View source for Ramsey Campbell

{{Short description|English author (born 1946)}}{{More citations needed|date=January 2021}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2017}}
{{Infobox writer
| image            = Ramsey Campbell.2.JPG
| caption          = Campbell at the 2015 Liverpool Horror Festival
| name             = Ramsey Campbell
| pseudonym        = Carl Dreadstone, Jay Ramsay, Montgomery Comfort
| birth_name       = John Ramsey Campbell
| birth_date       = {{Birth date and age|1946|1|4|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Liverpool]], [[Lancashire]], England
| death_date       = 
| death_place      = 
| occupation       = Writer, film critic, literary critic and editor
| period           = 1964–present
| genre            = [[Horror fiction|Horror]], [[Thriller (genre)|thriller]], [[dark fantasy]], [[science fiction]]
| subject          = 
| movement         = 
| signature        = 
| website          = {{URL|ramseycampbell.com}}
}}

'''Ramsey Campbell''' (born 4 January 1946) is an English [[horror fiction]] writer, editor and critic who has been writing for over sixty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.

Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: [[T. E. D. Klein|T.E.D. Klein]] has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today",<ref>Klein, T. E. D. "Ramsey Campbell: An Appreciation", quoted in ''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ramsey_Campbell_and_Modern_Horror_Fictio/p_c5zwEACAAJ?hl=en Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction]'' (Liverpool University Press, 2001) by S. T. Joshi</ref> and Robert Hadji has described him as "perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition",<ref>Robert Hadji, "[John] Ramsey Campbell" in Jack Sullivan (ed), ''The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural'' (NY and Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, 1986), p. 67</ref> while [[S. T. Joshi]] stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of [[H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] or [[Algernon Blackwood|Blackwood]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.templeofdagon.com/interviews/s-t-joshi|last=Joshi|first=S. T.|title=S. T. Joshi Interview|publisher=The Temple of Dagon|access-date=19 September 2007|archive-date=4 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704064058/http://www.templeofdagon.com/interviews/s-t-joshi/|url-status=dead}}</ref> In a 2021 appreciation of his collected works, ''The Washington Post'' said: "Taken together, they constitute one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sheehan |first=Bill |date=27 October 2021 |title=Ramsey Campbell is a must-read for horror fans. Here's where to start. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/ramsey-campbell-horror-novels/2021/10/26/d0bae246-335c-11ec-93e2-dba2c2c11851_story.htmlhttps:/www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/ramsey-campbell-horror-novels/20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221207014139/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/ramsey-campbell-horror-novels/2021/10/26/d0bae246-335c-11ec-93e2-dba2c2c11851_story.htmlhttps:/www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/ramsey-campbell-horror-novels/20 |archive-date=2022-12-07 |access-date=15 December 2021 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>

==Overview==

===Early life and work===

Campbell was born in [[Liverpool]], England, to Alexander Ramsey and Nora (Walker) Campbell. He was educated by [[Congregation of Christian Brothers|Christian Brothers]] at [[St Edward's College]], Liverpool. Campbell's childhood and adolescence were marked by the rift between his parents, who became estranged shortly after his birth. Campbell's father became a shadowy presence more often heard than seen.<ref>S.T. Joshi, "[John] Ramsey Campbell" in Joshi and Stefan Dziemianowicz (eds). ''Supernatural Literature of the World'', Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2005, p. 203</ref> Campbell states, "I didn't see my father face to face for nearly twenty years, and that was when he was dying." Years later, Campbell's mother degenerated into paranoia and [[schizophrenia]], rendering his life a living hell—an experience he has discussed in detail in the introduction and afterword to the restored text of ''The Face That Must Die''.<ref>Campbell, Ramsey. "At the Back of My Mind: A Guided Tour", introduction to ''The Face That Must Die'' (1990), pp.vii-xxv, and Afterword (pp.236-238). {{ISBN|0-7088-4394-8}}</ref> Other autobiographical pieces regarding Campbell's life are available in Section V, "On Ramsey Campbell" in his essay collection ''Ramsey Campbell, Probably: 30 Years of Essays and Articles'' (ed. [[S. T. Joshi]]), as well as in the novella ''The Enigma of the Flat Policeman'' (2020).

Campbell's mother "wrote a great deal, novel after novel, but was largely unpublished aside from a handful of short stories in writer's magazines." She encouraged her young son to send his writing off from an early age.<ref name="catalystmedia.org.uk">{{Cite web|url=http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/ramsey_campbell.php|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303171313/http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/ramsey_campbell.php|url-status=dead|title=Mark Langshaw, "Interview with Ramsey Campbell", ''Nerve'' online|archive-date=3 March 2016}}</ref> Growing up in the blitzed landscape of post-war Liverpool, Campbell avidly consumed the work of [[H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]], [[Ambrose Bierce]], [[Franz Kafka]], [[Fritz Leiber]], [[Graham Greene]], and the cinema of [[film noir]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=2023-05-15 |title=Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Ramsey Campbell |url=https://horror.org/celebrating-our-elders-interview-with-ramsey-campbell/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230515120935/https://horror.org/celebrating-our-elders-interview-with-ramsey-campbell/ |archive-date=2023-05-15 |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=Horror Writers Association |language=en-US}}</ref>

===''Ghostly Tales''===

Campbell's earliest tales were written when he was 11 years old (1957–58) and were influenced by a magazine from [[Bolton]], Lancashire, called ''Phantom''. These early tales formed a self-illustrated collection of sixteen stories and a poem entitled "Ghostly Tales".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ramsey Campbell - Ghostly Tales {{!}} Vault Of Evil: Brit Horror Pulp Plus! |url=https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/6736/ramsey-campbell-ghostly-tales |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=vaultofevil.proboards.com}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=January 2025|reason=[[WP:USERG]]}} Campbell intended to submit these to ''Phantom'', but his mother, who regarded literary success as a possible way of financing her escape from her disastrous marriage, persuaded him to wait until he had a whole book to show to publishers. His English teacher, Brother Kelly, used to have him read his stories to the class. Campbell (as John R. Campbell) submitted ''Ghostly Tales'' to "numerous publishers"<ref name="catalystmedia.org.uk"/> including Tom Boardman publisher; Boardman rejected it as they did not publish ghost stories, but his rejection letter included encouragement to Campbell to keep writing.<ref>Ramsey Campbell, "It Came from the Past", ''Ghostly Tales: Crypt of Cthulhu'' 6, No 8, whole number 50, Michaelmas 1987, edited by [[Robert M. Price]]), p. 3</ref> This collection of [[juvenilia]] was published thirty years later, as a special issue of ''[[Crypt of Cthulhu]]'' magazine titled ''Ghostly Tales: Crypt of Cthulhu'' 6, No 8, whole number 50, Michaelmas 1987, edited by [[Robert M. Price]]. It is of interest that, though the stories are mostly mainstream spectral lore, one story ("The Hollow in the Woods") can be considered a very early mythos yarn.

Another issue of this magazine ''Crypt of Cthulhu'' No 43 (Hallowmas 1983), titled ''The Tomb-Herd and Others'' collects various early stories, including some early drafts of tales later published revised in Campbell's first book, ''The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants'' ([[Arkham House]], 1964). The manuscripts of Campbell's early tales are housed at the Local History Library of the Liverpool Public Libraries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Laura Smith |title=Library: Special Collections & Archives: Ramsey Campbell Archive |url=https://libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/library/sca/ramseycampbell |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=libguides.liverpool.ac.uk |language=en}}</ref>

===The influence of H. P. Lovecraft and ''The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants''===
Campbell first encountered the works of [[H. P. Lovecraft]] at age eight (1954), via the story "[[The Colour Out of Space]]", which he found in the [[Groff Conklin]] anthology ''Strange Travels in Science Fiction'', and within the next few years read "[[The Rats in the Walls]]" and "[[The Dunwich Horror]]", encountered in the Wise and Fraser anthology ''Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural''. At the age of twelve, Campbell attempted to write a novel titled ''Broken Moon'', influenced by [[Arthur Machen]], but it petered out after fifty pages.<ref>Stefan R. Dziemanowicz. "An Interview with Ramsey Campbell" in S.T. Joshi, ed. ''The Count of Thirty: A Tribute to Ramsey Campbell'', West Warwick, RI: [[Necronomicon Press]], 1993, p. 15</ref> By the age of 14, he discovered Lovecraft's ''Cry Horror!'', a British edition of the collection entitled ''The Lurking Fear'', and read it in one day, finding the fiction's sense of awesomeness as well as horror extraordinarily appealing. He had also read Arthur Machen's major horror stories by this age, and some works by [[John Dickson Carr]], which led him to write, at 14 years old, a 100-page Carr pastiche (unfinished) titled ''Murder By Moonlight''.<ref>Stefan R. Dziemanowicz, "The Ramsey Campbell Interview", ''Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror'' No 3 (Fall 1991), p. 19-20.</ref> This piece was published in 2020 as ''The Enigma of the Flat Policeman'', including annotations from the adult author reflecting on his psychological state at the time of composition. 
[[File:Gla'aki,_the_Inhabitant_of_the_Lake,_created_by_Ramsey_Campbell.jpg|thumb|right|An image of Gla'aki from Campbell's story "The Inhabitant of the Lake"]]

