Masters of the Weird Tale: Ramsey Campbell

The early 1960s saw two invasions from Liverpool, one was the musical group the Beatles. When the question “Who are these guys?” was asked the answer was emphatically provided with their first album. When the short story “The Church in High Street” was published in the August Derleth-edited anthology Dark Mind, Dark Heart, the question of “Who is this guy, writing like a British Lovecraft?” The publication of The Inhabitant of the Lake in 1964 gave a resounding answer that here was a true master of the pastiche, writing at a level not seen since the glory days of Weird Tales when the “Lovecraft Circle” was at the combined height of their prowess.

Nine years passed and a second collection appeared, the magnificent Demons by Daylight. Totally free of Lovecraft’s shadow, now the question was “Who is this young man writing horror fiction completely unlike anyone else in the field?” The answer of course was Ramsey Campbell, and he was just getting started. Over the next decade the question became “Who is this man setting the bar for the state of the art in this genre?” The decade of the 1980s saw Campbell nominated for, or win, over a dozen genre awards for his fiction, an unprecedented amount. From stories such as “The Guy,” “Mackintosh Willy,” “The Sneering,” and “The Chimney” grew the foundation that has led to over a dozen collections, several of those winning awards in their own right.

A quarter of a century has passed since the last attempt to produce a “Best of Ramsey Campbell.” It’s unlikely that any reader of this webpage does not have a copy of Alone With the Horrors in their collection, as it is, for all practical purposes, the most significant single author horror collection published in the 1990s. But Ramsey Campbell has hardly been idle since 1993. His fiction remains state of the art and he continues to maintain his title as our best living practitioner of supernatural horror.

 This latest installment in our acclaimed series “Masters of the Weird Tale” celebrates the first fifty-five years of Ramsey Campbell’s illustrious career. As you might imagine, one volume simply wouldn’t do. Instead, we’ve issued two volumes of over one thousand pages and still feel badly about the material that we were forced to leave out. There’s never been such an extensive collection of work by a living horror writer, but then again there’s never been another Ramsey Campbell!

Limited to 250 sets and featuring an introduction by Adam Nevill, a lengthy career retrospective interview, over three dozen illustrations, 86 stories, this is an essential volume for any serious collection of modern weird fiction. Each volume is signed by Ramsey Campbell, Allen Koszowski, Jill Bauman, John Kenn Mortensen, Gavin O’Keefe, David Whitlam, and Jeanne D’Angelo.

The two volume collection of over 80 Ramsey Campbell stories is enclosed in a handsome slipcase with ribbon marker and over three dozen illustrations by Allen Koszowski, Jill Bauman, John Kenn Mortensen, Gavin O’Keefe, David Whitlam, and Jeanne D’Angelo. The complete contents are shown below.

The edition is limited to 250 signed and numbered copies. Each copy is signed by Ramsey Campbell and the Illustrators named above (except John Stewart).

Edition Specifications

• Limited to 250 copies, each signed by Ramsey Campbell, Allen Koszowski, Jill Bauman, John Kenn Mortensen, Gavin O’Keefe, David Ho, David Whitlam, and Jeanne D’Angelo.
• Oversize at 7½ × 11 inches.
• New introduction by Adam Nevill.
• Many photographs of Ramsey Campbell.
• Two handsome volumes in a single slipcase.
• Extensive bibliography.
• Slipcase, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, full color wraparound dustjacket art.
• 1,064 pages.