer, but he is one of the funniest and most approachable people I know.
Check him out, I feel sure that your time invested in reading his work will be well rewarded.
Robert Parkinson, October 10th 2006
Ramsey Campbell was born on Merseyside in 1946 and still lives on the Wirral. He is married to his wife Jenny and they have two children Tamsin and Matthew.
Robert Parkinson was Secretary & Treasurer of The British Fantasy Society for 16 years. Whilst still an active member of the Society, he recently left the Committee to devote more time to his family and other leisure interests, which includes writing occasional pieces for magazines and the small press.
September 24th 2006: The British Fantasy Society’s annual Convention. Ramsey in black, Robert in white.
