John Ramsey Campbell

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John Ramsey Campbell

John Ramsey Campbell (born January 4, 1946 in Liverpool ) is a British author who belongs to the horror fiction genre. For TED Klein , Campbell was the best in his field and , according to ST Joshi , future generations will see Campbell as the leading horror writer of our time, comparable to Lovecraft and Blackwood .

Life

Campbell's childhood and adolescence were shaped by the difficulties in his parents' marriage and his mother's developing schizophrenia . He processes these experiences in the preface and epilogue of the extended version of his text The Face That Must Die . Although both parents lived at home, Campbell later discovered: I haven't seen my father face to face in years and that was when he died.

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Campbell is married to the daughter of Australian science fiction writer A. Bertram Chandler , Jenny Chandler; the couple has two children.

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In his early works one can see the strong influence of HP Lovecraft . His first collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants , is a volume published by Arkham House in 1964 with stories from the Cthulhu myth . Following a suggestion from August Derleth , Campbell revised his earliest stories and relocated the plots to an English setting in and around the fictional Brichester in Gloucestershire , at the mouth of the Severn . In this way, following Lovecraft, he created his own milieu. Brichester's description is very reminiscent of Campbell's hometown Liverpool, and many of his later works are set around Liverpool and Merseyside, especially the novel Secret Stories (2006).

In the Demons by Daylight collection (1973), Campbell tried to differentiate himself as much as possible from Lovecraft. After writing an article for Fanzine Shadow in 1969, entitled “Lovecraft in Retrospect,” criticizing Lovecraft's work, he changed that opinion in Cold Print (1985) by stating, “I believe Lovecraft is one of the most important authors in the field. "

Campbell then published several other collections, many of his most popular stories being in Alone with the Horrors (1993).

Campbell's novels include The Face That Must Die (first published in 1979, but the better version dates from 1983), the story of a homophobic serial killer , which is mainly told from the perspective of the protagonist. A more sympathetic murderer appears in his later novel The Count of Eleven (1991), in which Campbell demonstrates his talent for wordplay , which the author himself describes as unsettling "because it doesn't stop being funny when it should be." Other novels with no supernatural content such as B. The One Safe Place (1995) use the narrative style of thrillers to address social problems such as loss and child abuse.

Campbell's horror novels with "supernatural" content are among others. a. Incarnate (1983), in which the lines between dream and reality are gradually blurred, and Midnight Sun (1990), in which aliens try to influence the world through a children's author. Also noteworthy is the story Needing Ghosts , a nightmare-like story that mixes funny elements with horror ideas.

Campbell has also edited several 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 anthology Uncanny Banquet , published in 1992, contains the first reprint of The Hole of the Pit , a horror story by Adrian Ross first published in 1914 .

Ramsey Campbell, Probably , a collection of Campbell's book and film reviews, and autobiographical works, was published in 2002.

Campbell is also President of the British Fantasy Society .

bibliography

Novels

  • The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976) (Revised 1985). German translation: The dolls in the earth. Luebbe Publishing Group July 1980, ISBN 978-3-404-01081-3 .
  • The Bride of Frankenstein (1977) (pseudonym: Carl Dreadstone)
  • Dracula's Daughter (1977) (pseudonym: Carl Dreadstone). German translation: Dracula's daughter. Pabel June 1980
  • The Wolfman (1977) (pseudonym: Carl Dreadstone). German translation: The Wolf Man. Pabel January 1979
  • The Face That Must Die (1979) (Revised 1983). German translation: This face must die. Droemer Knaur 1989
  • The Parasite (1980) (AKA To Wake The Dead ).
  • The Nameless (1981).
  • The Claw (1983) (AKA Night of the Claw , Claw ) (pseudonym: Jay Ramsay).
  • Incarnate (1983).
  • Obsession (1985). German translation: Obsessed. Droemer Knaur 1987
  • The Hungry Moon (1986). German translation: Hungry moon. Droemer Knaur, Munich May 1991, ISBN 978-3-426-01802-6 .
  • The Influence (1988). German translation: Under the influence. Droemer Knaur 1989
  • Ancient Images (1989). German translation: Faces of the past. Knaur, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-426-01842-X .
  • Midnight Sun (1990). German translation: nightmare worlds. Droemer Knaur March 1993
  • Needing Ghosts (1990). German translation: Ghost Search. Heyne Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-13328-5 .
  • The Count of Eleven (1991). German translation: The curse of the thirteen letters. Droemer Knaur Munich 1994, ISBN 978-3-426-70008-2 .
  • 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) (AKA Secret Story ).
  • The Grin of the Dark (2007).
  • Thieving Fear (2008).
  • The Creatures From The Pool (2009).
  • The Seven Days of Cain (2010).
  • Ghosts Know (2011).

