Ramsey Campbell is an acclaimed English horror fiction writer, editor and critic. Born as John Ramsey Campbell on the 4th of January, 1946, he has been a commanding presence in the realm of horror literature for over five decades. With a bibliography that includes over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of which have garnered prestigious awards, Campbell has etched his name in the annals of the genre.

He first gained recognition in the mid-1960s and has since been lauded by critics and contemporaries alike. T. E. D. Klein has praised him as the reigning supreme of today's horror field, and S. T. Joshi has proclaimed him as the leading horror writer of his generation, placing him on par with illustrious predecessors like Lovecraft or Blackwood. The Washington Post has remarked on his collective works as one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction.

Campbell's storytelling is marked by his concern for formal issues, earning him a reputation as one of the finest stylists in the horror genre. His early work, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, shows a strong influence from H. P. Lovecraft. As his writing matured, he developed a distinctive voice characterized by the adoption of psychologically disturbed perspectives and a metaphorical richness that breathes life into inanimate objects and narrative shifts.

His body of work spans both supernatural and realistic fiction. Notably, his realistic novel The Face That Must Die delves into the psyche of a homophobic serial killer, while Midnight Sun intertwines the extraterrestrial with the creative mind of a children's story writer, displaying influences from Blackwood, Machen, and Lovecraft.

As an editor, Campbell has curated notable anthologies, contributing significantly to the horror fiction community. He maintains a connection to his Merseyside roots, where he lives with his family and engages with the BBC as a film critic.