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Visions From Brichester [signed slipcase edition]
This companion volume to the complete PS Publishing edition of The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants collects all of Ramsey Campbell’s remaining Lovecraftian stories that are of less than novel length. It begins with the first tale Campbell wrote immediately after that first Arkham House book, and comes up to date with the novella The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, his recent return to his own Lovecraftian territory, where he rediscovers Lovecraft’s first principles and strips away the accretions of the mythos that developed after Lovecraft’s death.
The book includes the first publication anywhere of the first drafts of “Cold Print” and “The Franklyn Paragraphs”, and offers the bonus of “Mushrooms from Merseyside”, all his Lovecraftian tales inhumanly transmuted into limericks. The book also collects his Lovecraftian non-fiction, not least his transcription of an English correspondent’s letters to Lovecraft and a close reading of three Lovecraft tales.
Like the companion volume, this book is superbly illustrated by Randy Broecker in the great tradition of Weird Tales.
The book includes the first publication anywhere of the first drafts of “Cold Print” and “The Franklyn Paragraphs”, and offers the bonus of “Mushrooms from Merseyside”, all his Lovecraftian tales inhumanly transmuted into limericks. The book also collects his Lovecraftian non-fiction, not least his transcription of an English correspondent’s letters to Lovecraft and a close reading of three Lovecraft tales.
Like the companion volume, this book is superbly illustrated by Randy Broecker in the great tradition of Weird Tales.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2015
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117 people want to read
About the author
Ramsey Campbell
857 books1,593 followersRamsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 17, 2016
Visions from Brichester (2015) by Ramsey Campbell; illustrations by Randy Broecker: containing the following stories and essays (dates are first publication, not composition):
The Stone on the Island (1964): Campbell begins his transition from Lovecraftian pastiches to his own style of horror here, as he mixes an idea from M.R. James, a Lovecraftian island, and his own experiences at work.
Before the Storm (1980): Written in the 1960's, the story again shows Campbell mixing cosmic body horror and his own Lovecraftian deities with the daily grind at an office.
Cold Print (1969): Campbell's first truly great short story by my reckoning. A quest for a particular form of (perfectly legal, now anyway) pornography by a Physical Education teacher takes him to a bookstore he never, ever should have gone into.
The Franklyn Paragraphs (1973): Fun, disturbing metafiction about a mysteriously vanished horror writer.
A Madness from the Vaults (1972): Really a deft riff on the sort of stories Clark Ashton Smith used to write, set on an alien world and involving all-alien characters.
Among the pictures are these: (1985): Campbell describes a series of sketches he made back in the 1960s. Interesting.
The Tugging (1976): Campbell suggests that this is a too-literal interpretation of the Lovecraftian chestnut about the "stars being right" to bring back certain deities. I like it a lot -- it may be literal, but the images are grand.
The Faces at Pine Dunes (1980): A great, great story. Its imagery climaxes in something deeply disturbing and chilling; its 20-year-old protagonist is sympathetic and carefully drawn.
Blacked Out (1985): Fun scare is, as Campbell notes, Lovecraftian primarily because it appeared in his previous Lovecraftian collection Cold Print because the editor wanted to include at least one previously unpublished story. Rarely has a Campbellian protagonist had a more emblematic last name.
The Voice of the Beach (1982): Maybe Campbell's crowning achievement in writing a Lovecraftian story without any recourse to all the machinery of Lovecraftian terms for 'gods' and creatures and menacing books. It most resembles Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." The imagery and situations are sinister, horrifying, vague, and often uncomfortably vertiginous and hallucinatory.
The Horror under Warrendown (1995): Very funny pastiche turns a famous English children's book series into a source of cosmic body horror.
The Other Names (1998): Very solid combination of a sensitive character study and a Lovecraftian menace.
The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash (2010): Funny, satiric examination of one very bad Lovecraft fan.
The Last Revelation of Gla'aki (2013): Campbell's return to his Lovecraftian god Gla'aki manages to be both disturbing and weirdly soothing at points -- and it does a better job of showing why people might find comfort in the embrace of these terrible 'gods' than any story I can think of after David Drake's brilliant Lovecraft-meets-Joseph-Conrad novella "Than Curse the Darkness."