On leaving school at age sixteen, Campbell went to work in the Inland Revenue as a tax officer (1962–66). Campbell sold various early stories to editors including [[August Derleth]] and [[Robert A.W. Lowndes]]. His concept of what was possible in the Weird genre was highly influenced by Lovecraft for the next few years. In December 1961, Campbell completed the story "The Church in High Street" (previously titled "The Tomb-Herd") which he sent to August Derleth at [[Arkham House]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Flame Tree PressFlame Tree Press |url=https://www.flametreepress.com/authors/index.php?ga=ramsey-campbell.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220814010312/https://www.flametreepress.com/authors/index.php?ga=ramsey-campbell.html |archive-date=2022-08-14 |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=Flame Tree Press}}</ref> an imprint singlehandedly responsible for preserving the legacy of H P Lovecraft. Derleth accepted the story in February 1962 and it became Campbell's first professionally published tale, appearing in the Derleth-edited anthology ''[[Dark Mind, Dark Heart]]''. Campbell wrote various other tales of the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] between 1961 and 1963. Derleth gave the young writer invaluable advice on improving his writing style (their correspondence has been published in a single volume from PS Publishing).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ramsey Campbell, Certainly [trade paperback] by Ramsey Campbell |url=https://pspublishing.co.uk/ramsey-campbell-certainly-trade-paperback-by-ramsey-campbell-5211-p.asp |access-date=2024-05-04 |website=PS Publishing |language=en}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=January 2025|reason=[[WP:NOTADVERT]]}}

Forming his literary apprenticeship with stories modelled after Lovecraft's themes, Campbell's first collection, ''[[The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants]]'' (Arkham House, 1964), published when he was eighteen years old, collects his Lovecraftian pastiches to that date. Campbell has written, "In 1964 I was several kinds of lucky to find a publisher, and one kind depended on my having written a Lovecraftian book for Arkham House, the only publisher likely even to have considered it and one of the very few then to be publishing horror."<ref>Ramsey Campbell. ''[[Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961–1991|Alone With the Horrors]]'' Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1993, p. ix</ref> The title story of the collection introduces Campbell's invention of a tome of occult lore similar to Lovecraft's forbidden [[Necronomicon]], ''The Revelations of Gla'aki'' (see [[Books of the Cthulhu Mythos]]).

===Severn Valley===
{{anchor|Severn Valley}}
The Severn Valley is the setting of several fictional towns and other locations created by Campbell.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sawyer |first1=Andy |editor1-last=Crawford |editor1-first=Gary William |title=Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror |date=2013 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=9780810892989 |pages=4–5 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e5FWAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22severn+valley%22+campbell&pg=PA4 |access-date=16 August 2020 |chapter=That Ill-Rumored and Evilly-Shadowed Seaport: Ramsey Campbell's Lovecraftian Secret Histories of Liverpool}}</ref> Part of the Cthulhu Mythos started by Lovecraft, the fictional milieu is arguably the most detailed mythos setting outside of [[Lovecraft Country]] itself.

In his early writings, Campbell used the setting of Lovecraft's stories, in the fictional New England area of the [[Lovecraft Country|Miskatonic River valley]].   At the suggestion of fellow Lovecraftian writer, [[August Derleth]], he rewrote many of his earliest stories, which he had originally set in the [[Massachusetts]] locales of [[Arkham]], [[Dunwich]] and [[Innsmouth]], and moved them to English settings in and around the fictional [[Gloucestershire]] city of [[Severn Valley (Cthulhu Mythos)#Brichester|Brichester]], near the [[River Severn]], creating his own [[Severn Valley (Cthulhu Mythos)|Severn Valley]] milieu for Lovecraftian horrors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sawyer |first1=Andy |editor1-last=Rees-Jones |editor1-first=Deryn |editor2-last=Murphy |editor2-first=Michael |title=Writing Liverpool: Essays and Interviews |date=2007 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=9781846310737 |page=172 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zQwWXe9XXREC&q=%22severn%20valley%22%20 |access-date=16 August 2020 |chapter=Ramsey Campbell's Haunted Liverpool}}</ref><ref>Campbell, Ramsey. "Chasing the Unknown", introduction to ''[[Cold Print]]'' (1993), pp.11-13. {{ISBN|0-8125-1660-5}}</ref>  The invented locale of Brichester is the main town of Campbell's Severn Valley, and was deeply influenced by Campbell's native Liverpool, and much of his later work is set in the real locales of [[Liverpool]] and the [[Merseyside]] area.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joshi |first1=S.T. |title=Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction |date=2001 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=9780853237754 |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u15LIPjOcpUC&q=%22severn%20valley%22%20 |access-date=16 August 2020}}</ref>  The [[River Severn]] is an actual river in Wales and western [[England]].  Campbell's stories mention various real-world locales, including the [[Cotswolds|Cotswold Hills]], [[Berkeley, Gloucestershire|Berkeley]], and the [[A38 road]]. These references place "Campbell Country" in the southern part of [[Gloucestershire]],  roughly between the cities of [[Gloucester]] and [[Bristol]]. This area is more correctly referred to as the [[Vale of Berkeley]] or the [[Severn Estuary]]; the real-world [[Severn Valley (England)|Severn Valley]] refers to an area around fifty miles (80&nbsp;km) further north. His later work continued the focus on Liverpool; in particular, his 2005 novel ''Secret Stories'' (published in the U.S. in an abridged edition<ref>Joshi, S. T., ''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Classics_and_Contemporaries/7WkqAQAAIAAJ Classics and Contemporaries]'', Hippocampus Press 2009, p.131.</ref> as ''Secret Story'' (2006) both exemplifies and satirizes Liverpudlian speech, characters, humour and culture, while ''Creatures of the Pool'' draws on the city's geography and history.

====Inclusions====
Some of his stories about the fictional Severn Valley can be found in the following anthologies and collections:
*{{cite book|editor-last=Aniolowski|editor-first=Scott David|title=Made In Goatswood|year=1995|location=Oakland, CA|publisher=Chaosium|isbn=1-56882-046-1}}
*{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|title=Cold Print|edition=1st|year=1987|location=New York, NY|publisher=Tom Doherty Associates|isbn=0-8125-1660-5}}
*{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|title=Cold Print|year=1993|location=London|publisher=Headline|isbn=0-7472-4059-0}}
*{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|title=Demons by Daylight|year=1973|location=Sauk City, WI|publisher=Arkham House}}
*{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|title=The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Less Welcome Tenants|year=1964|location=Sauk City, WI|publisher=Arkham House}}
*{{cite book|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|title=Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death|year=2002|location=New York, NY|publisher=Tom Doherty Associates|isbn=0-7653-0004-4|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/scaredstifftales00camp}}

===Influence===
The story "Cold Print" (1969) marked an end to Campbell's literary apprenticeship, taking the essence of Lovecraft out of the New England backwoods into a modern urban setting. Subsequently Campbell briefly disavowed Lovecraft, whilst working on the radically experimental tales which would be published as the collection ''Demons by Daylight.'' He later acknowledged Lovecraft's lasting influence, and his subsequent Cthulhu Mythos tales, collected in ''Cold Print'' (1985; expanded in 1993), confirm the transition from pastiche to homage, most notably in such tales as "The Faces at Pine Dunes" and the eerily surreal "The Voice of the Beach" (1982). Later work still seeks to "ascend the cosmic peaks achieved by Lovecraft", particularly the novel ''The Darkest Part of the Woods'' (2003), the novella ''The Last Revelation of Gla'aki'' (2013), and three novels that form his Brichester Mythos trilogy (2016–18).

===The 1970s: "Determined to be myself": ''Demons by Daylight'' and early novels===
With his stories written between 1964 and 1968, beginning with ''The Reshaping of Rossiter'' (first draft of ''The Scar''), ''A Garden at Night'' (first draft of ''Made in Goatswood'') and ''The Successor'' (first draft of ''Cold Print''), Campbell set out to be as unlike Lovecraft as possible. Having discovered writers such as [[Vladimir Nabokov]], [[Robert Aickman]], [[Graham Greene]], [[Iris Murdoch]], [[William Burroughs]] and [[Henry Miller]], and such influences as the French 'new novel', he became interested in expanding the stylistic possibilities of his work. He finished the collection that would become ''Demons by Daylight'' in 1968, but it would not see print until 1973. Meanwhile, from 1969 to 1973, he continued to write short stories in which he gradually developed his own voice and themes and left the influence of Lovecraft far behind. Campbell worked in the Liverpool Public Libraries as a library assistant (1966–73) and was acting librarian in charge (1971–73).

