SOURCE: "Ramsey Campbell: Before and after Lovecraft," in The Count of Thirty: A Tribute to Ramsey Campbell, edited by S. T. Joshi, Necronomicon Press, 1993, pp. 27-31.

In the following essay, Joshi traces the influence of H. P. Lovecraft in Campbell's short fiction, noting that Campbell developed his own distinctive literary style in Demons by Daylight.

Although he does not have even a fraction of the popular following of Stephen King and Clive Barker, there seems to be general agreement amongst critics in the field that British writer Ramsey Campbell is the leading weird fictionist of our time. But like Lord Dunsany and Algernon Blackwood, Campbell has more often been praised than studied, and very little critical work of substance has been devoted to him. We are now, however, at a stage where important study of Campbell can begin: not only does he now have a very impressive and...