The Successor (First draft of Cold Print) (2015): Fascinating look at the early version of a story.
The Franklyn Paragraphs (First draft) (2015): Fascinating look at the early version of a story.
Mushrooms from Merseyside (2015): Campbell's often hilarious salue to Lovecraft's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth sees the writer summarize all of his Lovecraftian fiction in a series of... limericks.
Two Poems by Edward Pickman Derby (2015): Interesting early poetry.
The Horror in the Crystal (Story fragment) (2015): 1960's fragment; interesting.
Rusty Links (Essay) (2015): A snarky Ramsey Campbell from the 1960's.
Lovecraft in Retrospect (Essay) (1969/1994): A very pissy Campbell from the late 1960's gets critiqued by the lovable Campbell of the 1990's.
On Four Lovecraft Tales (Essay) (2013): As good an explanation of Lovecraft's strengths as a writer as you'll ever read, this essay really caused me to re-evaluate certain aspects of Lovecraft's work. It's a concise piece that explains how much more complex Lovecraft's style and structure were than he's generally given credit for from even his greatest admirers.
Afterword (Essay) (2015): Campbell contextualizes all the pieces in the book. Invaluable, but I want more!
Overall: The stories are great, the non-fiction pieces are great, and the illustrations by Randy Broecker are extremely enjoyable and often very much 'Old School' in an early 20th-century pulp magazine way. Highly recommended.
The Stone on the Island (1964): Campbell begins his transition from Lovecraftian pastiches to his own style of horror here, as he mixes an idea from M.R. James, a Lovecraftian island, and his own experiences at work.
Before the Storm (1980): Written in the 1960's, the story again shows Campbell mixing cosmic body horror and his own Lovecraftian deities with the daily grind at an office.
Cold Print (1969): Campbell's first truly great short story by my reckoning. A quest for a particular form of (perfectly legal, now anyway) pornography by a Physical Education teacher takes him to a bookstore he never, ever should have gone into.
The Franklyn Paragraphs (1973): Fun, disturbing metafiction about a mysteriously vanished horror writer.
A Madness from the Vaults (1972): Really a deft riff on the sort of stories Clark Ashton Smith used to write, set on an alien world and involving all-alien characters.
Among the pictures are these: (1985): Campbell describes a series of sketches he made back in the 1960s. Interesting.
The Tugging (1976): Campbell suggests that this is a too-literal interpretation of the Lovecraftian chestnut about the "stars being right" to bring back certain deities. I like it a lot -- it may be literal, but the images are grand.
The Faces at Pine Dunes (1980): A great, great story. Its imagery climaxes in something deeply disturbing and chilling; its 20-year-old protagonist is sympathetic and carefully drawn.
Blacked Out (1985): Fun scare is, as Campbell notes, Lovecraftian primarily because it appeared in his previous Lovecraftian collection Cold Print because the editor wanted to include at least one previously unpublished story. Rarely has a Campbellian protagonist had a more emblematic last name.
The Voice of the Beach (1982): Maybe Campbell's crowning achievement in writing a Lovecraftian story without any recourse to all the machinery of Lovecraftian terms for 'gods' and creatures and menacing books. It most resembles Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." The imagery and situations are sinister, horrifying, vague, and often uncomfortably vertiginous and hallucinatory.
The Horror under Warrendown (1995): Very funny pastiche turns a famous English children's book series into a source of cosmic body horror.
The Other Names (1998): Very solid combination of a sensitive character study and a Lovecraftian menace.
The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash (2010): Funny, satiric examination of one very bad Lovecraft fan.
The Last Revelation of Gla'aki (2013): Campbell's return to his Lovecraftian god Gla'aki manages to be both disturbing and weirdly soothing at points -- and it does a better job of showing why people might find comfort in the embrace of these terrible 'gods' than any story I can think of after David Drake's brilliant Lovecraft-meets-Joseph-Conrad novella "Than Curse the Darkness."
The Successor (First draft of Cold Print) (2015): Fascinating look at the early version of a story.
The Franklyn Paragraphs (First draft) (2015): Fascinating look at the early version of a story.
Mushrooms from Merseyside (2015): Campbell's often hilarious salue to Lovecraft's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth sees the writer summarize all of his Lovecraftian fiction in a series of... limericks.
