Charles Birkin

Sir Charles Lloyd Birkin (born September 24, 1907 , † 1986 ) was a British author of the uncanny and supernatural.

Life

Birkin published several collections of stories between 1936 and around 1971, which are now considered the most famous horror classics in England of this period. Birkin was also the editor of important horror anthologies by other authors. While the author was known exclusively as Charles Birkin in Germany from the beginning, he is known in his home country mainly under the pseudonym Charles Lloyd. In Germany only two of his books (at least very essential ones) were published, The Finger of Fear and So Pale, So Cold, So Dead , both works by Heyne in the early seventies; these two narrow volumes, which at least saw several reprints, are now sought-after collector's rarities.

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Birkin's specialty was the horror short story in all its facets and genres: crime, SF, ghost stories, supernatural, drama, psycho and monster stories. In the 1970s, critics often compared his finely woven, apparently very soberly told stories with Edgar Allan Poe , but in terms of content and the whole nature, if comparisons are necessary, he should come closer to an English Robert Bloch , although his style is much more polished and is more elected than that of his American counterpart. In most cases, and this is what Birkin has masterfully specialized in, his stories read like everyday stories in which suddenly a tragic event taken to extremes breaks in and reveals the demony of all previous, seemingly harmless events. For example in the famous story Kitty Fischerin , in which a psychological web of appeasement, glossing over and belittling, cleverly spun by the author, is used to hide the true state of an initially completely everyday-looking family - until the end, catastrophe occurs for everyone. A trademark of Birkin is to let almost every one of his stories end with a soothing sound, as if the author himself had completely overlooked the horror that he just described. Another very important characteristic of his stories is the refined and extremely elegant choice of their titles, which in retrospect seem particularly ironic or underline the tragic nature of the content.

Nobility title

Charles Birkin holds the title 5th Baronet Of The Baronetage of The United Kingdom.

Anthologies

1936: Devil's Spawn
1964: The Kiss Of Death & Other Horror Stories
1965: The Smell of Evil
1966: Where Terror Stalked & Other Horror Stories
1968: Dark Menace
1970: My Name Is Death & Other New Tales of Horror (The Finder of Fear)
1970: So Pale, So Cold, So Fair (so pale, so cold, so dead)
1970: Spawn of Satan

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Birkin, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Birkin, Charles Lloyd (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British author of the uncanny and supernatural
DATE OF BIRTH	September 24, 1907
DATE OF DEATH	1986