In 1969, he had written ''Lovecraft in Retrospect'', a violent diatribe against Lovecraft, for the [[fanzine]] ''Shadow'',<ref>Campbell, Ramsey. ''Lovecraft in Retrospect'', ''Shadow'' 8 (1969).</ref> "condemning [Lovecraft's] work outright."<ref>''Chasing the Unknown'', p.16.</ref>  However, in his 1985 book ''Cold Print'', which collects his Lovecraftian stories, Campbell disavowed the opinions expressed in the article, stating: "I believe Lovecraft is one of the most important writers in the field"<ref>Campbell, Ramsey. ''Lovecraft: An Introduction'', ''Cold Print'' (1993), p. 1.</ref> and "the first book of Lovecraft's I read made me into a writer."<ref>''Chasing the Unknown'', p. 9.</ref> Around 1970, Campbell stopped using his first initial "J." on his work, though a few stories earlier than this appeared as by "Ramsey Campbell", and a few after still saw print as by "J. Ramsey Campbell". Campbell later legally changed his name to remove the "John".

After working four years in the tax office and seven years in public libraries, by 1973, Campbell became a fulltime writer, encouraged by the issuance by Arkham House of his second collection, ''[[Demons by Daylight]]'' (as by Ramsey Campbell). That collection had been due for publication in 1971, but was held back two years by the death of [[August Derleth]]. ''Demons by Daylight'' includes ''The Franklyn Paragraphs'', which uses Lovecraft's documentary narrative technique without slipping into parody of his writing style. Other tales, such as ''The End of a Summer's Day'' and ''Concussion'', show the emergence of Campbell's highly distinctive mature style, of which [[S. T. Joshi]] has written:
<blockquote>
Certainly much of the power of his work derives purely from his prose style, one of the most fluid, dense and evocative in all modern literature [...] His eye for the details and resonances of even the most mundane objects, and his ability to express them crisply and almost prose-poetically, give to his work at once a clarity and a dreamlike nebulousness that is difficult to describe but easy to sense.<ref>Joshi, S. T. ''The Modern Weird Tale'' (2001), p. 166.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Joshi |first=S. T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XLYnAwAAQBAJ |title=The Modern Weird Tale |date=2001-05-01 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-0986-0 |pages=166 |language=en}}</ref>
</blockquote>

The book's appearance induced [[T. E. D. Klein]] to write an extensive and highly positive review, ''Ramsey Campbell: An Appreciation'' in ''Nyctalops'' magazine, and critic [[S. T. Joshi]] has stated<ref>Joshi, S. T. ''Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction'' (2001), p.56</ref> that:
<blockquote>its [...] allusiveness of narration; careful, at times even obsessive focusing on the fleeting sensations and psychological processes of characters; an aggressively modern setting that allows commentary on social, cultural and political issues''—''all conjoin to make ''Demons by Daylight'' perhaps the most important book of horror fiction since [[H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]]'s ''[[The Outsider and Others]]''.</blockquote>

Campbell has written that "Having completed ''Demons by Daylight'' in 1968, I felt directionless, and it shows in quite a few of the subsequent tales."<ref name="Ramsey Campbell 2008">""Truth or Consequences" in Ramsey Campbell, ''Inconsequential Tales'', NY: Hippocampus Press, 2008, 11.</ref> He wrote only four tales in 1970, and five stories in 1971. He has written that "retrospect demonstrates how untimely my decision [to write fulltime] was. Kirby McCauley, now my agent, had to tell me that the market for short horror stories was very limited ... My solution was to lurch into science fiction as best I could. Little of it sold..."<ref>""Truth or Consequences" in Ramsey Campbell, ''Inconsequential Tales'' NY: Hippocampus Press, 2008, 13.</ref> Many of the science fiction tales are collected in ''Inconsequential Tales'' (2008); he also wrote the novella ''Medusa'' (1973) and the short story "Slow" (collected in ''[[Told by the Dead]]''), but has stated that his science fiction "tried to deal with Themes, too consciously, I feel".<ref>Campbell, Ramsey. Introduction to ''Strange Things and Stranger Places'' (1993), quoted in S. T. Joshi, ''Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction'' (2001), p.150.</ref>

Outside the world of horror, he wrote a series of fantasy stories starring Ryre the Swordsman, who battles enemies on an alien world called Tond. Initially published in various anthologies, these stories were finally gathered in the collection ''Far Away & Never'' (Necronomicon Press, July 1996). In 1976 he 'completed' three of [[Robert E. Howard]]'s unfinished [[Solomon Kane]] stories, ''Hawk of Basti'', ''The Castle of the Devil'' and ''The Children of Asshur'' (published in 1978 and 1979). By the time Arkham House published his second hardcover collection of horror stories, ''[[The Height of the Scream]]'' (1976), he was beginning to be seen as one of the major modern writers of horror.

1976 also saw the publication of Campbell's first novel, ''The Doll Who Ate His Mother'', which immediately drew acclaim from figures such as [[Fritz Leiber]] and [[T.E.D. Klein]]. In this and ''The Face that Must Die'' (1979), Campbell began to fully explore the enigma of evil, touching on the psychological themes of possession, madness and alienation which feature in many of his subsequent novels. He also continued to write short stories, mainly supernatural, receiving the [[World Fantasy Award]] for "The Chimney" (1977) and "Mackintosh Willy" (1980).

Campbell has been a lifelong enthusiast of film; early stories such as ''The Reshaping of Rossiter'' (1964; an early version of ''The Scar'') show the influence of directors such as [[Alain Resnais]], and as early as 1969 Campbell had become the film reviewer for [[BBC Radio Merseyside]].<ref name="Ramsey Campbell 2008"/> He worked in Merseyside on the Friday edition of "Breakfast" and less frequently on Claire Hamilton's Sunday show. A longer version of his Merseyside reviews appeared on the Radio Merseyside website, where he also reviewed DVDs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/films/ramsey/ramsey_reviews.shtml|title=BBC - Liverpool - Films - BBC Radio Merseyside - Ramsey reviews|website=www.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> His love of old movies features prominently in two of Campbell's later novels, ''Ancient Images'' and ''The Grin of the Dark''.

Campbell wrote [[Novelization|novelisations]] and introductions for a series of novelisations of [[Universal Monsters|Universal horror]] films. The series has a rather complex publishing history. They were published in paperback in 1977 in the US, with uniform packaging, by Berkley Medallion Books as ''The Universal Horror Library''. All six of the Berkley editions were published under the [[pen name|house name]] 'Carl Dreadstone'; all six of the US editions featured stills from the relevant films. It is believed this set was made available as boxed set in slipcase, as well as sold individually. Only three of the novels were actually written by Campbell, though he contributed introductions to all six volumes. No US hardcover edition of the series is known. Campbell's contributions to the series were ''Bride of Frankenstein'', ''Dracula's Daughter'' and ''The Wolfman'', published as Carl Dreadstone. Three further novelisations which appeared under this house name were not by Campbell but written by other authors.<ref>Joshi, S. T., ''Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction'' (2001), p.145-147.</ref>  [[Walter Harris (author)|Walter Harris]] wrote two of the novels: ''Werewolf of London'' and ''Creature from the Black Lagoon''. The author of the sixth Dreadstone (''The Mummy'') remains unknown.<ref>Ian Covell [https://terrortakeaways.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/ian-covell-on-carl-dreadstone/#comment-1567 "Ian Covell on ‘Carl Dreadstone’"], ''Souvenirs Of Terror fiendish film & TV show tie-ins'', 3 October 2007, accessed 11 July 2011.</ref> UK editions followed—in 1978, Universal Books (a paperback division of [[Virgin Books|W. H. Allen Ltd]]) published ''The Bride of Frankenstein'' (by Campbell) together with Harris's ''The Werewolf of London'' and the (unknown author) ''The Mummy'' under the 'Carl Dreadstone' house name, with similar packaging under the title 'The Classic Library of Horror'. A further two years would elapse before the rest of the series was issued in the UK. The last three of the series were issued by Star Books (a W. H. Allen imprint) in 1980 (with different packaging from the 1978 titles) and these three appeared under a different house-name—'E. K. Leyton'. These were Campbell's remaining two novels of the series, ''Dracula's Daughter'' and ''The Wolfman'', together with Harris's ''Creature from the Black Lagoon''. At least one hardcover omnibus was published, presumably prior to the UK paperbacks: ''The Classic Library of Horror Omnibus—The Mummy & The Werewolf of London'' (London: Allan Wingate, 1978). Its existence suggests there may have been two companion hardcover omnibuses collecting the balance of the series (if this were the case they would contain the Campbell-authored novels), but their existence/issuance is uncertain. All six of the UK paperbacks and the hardcover omnibus omitted the film stills which appeared in the original US editions.<ref>Private collection of [[Leigh Blackmore]]</ref>

1979 saw the publication of the non-supernatural thriller ''The Face That Must Die'', the story of a [[homophobic]] [[serial killer]] told largely from the killer's point of view. Initially considered by numerous publishers, including Campbell's British publisher [[Thomas Tessier]] at Millington Books, as too grim to publish, it is regarded by many critics as one of Campbell's finest works. The novel was cut by Star Books, who first issued it in a paperback edition in 1979; it was not issued complete until the US Scream Press edition of 1983.