Two Poems by Edward Pickman Derby (2015): Interesting early poetry.
The Horror in the Crystal (Story fragment) (2015): 1960's fragment; interesting.
Rusty Links (Essay) (2015): A snarky Ramsey Campbell from the 1960's.
Lovecraft in Retrospect (Essay) (1969/1994): A very pissy Campbell from the late 1960's gets critiqued by the lovable Campbell of the 1990's.
On Four Lovecraft Tales (Essay) (2013): As good an explanation of Lovecraft's strengths as a writer as you'll ever read, this essay really caused me to re-evaluate certain aspects of Lovecraft's work. It's a concise piece that explains how much more complex Lovecraft's style and structure were than he's generally given credit for from even his greatest admirers.
Afterword (Essay) (2015): Campbell contextualizes all the pieces in the book. Invaluable, but I want more!
Overall: The stories are great, the non-fiction pieces are great, and the illustrations by Randy Broecker are extremely enjoyable and often very much 'Old School' in an early 20th-century pulp magazine way. Highly recommended.
April 10, 2016
A companion volume to PS Publishing’s edition of Campbell’s first ever collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants, Visions from Brichester aims to collect all of Campbell’s remaining Lovecraftian fiction. (I’d say, though, that one of my favourite — very Lovecraftian — Campbell stories, “Never to be Heard”, ought to have been added.) One side effect of collecting Campbell’s fiction in this way is that we get a glimpse of how he progresses as a writer, and how his relationship to Lovecraft changes. (Something that’s most evident in the non-fiction section at the end of the book, which includes Campbell’s early denunciation of Lovecraft, his own denunciation of that denunciation, and finally an excellent, recent, examination of Lovecraft’s technique, in particular his careful orchestration of horrific effects.)
Something obviously happened to Campbell, as a writer, around 1966, to judge by the stories presented here. The few that precede that date may have imagination, and scary intent, but are haphazard and rarely effective. Those from 1966 and after are so much more assured, focused, disciplined, and artistic as well as horrific in intent, that it’s obvious Campbell had discovered his voice. This is even more evident if you read “The Successor” then its rewrite, “Cold Print”. “The Successor” sees the beginnings of Campbell’s use of his own environment, and life, in his stories, but it’s nothing compared to “Cold Print”’s meta-horror tale, which likens a reader of fetishistic smut with those “searchers after horror” who, as Lovecraft puts it, “haunt strange, far places”. “Cold Print” even manages to point a finger at the reader in a startling, brief, fourth-wall-breaking moment near the end.
Campbell’s later Lovecraftian fiction shows evidence of further growth as a writer. My favourite period of his writing is when he mixed the sort of “kitchen sink” realism of sixties British cinema with a psychological, sometimes psychedelic horror (as in “The Voice of the Beach” and “The Faces at Pine Dunes”, for instance). But there’s another shift from the 1990s onwards, with an increasing use of a sort of absurdist comedy. Reading the tales in chronological order, I got half way through “The Horror under Warrendown” before seeing it for the utterly straight-faced comic take on Lovecraft’s methods that it is — its final, febrile paragraph is so Lovecraftian, it can only be a loving tribute, yet when you realise what it’s describing, it’s tremendously funny at the same time.
Something obviously happened to Campbell, as a writer, around 1966, to judge by the stories presented here. The few that precede that date may have imagination, and scary intent, but are haphazard and rarely effective. Those from 1966 and after are so much more assured, focused, disciplined, and artistic as well as horrific in intent, that it’s obvious Campbell had discovered his voice. This is even more evident if you read “The Successor” then its rewrite, “Cold Print”. “The Successor” sees the beginnings of Campbell’s use of his own environment, and life, in his stories, but it’s nothing compared to “Cold Print”’s meta-horror tale, which likens a reader of fetishistic smut with those “searchers after horror” who, as Lovecraft puts it, “haunt strange, far places”. “Cold Print” even manages to point a finger at the reader in a startling, brief, fourth-wall-breaking moment near the end.
