Ramsey Campbell

This book pays overdue attention to the British writer Ramsey Campbell, a key figure in the post-1970s boom in Anglo-American horror fiction. Despite a huge output and receiving every accolade within his field over a long career, Campbell has not yet been accorded anything like the wider critical recognition given to his contemporary Stephen King. This study concentrates also on Campbell’s neglected novels and novellas, rather than the short stories for which he has been better known. The book Ramsey Campbell establishes the author’s unique prose style, denoted by a haunted self-consciousness about the act of writing and role of readership, and his distinctive mediation of the Gothic tradition: religiously agnostic, politically liberal and ethically humane. For the first time, Campbell’s works are interpreted in the contexts of trends in postmodernist and posthumanist thought and compared explicitly to King’s, and his contribution to both Gothic studies and wider contemporary literature is appraised.

'Ramsey Campbell is to British horror what Stephen King is to the United States. O’Sullivan’s book is a welcome and long-overdue study of Campbell’s work, giving it the scholarly attention it deserves – insightful and readable, this is an essential addition to Gothic and horror studies.', Dr Kevin Corstorphine, University of Hull, co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature (2018)

'In Ramsey Campbell, O’Sullivan has crafted an authoritative and fascinating study of this vital but neglected figure in Gothic literature. Through rigorous research and meticulous analysis of rarely discussed works, this important and engaging book delivers compelling insights into Campbell’s style and themes, elevating him to his rightful place as a titan of modern British horror.', Dr Simon Brown, Kingston University, London, author of Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television (2018)