===The 1980s: ''The Parasite'' to ''Ancient Images''===

Campbell became even more prolific during the 1980s, issuing at least eight novels (of which six won awards) and three short story collections. He has written that after moving away from Lovecraft's influence he was "determined to sound like myself" but also that "The Chicago and San Francisco tales of [[Fritz Leiber]] were now my models in various ways. I wanted to achieve that sense of supernatural terror which derives from the everyday urban landscape rather than invading it, and I greatly admired—still do—how Fritz wrote thoroughly contemporary weird tales which were nevertheless rooted in the best traditions of the field, and which drew some of their strength from uniting British and American influences."<ref>Ramsey Campbell, ''Alone With the Horrors'' Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1993, p. x</ref>

In 1981, [[Stephen King]] published a semi-autobiographical overview of the horror field, ''[[Danse Macabre (King book)|Danse Macabre]].'' In a chapter focusing on 20th century practitioners, King devoted a section to Campbell's fiction, alongside that of [[Ray Bradbury]], [[Shirley Jackson]], [[Peter Straub]], [[Richard Matheson]], [[Jack Finney]] and others. On the basis of Campbell's earliest work, especially ''The Doll Who Ate His Mother'', King argued that the author's strength lies in his hallucinogenic prose and edgy psychology, the way his characters view the world and how this affects readers:

<blockquote>In a Campbell novel or story, one seems to view the world through the thin and shifting perceptual haze of an LSD trip that is just ending ... or just beginning. The polish of his writing and his mannered turns of phrase and image make him seem something like the genre's Joyce Carol Oates [...] as when journeying on LSD, there is something chilly and faintly schizophrenic in the way his characters see things ... and in the things they see [...] Good stuff. But strange; so uniquely Campbell that it might as well be trademarked.<ref>{{Cite book |last=King |first=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rs1WbPRa3LoC |title=Danse Macabre |publisher=Futura |year=1981 |isbn=978-0708821817 |location=London |pages=396–7}}</ref></blockquote>

King also singled out one of Campbell's early short stories for particular praise: "{{-'}}The Companion' may be the best horror tale to be written in the English language in thirty years; it is surely one of the half a dozen or so which will still be in print and commonly read a hundred years from now."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Danse Macabre|last=King|first=Stephen|publisher=Futura|year=1981|isbn=978-0708821817|location=London|page=398}}</ref> This story appeared in Campbell's 1982 collection, ''Dark Companions'', alongside other tales from that period commonly cited as early classics: "The Chimney", "Mackintosh Willy", and "Call First".

Starting with ''The Parasite'' (1980; published in the US with a different ending as ''To Wake the Dead''), and continuing throughout much of the decade, Campbell's full-length novels were consciously aimed at a more commercial audience. It features a point of view of a female protagonist who becomes embroiled in occult practices (with Lovecraftian undertones). In ''The Nameless'' (1981), also told from the point of view of a woman, a child goes missing and returns only years later, affiliated to a nefarious organisation. ''Obsession'' (1982) involves a group of childhood friends making a wish apiece concerning their futures, the manifestations tormenting them in later life; however, as is common in Campbell's work involving aberrant mental states, it is not entirely apparent that these events have a supernatural origin. In ''Incarnate'' (1983), the boundaries between dream and reality are gradually broken down as a group of characters involved in a psychological experiment begin to experience fragmentation in their everyday lives (the novel was written during the "terrible nightmare year" of Campbell's mother's last mental breakdown).

In ''The Claw'' (1983; originally published under the pseudonym Jay Ramsey) a family man is tempted by an African talisman to devour his own daughter and in ''[[The Hungry Moon]]'' (1986) a primordial moon entity stokes the religious hysteria of a quiet community. The latter book is a favourite among fans and a multi-character 'small town' horror story along the lines of similar work in this period, a subgenre arguably 'pump-primed' by the likes of Stephen King's ''[['Salem's Lot]]''. In characteristically honest and self-critical afterwords,<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Claw|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|publisher=Warner Books|year=1992|isbn=978-0708852583|location=London|pages=369–380}}</ref> Campbell has claimed that, despite its popularity, ''The Hungry Moon,'' along with the similarly commercial ''The Parasite'' and, to a lesser degree, ''The Claw'', are among the least successful of his works from this period, by turns awkwardly structured, containing too many ideas, and/or tending towards explicit violence. In contrast Campbell has stated his pride that ''The Influence'' (1988) and ''Ancient Images'' (1989) are subtler, tightly plotted novels of supernatural menace, each with (predominantly) female central characters and generating unease through the author's trademark suggestiveness and surreal imagery. In 1987, Campbell published ''Scared Stiff'', a collection of "sex and horror" short stories.

In the early 1980s Campbell had crossed paths a number of time in Liverpool at cinemas and various parties with a young Liverpool writer named [[Clive Barker]], who had been working around London as a playwright. Barker asked Campbell if he knew any markets for short stories and eventually asked him to look over a soon-to-be-published manuscript and the contract he had been offered for it. Campbell says "My jaw dropped when I looked at the manuscript—it turned out to be the ''[[Books of Blood]]''." Campbell wrote the introduction to the first edition.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Matthew |first=David |title=Ramsey Campbell interview - infinity plus non-fiction |url=http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intcam.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308060318/https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intcam.htm |archive-date=2013-03-08 |access-date=2024-05-04 |website=www.infinityplus.co.uk}}</ref>

Campbell contributed numerous articles on horror cinema to ''[[The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural]]'' (1986).

===The 1990s: ''Midnight Sun'' to ''The Last Voice They Hear''===

The 1990s again saw Campbell publish eight novels, though in the second half of this decade he moved away from traditional horror to explore crime and tales of social alienation. Four of this decade's novels won awards.

In ''Midnight Sun'' (1990), an alien entity apparently seeks entry to the world through the mind of a children's writer. In its fusion of horror with awe, ''Midnight Sun'' shows the influence of [[Algernon Blackwood]] and [[Arthur Machen]] as well as Lovecraft. It is one that many enthusiasts single out as a highlight of this stage of his career. ''Needing Ghosts'' (1990), a novella, is a nightmarish work that blends the horrific and the comic; Campbell himself has described the composition of this piece as unique among his work in that it "felt like dreaming on the page" and was written relatively quickly without technical or structural challenges.

A sympathetic serial murderer appears in the black comedy ''The Count of Eleven'' (1991), which displays Campbell's gift for [[word play]], and which the author has said is disturbing "because it doesn't stop being funny when you think it should".<ref>Campbell, Ramsey, interviewed in ''The Count of Thirty'' (1994).</ref>{{Incomplete short citation|date=January 2025}} A review at the time suggested that the central character might be played in a film by Stan Laurel, an observation that delighted Campbell, who is a great admirer of Laurel and Hardy. Other novels of this decade include ''The Long Lost'' (1993), in which a [[sin-eater]] is discovered by a couple holidaying in Wales and brought home ostensibly as a relative, with considerable impact on a community. A haunted house novel called ''The House on Nazareth Hill'' (1996), combining the author's M R Jamesian suggestiveness with an increasingly idiosyncratic prose style, is a study of familial psychology and the unchanging nature of social processes, particularly those relating to the young's quest for independence and the threat this presents to others.

Campbell had earlier published a non-supernatural novel called ''The One Safe Place'' (1995), which uses a highly charged [[Thriller (genre)|thriller]] narrative to examine social problems such as the deprivation and abuse of children, and in 1998 he turned away for a more sustained period from the supernatural work with which he was associated. By this time, horror had become commercially less successful and publishers were taking fewer chances on publishing such material, all of which encouraged Campbell to write a number of crimes novels. The first, ''The Last Voice They Hear'' (1998), is a tightly plotted thriller which ranges back and forth in time as two brothers become engaged in a cat-and-mouse game redolent of earlier events in their lives. Although written "under protest", Campbell came to think of the book, during composition, as bearing his own stamp, and his next two novels were also non-supernatural.

In this decade Campbell issued four short story collections, including, in 1993, the 30-year career retrospective ''[[Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961–1991|Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961-1991]]'', published by Campbell's original publisher, [[Arkham House]]. This volume, illustrated by Jeff K. Potter, is not a comprehensive collection of all the stories Campbell had published in those thirty years, rather 39 tales which Campbell and his editor Jim Turner thought representative. Drawing on material across his career to that date, it is considered a good entry point for readers unfamiliar with his work. ''[[Waking Nightmares]]'' (1991), ''[[Strange Things and Stranger Places]]'' (1993), and ''[[Ghosts and Grisly Things]]'' (1998) collect much of Campbell's short fiction from this period. Two of this decade's short story collections won awards.

In 1999, Campbell was awarded both the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association.