Short story collections

  • The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants , 1964.
  • Demons by Daylight , 1973.
  • The Height of the Scream 1976.
  • Dark Companions 1982. German translation: Late guests. Bastei Lübbe 1987
  • Cold Print , 1985. (contains stories from The Inhabitant of the Lake and other stories in the footsteps of Lovecraft)
  • Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death , 1986. German translation: Stiff before fear. Edition Phantasia 2002
  • Night Visions: The Hellbound Heart (stories by Campbell, Clive Barker, and Lisa Tuttle ), 1986.
  • Dark Feasts: The World of Ramsey Campbell , 1987.
  • Waking Nightmares , 1991. German translation: Dreams of horror. Droemer Knaur October 1994
  • Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961–1991 | Alone with the Horrors , 1993.
  • Strange Things and Stranger Places , 1993.
  • Ghosts and Grisly Things , 1998.
  • Told By The Dead , 2003.
  • Inconsequential Tales , 2008.
  • Just Behind You , 2009.

also:

  • Ramsey Campbell, Probably , ed.ST Joshi, 2002.

As editor

  • Superhorror (AKA The Far Reaches of Fear ), 1976.
  • New Terrors , 1980
  • New Tales of the Cthulhu Myth , 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 Banquet , 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 MR James , 2002.
  • Gathering the Bones (with Jack Dann and Dennis Etchison ), 2003.

literature

ST Joshi's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001) analyzes Campbell's works and themes in detail. Joshi is also the author of the study Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (2001), and editor of The Count of Thirty ( Necronomicon Press 1994), which contains critical texts by many authors on Campbell, and a long interview with him.

Honors

  • 1978: The Chimney , World Fantasy Award , Best Short Story
  • 1978: In The Bag , British Fantasy Award , Best Short Story
  • 1980: The Parasite , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1980: Mackintosh Willy , World Fantasy Award, Best Short Story
  • 1985: Incarnate , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1988: The Hungry Moon , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1989: The Influence , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1991: Midnight Sun , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1994: Alone with the Horrors , Bram Stoker Award 1994, Best Collection; World Fantasy Award, Best Collection
  • 1994: The Long Lost , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 1998: The House on Nazareth Hill , International Horror Guild, Best Novel
  • 1998: Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement
  • 1999: Ghosts and Grisly Things , British Fantasy Award, Best Collection
  • 2002: Bram Stoker Award for the biography Ramsey Campbell , probably written by him
  • 2003: Ramsey Campbell, Probably: Essays on Horror and Sundry Fantasies , British Fantasy Award, Best Collection
  • 2004: Told by the Dead , British Fantasy Award, Best Collection
  • 2008: The Grin of the Dark , British Fantasy Award, Best Novel
  • 2015: World Fantasy Award for life's work

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," TED Klein: Ramsey Campbell: An Appreciation. Quoted in: ST Joshi: Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction. Liverpool University Press, 2001.
  2. ^ "Future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood." ST Joshi: ST Joshi Interview . The Temple of Dagon. Retrieved September 19, 2007.
  3. ↑ Ramsey Campbell: At the Back of My Mind: A Guided Tour. Introduction and afterword to The Face That Must Die 1990, ISBN 0-7088-4394-8 . S. vii-xxv and 236-238.
  4. ↑ "I didn't see my father face to face for nearly twenty years, and that was when he was dying."
  5. ↑ Ramsey Campbell: Chasing the Unknown. Introduction to Cold Print (1985), pp. 11-13. ISBN 0-8125-1660-5
  6. ↑ Ramsey Campbell: Lovecraft in Retrospect. In: Shadow 8 (1969).
  7. ^ Chasing the Unknown. P. 16.
  8. ^ "I believe Lovecraft is one of the most important writers in the field." Ramsey Campbell: Lovecraft: An Introduction In: Cold Print (1985), p. 1.
  9. ↑ "because it doesn't stop being funny when you think it should" Ramsey Campbell, Interview in The Count of Thirty (1994).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Campbell, John Ramsey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author belonging to the horror fiction genre
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool