Robert Aickman Selected Letters to Kirby McCauley April 1967-December 1980

Robert Aickman did not have a literary profile in America when he began corresponding with Kirby McCauley, an enthusiastic admirer of his stories from Minneapolis. Initially as a favour to a friend, McCauley sold Aickman’s stories to periodicals such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but their relationship would become professional after McCauley moved to New York in 1974 to become a full-time literary agent representing authors such as Stephen King, and George R.R. Martin, before either these writers became lucrative commodities.

McCauley had a very high regard for Aickman’s writing, and it is arguable that without McCauley, Aickman would not have been as creative and prolific as he was in his later years. Much of the interest in Aickman’s early letters come from the literary and film recommendations that both men make, and which establishes an artistic sympathy between them. Later letters deal more with Aickman’s stories, as McCauley receives typescripts, comments on them, and attempts to get them published.

The letters are a revealing record of Aickman’s literary and other interests, and also of a friendship built on mutual artistic admiration.