===The 2000s: ''Silent Children'' to ''Creatures of the Pool''===
In the "noughties", Campbell continued his prolific output, publishing multiple novels, along with three short story collections. He reviewed films and DVDs weekly for [[BBC Radio Merseyside]] until 2007, and began to contribute a monthly film column, "Ramsey's Ramblings", for ''[[Video Watchdog]]'' magazine. In 2002, PS Publishing issued a collection of Campbell's essays on horror and other areas of interest: ''Ramsey Campbell, Probably'' (this volume was expanded to include further material in a 2014 reprint). The collection includes book reviews, film reviews, autobiographical writings and other nonfiction, along with reminiscences and appreciations of authors such as [[John Brunner (novelist)|John Brunner]], [[Bob Shaw]] and [[K. W. Jeter]], and an extensive, negative critique of [[Shaun Hutson]]'s ''Heathen'', [[parody]]ing Hutson's style.

Following the publication of two more crime novels—''Silent Children'' (2000), the story of an eccentric child killer; and ''Pact of the Fathers'' (2001), which draws on arcane religious practices—Campbell returned to the supernatural and otherworldly. ''The Darkest Part of the Woods'' (2003) successfully evokes the cosmic terrors of H P Lovecraft and was the first of Campbell's work published by [[PS Publishing]]; the author would go on to enjoy a long-term relationship with the UK imprint, granting first print rights to most new work. Having spent a number of months working full-time in a [[Borders (retailer)|Borders]] store, Campbell wrote ''The Overnight'' (2004), about [[bookshop]] staff trapped in their hellish workplace during an overnight shift. In ''Secret Stories'' (2005; abridged US edition, ''Secret Story'', 2006) Campbell returned to the crime genre with a blackly comic study of a serial killer whose written accounts of his crimes inadvertently win a fiction competition, resulting in further murders.

''The Grin of the Dark'' (2007) draws on Campbell's interest in the history of cinema, as a character seeks material relating to a silent film comedian by the name of Tubby Thackeray. The novel also explores the impact of the internet on human consciousness. The author, often critical of his own output, continues to cite this novel as one with which he remains pleased. ''Thieving Fear'' (2008) and ''The Creatures of the Pool'' (2009) use locations in and around the author's native Liverpool to eerie effect.

''[[Told by the Dead]]'' (2003) and ''[[Just Behind You]]'' (2009) collected Campbell's short fiction, while ''[[Inconsequential Tales]]'' (2008), collecting a number of unpublished stories, documents his early evolution as a stylist.

In 2007, Campbell was awarded the Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Horror writer is a Living Legend. - Free Online Library |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Horror+writer+is+a+Living+Legend.-a0170224320 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503115025/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Horror+writer+is+a+Living+Legend.-a0170224320 |archive-date=2024-05-03 |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=www.thefreelibrary.com}}</ref>

=== The 2010: ''The Seven Days of Cain'' to the "Brichester Mythos Trilogy" ===
[[File:Ramsey Campbell.jpg|thumb|right|Campbell at a book signing in [[New Brighton, Merseyside|New Brighton]]]]
After 2010, Campbell continued to publish at least a book a year, including a collection of letters from his early career between himself and his first mentor August Derleth (''Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971'', ed. S. T. Joshi, 2014) .

Both ''The Seven Days of Cain'' (2010) and ''Think Yourself Lucky'' (2014) explore use of the internet, as characters originally appearing online start to impact upon the real world with disconcerting effects. In 2010, Campbell was commissioned to write the novelisation of the movie ''[[Solomon Kane (film)|Solomon Kane]],'' which was based on the swords and sorcery stories of Robert E. Howard (some of which Campbell had completed in his early career)''.'' ''Ghosts Know'' (2011), one of the author's few latter-day non-supernatural excursions (on the surface, at least), explores the mendacity of stage mediums/psychics in the context of a missing person story; it also showcases a later development in the Campbell's work, social comedy and confusions inherent in everyday communication. ''The Kind Folk'' (2012) is a delicately written evocation of fairy folk, told in the modern day.

In 2013, ''[[Holes for Faces]]'', a further collection of short fiction appeared, gathering together his work from the 2000s. During the same period, PS Publishing issued two novellas by Campbell: ''The Last Revelation of Gla'aki'' (2013) and ''The Pretence'' (2013). A third novella appeared in 2016 entitled ''The Booking,'' from Dark Regions Press. These were the first novellas Campbell had written since 1990's ''Needing Ghosts''. 2015 saw the release of ''Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach'', one of Campbell's few novels set outside the UK; a family holiday on a Greek island involves communion with a familiar supernatural character from literature. Campbell's collection of playful limericks based on famous horror works of fiction appeared in 2016: ''Limericks of the Alarming and Phantasmal.''

''The Searching Dead'' (2016) was the first novel in a trilogy of H P Lovecraft-influenced works which, like the novella ''The Last Revelation of Gla'aki,'' revisits themes from Campbell's early work. Described by the author as his "Brichester Mythos trilogy", the three-book series, including ''Born to the Dark'' (2017) and ''The Way of the Worm'' (2018), documents a character's engagement with a nefarious organisation over three time periods (1950s, 1980s, 2010s) and evokes a cosmic entity by the name of Daoloth. The trilogy draws together multiple themes that have preoccupied the author during his whole career: the cosmic, family, scapegoating, the vulnerability of children, and the seductiveness of totalising belief systems.

A new short story collection, ''By the Light of my Skull,'' was also released in 2018, some stories deal with older age. ''Visions from Brichester'' (2017) collected all of the author's Lovecraftian short fiction not originally published in ''The Inhabitant of the Lake''. PS Publishing issued the first of a two-volume retrospective focused on Campbell's most representative short fiction across his entire career: ''The Companion & Other Phantasmagorical Stories'' (2019).

In 2015, Campbell received the World Fantasy Award's Life Award, and in 2017, in Spain, he was awarded the Premio Sheridan Le Fanu for his career achievements. In 2015, the author received an Honorary Fellowship from John Moores University, Liverpool, for "outstanding services to literature".

=== The 2020s: ''The Wise Friend'' to present ===
''The Wise Friend'' was published in spring 2020 by new publisher Flame Tree Press (which has also reissued earlier Campbell novels in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook). Among the quietest of the author's work, this novel draws on folk horror as a father seeks to protect his son who has become involved with a legacy with occult overtones. A new novella, ''The Enigma of the Flat Policeman,'' part of Borderlands Press's Little Book series (in this case, ''A Little Green Book of Grins & Gravity''), was released in March 2020. It consists of an incomplete short detective novel the author wrote aged 14 in imitation of John Dickson Carr, with annotations exploring the adult author's perceptions of his younger self's psychological state at the time of composition. The second volume of PS Publishing's career retrospective, ''The Retrospective & Other Phantasmagorical Stories,'' was published in late 2020. Another Campbell career retrospective (with a different selection of tales) appeared in 2020 from Centipede Press as part of their ''Masters of the Weird Tale'' series, also issued in two volumes.

In July 2021, Flame Tree Press released ''Somebody's Voice'', a non-supernatural thriller novel which focuses on themes of identity, memory, and mental disintegration; after an author ghost-writes a memoir, his grip on reality slides when the truth turns out to be less assured than he was led to believe. A third volume in PS Publishing's career retrospective series, ''Needing Ghosts & Other Novellas'', was published in 2021; the book collects all of the author's novellas to date and includes a new novella, ''The Village Killings''. Also in 2021, a new edition of the author's sword and sorcery collection ''Far Away and Never'' was published (by DMR Books), including an extra story. In the same year, Dark Moon Books published a Campbell edition of their primer series (''Exploring Dark Fiction'' ''#6: A Primer to Ramsey Campbell,'' which includes a new short story), while PS Publishing also released a new expanded edition of the author's collected essays, ''Ramsey Campbell, Certainly.'' In 2023, PS Publishing published a new short story collection by Campbell called ''Fearful Implications,'' along with his personal tribute to The Third Stooges, ''Six Stooges and Counting''. 

Campbell's 2022 novel ''Fellstones'' is oriented around the author's love of classical music and is squarely in the tradition of British folk horror, as a young man suffers in later life unwanted attention from a family that adopted him in childhood and that still lives in a village occupied by seven standing stones; the novel is a return to themes of cosmicism. ''The Lonely Lands'' (2023) explores themes of the afterlife as a man loses his wife to Covid and experiences communications from her after death. But other less welcome people also return and he must do what he can to protect her from them. ''The Incubations'' (2024) focuses on post-WWII Anglo-German relations as young man who had a childhood penfriend in Germany gets involved in a myth that infects his homecoming after a trip abroad.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Ramsey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1A37EAAAQBAJ |title=The Incubations |date=2025-10-14 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-78758-932-2 |language=en}}</ref> Campbell has recently completed a new novel entitled ''An Echo of Children'' and is working on another called ''The Ancestral''.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

=== Style and themes ===
Campbell's style is characterised by an idiosyncratic use of language. His fictional worlds feel unusual, threatening, and dislocated. Such an approach prompted [[Peter Straub]] to write in a blurb for one of Campbell's early novels: "Horrors in his fiction are never merely invented, they are felt and experienced, and affect the reader for days afterward." The horrors Campbell evokes are commonly suggested to the reader by ambiguous allusions to events his characters are not always mindful of. In this regard, his approach is similar to that of [[M. R. James]]. Indeed, Campbell celebrates James's concentrated prose, choice of detail, and ability to hint at disquieting material much larger than what is explicitly revealed. Campbell has described much of his own later work as "comedies of paranoia",<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/why-i-write/article/48631-why-i-write-ramsey-campbell.html|title=Why I Write...Ramsey Campbell|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|date=9 September 2011|website=Publishers Weekly|access-date=18 October 2019}}</ref> as his characters experience an existential bewilderment that borders on the absurd.

Campbell himself has cited the following themes as recurrent in his work: "the vulnerability of children, the willingness of people to espouse a belief system that denies them the right to question, and the growing tendency to create scapegoats for the ills of the world."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lounge-books.com/award-winners-we-lov/ramsey-campbell-horror-author-interview|title=Meet Ramsey Campbell, 'Britain's Most Respected Living Horror Writer'|last=Walker|first=Luke|website=Lounge Books|date=14 August 2018 |access-date=18 October 2019}}</ref> However, his work has addressed a wide range of issues, including censorship (e.g., ''The One Safe Place'', 1995), the impact of the internet on consciousness (e.g., ''The Grin of the Dark'', 2007; ''The Seven Days of Cain'', 2010; ''Think Yourself Lucky'', 2014), corporation-led consumerism (the recurrence of a global organisation called Frugo in his later work, especially ''The Overnight'', 2004, and ''Thieving Fear'', 2008), fatherhood (''The House on Nazareth Hill'', 1996), and older age (''Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach'', 2015). Abnormal human psychology is also a major recurring theme in Campbell's work (e.g., ''The Face That Must Die'', 1979; ''The Count of Eleven'', 1991; ''The Last Voice They Hear'', 1998; ''Secret Stories'', 2005; ''Somebody's Voice'', 2021).

===Tributes===

Four tribute anthologies of stories inspired by Campbell's work have been released to date. The first was the 1995 anthology ''Made in Goatswood'' (Chaosium, edited by Scott David Aniolowski), which includes a story by Campbell himself. ''The Children of Gla'aki'' (2016, Dark Regions Press, edited by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass) consists of stories focused on one of Campbell's Lovecraftian creations, and ''Darker Companions'' (2017, PS Publishing, edited by Joe Pulver and Scott David Aniolowski) contains tales inspired by the author's vision and prose. In Spain, a further tribute anthology appeared entitled ''El Horror Que Vino del Sur: Un Tributo Latino a Ramsey Campbell Y Al Circulo de Lovecraft'' (2018, Bookbaby). All four books demonstrate Campbell's influence in the field on both established and newer writers. In 2021, ''Phantasmagoria'' magazine published a special edition (#4) devoted to Campbell<nowiki>''</nowiki>s work, boasting many critiques and tributes from his peers.

In 2012, Campbell attracted a spoof collection of horror stories edited by fellow writer [[Rhys Hughes]]. Hughes contributed a good deal of the fictional content, including the pieces focused on an author called Lamblake Heinz, clearly a parody of Campbell (although Hughes has admitted elsewhere that he has read little if any of Campbell's work).

===Films===

Three of Campbell's novels have been adapted into films to date, all in Spain. [[Jaume Balagueró]]'s ''[[The Nameless (film)|The Nameless]]'' (in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] ''Los Sin Nombre''; in [[Catalan language|Catalan]] ''Els sense nom''), based on the novel of the same name, takes some liberties with the source material's plot but captures its pungent atmosphere. [[Paco Plaza]]'s ''[[Second Name]]'' (''El Segundo Nombre'' in Spanish) based on the novel ''The Pact of the Fathers'', similarly evokes Campbell's paranoiac fictional world, its story rooted in the world of arcane religious practices. Denis Rovira van Boekholt's ''[[The Influence (2019 film)|The Influence]]'' (''La Influencia'' in Spanish), based on the Campbell novel of the same name and quite faithful (except for changes in the final third), was released in 2019 and was later picked up by [[Netflix]] to stream. In 2025, a TV series based on ''The Nameless'' was released under the stewardship of [[Jaume Balagueró]] and Pau Freixas.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Filmax, Jaume Balagueró, Pau Freixas Team for 'The Nameless' Series|url=https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/filmax-jaume-balaguero-pau-freixas-team-the-nameless-series-1203548907/|last=Hopewell|first=John|date=30 March 2020|website=VARIETY|access-date=3 May 2020}}</ref>

===Books edited===

Campbell has edited a number of [[anthologies]], including ''[[New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos]]'' (1980); ''New Terrors'' and ''New Terrors II'', a groundbreaking two-volume anthology series; and (with [[Stephen Jones (author)|Stephen Jones]]) the first five volumes of the annual ''Best New Horror'' series (1990–1994). His 1992 anthology ''[[Uncanny Banquet]]'' was notable for including the first ever reprint of the obscure 1914 horror novel ''The Hole of the Pit'' by [[Adrian Ross]]. ''[[The Gruesome Book]]'' was a paperback anthology of horror tales for children. Campbell is extremely well-read in the horror field, and some of his own literary influences are demonstrated by his selections for the 1988 anthology ''Fine Frights: Stories That Scared Me''. In 2002 he edited a collection of fiction in the tradition of M. R. James, entitled ''Meddling with Ghosts''. His 2003 anthology ''Gathering the Bones'' (co-edited with Dennis Etchison and Jack Dann) draws together tales from the UK, US, and Australia. ''The Folio Book of Horror Stories'' (2018), the first collection Campbell had edited in 15 years, draws together classic tales from the last 200 years.

===Personal life===

Campbell married Jenny Chandler, daughter of [[A. Bertram Chandler]], on 1 January 1971. He commonly describes his wife as the "best part" of himself. At various stages of his career—for instance, when he first decided to write on a full-time basis—he received support from Jenny, who worked as a teacher. They have two children, Tamsin (born 1978) and Matthew (born 1981). Campbell is a life-long resident of Merseyside.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/clive-barker-returns-heres-eight-9289121|title=As Clive Barker returns here's eight other Merseyside sci fi, fantasy and horror writers who have thrilled readers worldwide|first=Jamie|last=Bowman|date=19 May 2015|website=liverpoolecho}}</ref> He is fond of fine dining, travel, and classical music. He is very active as a public speaker and greatly enjoys giving readings of his fiction at literary events. Campbell is eloquent and jolly (a persona he self-effacingly describes as a "facade"), and he has claimed that if he hadn't become a horror writer, he might have been a stand-up comedian.<ref name=":0" />

In response to an interview question about religion, Campbell has stated, "As I got older I'm more [[agnosticism|Agnostic]] [...] [a] little religious perspective is no bad thing; I have no set belief." He added, "I don't think there is any supernatural force out there to make you do stuff."<ref>Neil Buchanan, [http://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/interviews/1245-an-interview-with-ramsey-campbell "An Interview With Ramsey Campbell".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002120715/http://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/interviews/1245-an-interview-with-ramsey-campbell |date=2 October 2016 }} ''[[Starburst (magazine)|Starburst]]'', June 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2016.</ref> When asked whether he believes in the supernatural he claims to have experienced episodes that might be described as involving such activity; however, he remains noncommittal on this issue, stating that he writes about such material because he finds it "imaginatively appealing" and to "repay" the genre for many treasured reading experiences. Campbell is fiercely opposed to censorship, claiming that the suppression of contentious material can result in it returning in an even worse form.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/writing/ramseys-rant-censorship/|title=Ramsey's Rant: Censorship|last=Campbell|first=Ramsey|date=March 2009|website=British Fantasy Society|access-date=14 January 2019|archive-date=14 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190114210315/http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/writing/ramseys-rant-censorship/|url-status=dead}}</ref> He has been very generous in support of newer writers, frequently writing introductions to their work.

For many years Campbell was the President of the [[British Fantasy Society]].

==Bibliography==

===Novels ===

*''The Doll Who Ate His Mother'' (1976; revised text, 1985)
*''The Face That Must Die'' (expurgated version 1979; restored text: 1983)
*''The Parasite'' (1980; published in the US with a different ending as ''To Wake the Dead'')
*''The Nameless'' (1981; filmed in 1999 as ''[[The Nameless (film)|The Nameless]]'')
*''The Claw'' (1983; also known as ''Night of the Claw''; written as Jay Ramsay)
*''Incarnate'' (1983)
*''Obsession'' (1985; written under the working title ''For the Rest of Their Lives'')
*''[[The Hungry Moon]]'' (1986; written under the working title ''Blind Dark'')
*''The Influence'' (1988; filmed in 2019 as ''La Influencia'')
*''Ancient Images'' (1989)
*''Midnight Sun'' (1990)
*''The Count of Eleven'' (1991)
*''The Long Lost'' (1993)
*''The One Safe Place'' (1995)
*''The House on Nazareth Hill'' (1996; also known as ''Nazareth Hill'')
*''The Last Voice They Hear'' (1998)
*''Silent Children'' (2000)
*''Pact of the Fathers'' (2001; filmed in 2002 as ''[[Second Name (film)|Second Name]]'')
*''The Darkest Part of the Woods'' (2003)
*''The Overnight'' (2004)
*''Secret Stories'' (2005; abridged US edition, ''Secret Story'', 2006)
*''The Grin of the Dark'' (2007)
*''Thieving Fear'' (2008)
*''Creatures of the Pool'' (2009)
*''The Seven Days of Cain'' (2010)
*''Ghosts Know'' (2011)
*''The Kind Folk'' (2012)
*''Think Yourself Lucky'' (2014)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/index.asp?function=ERROR404&type=PRODUCT|title=UK genre publisher of SF, Horror & Fantasy fiction.|website=www.pspublishing.co.uk}}</ref>
*''Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach'' (2015)
*''The Searching Dead'' (2016) (Book One of ''The Three Births of Daoloth'')
*''Born to the Dark'' (2017) (Book Two of ''The Three Births of Daoloth'')
*''The Way of the Worm'' (2018) (Book Three of ''The Three Births of Daoloth'')
*''The Wise Friend'' (2020)
*''Somebody's Voice'' (2021)
*''Fellstones'' (2022)
*''The Lonely Lands'' (2023)
*''The Incubations'' (2024)
*''An Echo of Children'' (2025)

=== Novelisations ===

*''The Bride of Frankenstein'' (1977; of the [[Bride of Frankenstein|1935 film]], written as Carl Dreadstone)
*''Dracula's Daughter'' (1977; of the [[Dracula's Daughter|1936 film]], written as Carl Dreadstone)
*''The Wolf Man'' (1977; of the [[The Wolf Man (1941 film)|1941 film]], written as Carl Dreadstone)
*''Solomon Kane'' (2010; of the [[Solomon Kane (film)|2009 film]])

=== Novellas ===

*''Medusa'' (1987; published standalone; later collected in ''Strange Things and Stranger Places'')
*''Needing Ghosts'' (1990; published standalone; later collected in ''Strange Things and Stranger Places'')
*''The Last Revelation of Gla'aki'' (2013)
*''The Pretence'' (2013)
*''The Booking'' (2016)
*''The Enigma of the Flat Policeman (A Little Green Book of Grins & Gravity)'' (2020)
*''The Village Killings'' (2021; original contribution to the collection ''The Village Killings & Other Novellas'')

===Collections===

*''[[The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants]]'' (1964, as J. Ramsey Campbell; reprinted 2011 with bonus material, under its intended title, as ''The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants'' as by Ramsey Campbell)
*''[[Demons by Daylight]]'' (1973)
*''[[The Height of the Scream]]'' (1976)
*''[[Dark Companions]]'' (1982)
*''[[Cold Print]]'' (1985; expanded edition 1993. Contains stories from ''[[The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants|The Inhabitant of the Lake]]'' as well as later material in the Lovecraft vein)
*''[[The Tomb Herd and others]]'' (1986, issue #43 of ''[[Crypt of Cthulhu]]''. Contains the stories omitted from ''[[Cold Print]]''. All mythos, including two early versions of his stories and two versions of a story set on Tond.)
*''Night Visions 3'' (1986. Contains stories by Campbell, [[Clive Barker]] and [[Lisa Tuttle]])
*''Black Wine'' (1986. Contains stories by Campbell and Charles L. Grant)
*''[[Ghostly Tales]]'' (1987, issue #50 of ''Crypt of Cthulhu''. (Consists of Campbell's juvenilia as of 1958, with drawings by him to illustrate the stories. Of note is the story "[[The Hollow in the Woods]]" because it features [[Shoggoth]]s, and thus can be considered a mythos effort.)
*''[[Dark Feasts: The World of Ramsey Campbell]]'' (1987) (The entire contents of this collection except "The Whining" can be found in ''Alone With the Horrors''. The true first edition was printed in an edition of only 300 copies and most were recalled due to a printer's error on p.&nbsp;233, making it a rarity; a corrected printing was issued.)
*''[[Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death]]'' (1987)
*''[[Waking Nightmares]]'' (1991)
*''[[Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961-1991|Alone with the Horrors]]'' (1993) (see full entry for variant contents).
*''[[Strange Things and Stranger Places]]'' (1993)
*''Tales from Merseyside'' (1995) (An audio collection (cassette only) released by Necronomicon Press in conjunction with A-typical Productions. Running time 1 hr 30 mins, read by the author. Stories are: "The Companion"; "Calling Card"; "The Guide"; "Out of the Woods".)
*''[[Far Away & Never]]'' (1996 - republished 2021)
*''[[Ghosts and Grisly Things]]'' (1998)
*''[[Told by the Dead]]'' (2003)
*''[[Inconsequential Tales]]'' (2008)
*''[[Just Behind You]]'' (2009)
*''[[Holes for Faces]]'' (2013)
*''Visions from Brichester'' (2015)
*''[[Limericks of the Alarming and Phantasmal]]'' (2016)
*''[[By the Light of My Skull]]'' (2018)
*''The Companion & Other Phantasmagorical Stories'' (2019)
*''The Retrospective & Other Phantasmagorical Stories'' (2020)
*''Masters of the Weird Tale: Ramsey Campbell, Vols. 1 & 2'' (2020)
*''The Village Killings & Other Novellas'' (2021)
*''Exploring Dark Fiction'' ''#6: A Primer to Ramsey Campbell'' (2021)
*''Fearful Implications'' (2023)

===Nonfiction===

*''Ramsey Campbell, Probably: 30 Years of Essays and Articles,'' ed. S. T. Joshi (2002); extensively expanded as ''Ramsey Campbell, Probably: 40 Years of Essays'' (2014) 
*''Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971'', ed. S. T. Joshi (2014)
*''Ramsey Campbell, Certainly'', ed. S. T. Joshi (2021)
*''Ramsey's Rambles'' (2022)
*''Six Stooges and Counting'' (2023)

===As editor===

*''Superhorror'' (also known as ''The Far Reaches of Fear'') (1976)
*''[[New Terrors]]'' (published in US as two separate volumes, ''New Terrors 1'' and ''New Terrors 2'') (1980)
*''[[New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos]]'' (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 M.R. James'' (2002)
*''Gathering the Bones'' (with [[Jack Dann]] and [[Dennis Etchison]]) (2003)
*''The Folio Book of Horror Stories'' (2018)

==Critical studies==

*Allart, Patrice (2017). ''Psychose à Arkham—Les Itinéraires de Robert Bloch et Ramsey Campbell''. L'Œil du Sphinx.
*Ashley, Michael (1980). ''Fantasy Reader's Guide to Ramsey Campbell''. Borgo Press.
*Campbell, Ramsey; Dziemanowicz, Stefan; and [[S.T. Joshi|Joshi, S. T.]] (1995). ''The Core of Ramsey Campbell: A Bibliography & Reader's Guide''. [[Necronomicon Press]].
*Cooke, Jon B., ed. (1991). ''Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror'' 3 (special Ramsey Campbell number).
*[[Gary William Crawford|Crawford, Gary William]] (1985). "Urban Gothic: The Fiction of Ramsey Campbell", in [[Darrell Schweitzer]], ed., ''Discovering Modern Horror Fiction''. Starmont House. Pp.&nbsp;13–20.
*——— (1988). ''Ramsey Campbell'', Starmont House.
*———, ed. (2014). ''Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror''. Studies in Supernatural Literature). Scarecrow Press.
*Fry, Gary (2015). "A New Place to Hyde: Self and Society in Ramsey Campbell's ''Think Yourself Lucky''", in s j bagley and Simon Strantzas, eds., ''Thinking Horror Volume 1.'' TKHR, pp. 25-35.
*Hatavara, Mari & Toikkanen, Jarkko (2019) "Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell's 'The Scar' ", in ''Frontiers of Narrative Studies'', Vol.5, issue 1. 
*[[S.T. Joshi|Joshi, S. T.]] (2001). ''The Modern Weird Tale''. McFarland & Co.
*——— (2009). ''Classics and Contemporaries: Some Notes on Horror Fiction''. Hippocampus Press.
*——— (2001). ''Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction''. Liverpool University Press.
*———, ed. (1994). ''The Count of Thirty''. Necronomicon Press.
*———, (2021) ''Ramsey Campbell: Master of Weird Fiction'', PS Publishing. 
* Menegaldo, Giles (1996). "Gothic Convention and Modernity in John Ramsay [sic] Campbell's Short Fiction", in Victor Sage and Allan Lloyd Smith, eds. ''Modern Gothic: A Reader''. Manchester University Press. pp.&nbsp;189–97.
* O'Sullivan, Keith M. C. (2023) ''Ramsey Campbell''. University of Wales Press.

==Literary Awards==
Among Ramsay Campbell's trove of awards, he's a multiple winner & nominee of the [[British Fantasy Award]]'s "August Derleth Award".

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Awards for Ramsay Campbell
|-
! Work  !! Year & Award!!  Category !! Result !! Ref.
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Height of the Scream'' 
|1977 [[World Fantasy Award]]
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Superhorror''
|1977 World Fantasy Award 
|Anthology/Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Doll Who Ate His Mother''
|1977 World Fantasy Award 
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Companion''
|1977 World Fantasy Award 
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Chimney''
|1978 World Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Loveman's Comeback''
|1978 World Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''In the Bag''
|1978 [[British Fantasy Award]]
|Short Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Changer of Names''
|1979 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Mackintosh Willy''
|1980 World Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Parasite'' (aka: ''To Wake the Dead'')
|1981 [[Balrog Awards]]
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=1981 Balrog Award | url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?8+1981 }}</ref>
|-
|1981 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos''
|1981 Balrog Awards 
|Collection/Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=1981 Balrog Award | url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?8+1981 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="2" |''New Terrors''
|1981 Balrog Awards 
|Collection/Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=1981 Balrog Award | url=https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?8+1981 }}</ref>
|-
|1981 World Fantasy Award
|Anthology/Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Nameless''
|1982 World Fantasy Award
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|-
|1982 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
||<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 1982 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_1982 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Incarnate''
|1985 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Other Side''
|1986 British Fantasy Award
|Short Story
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |''[[Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death]]''
|1987 [[Bram Stoker Award]]
|Fiction Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1988 [[Locus Award]]
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb : Locus Awards | url=https://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards }}</ref>
|-
|1988 World Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''[[The Hungry Moon]]''
|1987 Locus Award
|Fantasy Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1988 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Influence''
|1989 Locus Award
|Horror Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1989 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''Ancient Images''
|1989 The Dracula Society
|Children of the Night Award
|{{Won}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=The Children of the Night Award | url=https://thedraculasociety.org.uk/the-children-of-the-night-award.html }}</ref>
|-
|1990 Locus Award
|Horror Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |''Best New Horror''
''(with [[Stephen Jones (author)|Stephen Jones]])''
|1991 Locus Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1991 World Fantasy Award
|Anthology
|{{Won}}
|
|-
|1991 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''[[Waking Nightmares]]''
|1991 Bram Stoker Award
|Fiction Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Midnight Sun''
|1991 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Count of Eleven''
|1992 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 1992 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_1992 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="3" |''[[Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961–1991|Alone With the Horrors]]''
|1993 Bram Stoker Award
|Fiction Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
|1994 Locus Award
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1994 World Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Best New Horror 3''
''(with [[Stephen Jones (author)|Stephen Jones]])''
|1993 Locus Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Long Lost''
|1994 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Best New Horror 4''
''(with [[Stephen Jones (author)|Stephen Jones]])''
|1994 Locus Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Best New Horror 5''
''(with [[Stephen Jones (author)|Stephen Jones]])''
|1995 Locus Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''Nazareth Hill''
(aka ''The House on Nazareth Hill'')
|1997 [[International Horror Guild Award]]
|Novel
|{{Won}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=International Horror Guild | url=https://horroraward.org/prevrec.html }}</ref>
|-
|1998 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 1998 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_1998 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="3" |''The Word''
|1997 International Horror Guild Award
|Long Form
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1997 Bram Stoker Award
|Long Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|1998 British Fantasy Award
|Short Story
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Entertainment''
|1999 Bram Stoker Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2000 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''[[Ghosts and Grisly Things]]''
|1999 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Never to Be Heard''
|1999 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |''Silent Children''
|2000 International Horror Guild Award
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2000 Bram Stoker Award
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2001 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''No Story In It''
|2000 International Horror Guild Award
|Short Story
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2001 British Fantasy Award
|Short Story
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Worse Than Bones''
|2001 International Horror Guild Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Meddling with Ghosts: Stories in the Tradition of M.R. James''
|2001 International Horror Guild Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |''Ramsey Campbell, Probably: Essays on Horror and Sundry Fantasies''
|2002 Bram Stoker Award
|Non-Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
|2002 International Horror Guild Award
|Non-Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
|2003 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Darkest Part of the Woods''
|2002 International Horror Guild Award
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2003 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2003 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2003 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="3" |''[[Told by the Dead]]''
|2003 Bram Stoker Award
|Fiction Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2003 International Horror Guild Award
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2004 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="4" |''Gathering the Bones''
''(with [[Jack Dann]] and [[Dennis Etchison]])''
|2003 International Horror Guild Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2003 Bram Stoker Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2004 Locus Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2004 World Fantasy Award
|Anthology
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Fear the Dead''
|2004 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Overnight''
|2004 International Horror Guild Award
|Novel
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Secret Stories''
|2006 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2006 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2006 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''[[Just Behind You]]''
|2006 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Just Behind You''
(Collection)
|2010 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Grin of the Dark''
|2007 International Horror Guild Award
|Novel
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2008 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''Digging Deep''
|2007 International Horror Guild Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
|2008 British Fantasy Award
|Short Fiction
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Thieving Fear''
|2009 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2009 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2009 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Kind Folk''
|2013 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2013 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2013 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Last Revelation of Gla'aki''
|2014 [[Shirley Jackson Award]]
|Novella
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: Shirley Jackson Awards 2014 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/Shirley_Jackson_Awards_2014 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''[[Holes for Faces]]''
|2014 British Fantasy Award
|Collection
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |''Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971''
|2015 British Fantasy Award
|Non-Fiction
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |''The Searching Dead''
|2016 The Dracula Society
|Children of the Night Award
|{{Won}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=The Children of the Night Award | url=https://thedraculasociety.org.uk/the-children-of-the-night-award.html }}</ref>
|-
|2017 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2017 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2017 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |''The Way of the Worm''
|2019 British Fantasy Award
|August Derleth Award
|{{Nominated}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=Sfadb: British Fantasy Awards 2019 | url=https://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2019 }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|1992 [[World Fantasy Special Award—Professional]]
|For writing & editing
|{{Nominated}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|1994 Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Award
|Literature
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|1999 [[World Horror Convention Grand Master Award]]
|
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|1999 [[Bram Stoker Award]]
|Lifetime Achievement award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|2006 International Horror Guild Award
|Living Legend Award
|{{Won}}
|<ref>{{cite web | title=International Horror Guild | url=https://horroraward.org/prevrec.html }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|2015 [[World Fantasy Award]]
|Lifetime Achievement Award
|{{Won}}
|-
| rowspan="1" |
|2024 [[British Fantasy Award]]
|Karl Edward Wagner Award
|{{Won}}
|
|-
|}

;Other received awards
* 1995 Premio alla Carriera a Ramsey Campbell (Prize for the Career of Ramsey Campbell), Fantafestival, Rome
* 2006 Howie Award of the H P Lovecraft Film Festival for Lifetime Achievement
* In 2015, he received the Honorary Fellowship of John Moores University, Liverpool, for "Outstanding services to literature"
* 2017 Premio Sheridan Le Fanu for Campbell's career (given in Madrid)

==See also==
*[[List of horror fiction authors]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.ramseycampbell.com/ RamseyCampbell.com]; official website
* [http://www.eclipse.co.uk/sweetdespise/campbell/ Ramsey Campbell:  Short Story Bibliography]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160306114931/http://gothlitdata.com/campbell.html Database of secondary sources (Archived)]
* {{ISFDB name|id=Ramsey_Campbell}}
* [https://libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/library/sca/ramseycampbell The Ramsey Campbell Archive at the University of Liverpool]
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130722193307/http://www.yog-sothoth.com/content/1189-A-Lovecraftian-evening-with-Ramsey-Campbell-The-Last-Revelation-of-Gla-aki The Last Revelation of Gla'aki]'' book launch at Waterstone's Liverpool One

===Interviews===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160102095906/http://www.horrorbound.com/readarticle.php?article_id=95 2009 interview with ''Horror Bound Magazine'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060204234445/http://www.cold-print.freeserve.co.uk/ramsey.htm "Ramsey Campbell: A Demon by Daylight"], Interview with ''Cold Print''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303171313/http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/ramsey_campbell.php 2007 interview with Liverpool's ''Nerve'' magazine]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090904203637/http://www.writersnewsweekly.com/interview_campbell.html 2008 interview with WritersNewsWeekly.com]
* [http://hannahkate.net/north-manchester-fm-hannahs-bookshelf-sat-16-january-2-4pm/ 2016 interview on ''Hannah's Bookshelf'']

{{Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement}}
{{World Fantasy Award Best Anthology}}
{{World Fantasy Award Best Collection}}
{{World Fantasy Award Best Short Fiction}}
{{World Fantasy Award Life Achievement}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Ramsey}}
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:English horror writers]]
[[Category:English fantasy writers]]
[[Category:British weird fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century English novelists]]
[[Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers]]
[[Category:World Fantasy Award–winning writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Liverpool]]
[[Category:Novelists from Liverpool]]
[[Category:British ghost story writers]]
[[Category:English male short story writers]]
[[Category:English short story writers]]
[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:English agnostics]]
[[Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers]]
[[Category:21st-century pseudonymous writers]]