Campbell’s later Lovecraftian fiction shows evidence of further growth as a writer. My favourite period of his writing is when he mixed the sort of “kitchen sink” realism of sixties British cinema with a psychological, sometimes psychedelic horror (as in “The Voice of the Beach” and “The Faces at Pine Dunes”, for instance). But there’s another shift from the 1990s onwards, with an increasing use of a sort of absurdist comedy. Reading the tales in chronological order, I got half way through “The Horror under Warrendown” before seeing it for the utterly straight-faced comic take on Lovecraft’s methods that it is — its final, febrile paragraph is so Lovecraftian, it can only be a loving tribute, yet when you realise what it’s describing, it’s tremendously funny at the same time.
April 8, 2023
Many years ago I read the compilation called "Cold Print," at the time Ramsey Campbell's most exhaustive collection of Lovecraft inspired mythos fiction, most of which takes place in Brichester and the Severn Valley. Much of this came from his first (and first Arkham House) collection "The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants." Often some of the first mythos fiction you'll come across after Lovecraft and his contemporaries, I found most of the "Inhabitants" stories to be decent (with a few standouts like "The Insects from Shaggai" and "The Moon-Lens"), but these have been moved to a Drugstore Indian Press version of the original title.
All the rest of the stories that were in "Cold Print" are in this second volume, which catches up on several more stories from anthologies from the end of the 20th century, skipping the novel "The Darkest Part of the Woods" due to its size, but including the novella "The Last Revelation of Gla'aki." By the time you get to these later stories, Campbell is well into his prime, a prime in the sense that he's one of the most heralded horror writers in the genre and everything has improved vastly, with "Gla'aki" being the finest work in the book, a novella that visits some of the thematic material of the early stories and actually improves on them ending with an absolute fantastic, satisyfing climax.
In fact while I had read nearly everything in the book (I read "Woods" and "Gla'aki" back-to-back and loved them both), I bought "Visions from Brichester" largely to check out the appendix. I will say this, the Mushrooms from Merseyside collection of limericks, each one which captures each story in the book had me howling with laughter and many of them actually helped me remember some of the older stories. It is perhaps the part of this that ensured the 4th star. Several essays end the book, two that contrast rather surprisingly, an early essay very negative towards Lovecraft and of course one much more recent that is mature and appreciate of his work. The two early drafts have been strangely footnoted to often point out the original manuscript had American spellings (I assume because they were written for Arkham House) but there's a playful self-deprecation any great writer would have to his younger self that's refreshing. I'm pleased to note Campbell has written a Lovecraftian trilogy of late that I am looking to getting my eyes on. Strangely, my initial reading of "Cold Print" as well as "Alone with the Horrors" had left me with a less than fair impression of Campbell's strengths, I was glad to say this collection as well as "Woods" really restored it to the point where I bought about 15 or 20 of his books that I didn't own over a few weeks. Enough said.
All the rest of the stories that were in "Cold Print" are in this second volume, which catches up on several more stories from anthologies from the end of the 20th century, skipping the novel "The Darkest Part of the Woods" due to its size, but including the novella "The Last Revelation of Gla'aki." By the time you get to these later stories, Campbell is well into his prime, a prime in the sense that he's one of the most heralded horror writers in the genre and everything has improved vastly, with "Gla'aki" being the finest work in the book, a novella that visits some of the thematic material of the early stories and actually improves on them ending with an absolute fantastic, satisyfing climax.
In fact while I had read nearly everything in the book (I read "Woods" and "Gla'aki" back-to-back and loved them both), I bought "Visions from Brichester" largely to check out the appendix. I will say this, the Mushrooms from Merseyside collection of limericks, each one which captures each story in the book had me howling with laughter and many of them actually helped me remember some of the older stories. It is perhaps the part of this that ensured the 4th star. Several essays end the book, two that contrast rather surprisingly, an early essay very negative towards Lovecraft and of course one much more recent that is mature and appreciate of his work. The two early drafts have been strangely footnoted to often point out the original manuscript had American spellings (I assume because they were written for Arkham House) but there's a playful self-deprecation any great writer would have to his younger self that's refreshing. I'm pleased to note Campbell has written a Lovecraftian trilogy of late that I am looking to getting my eyes on. Strangely, my initial reading of "Cold Print" as well as "Alone with the Horrors" had left me with a less than fair impression of Campbell's strengths, I was glad to say this collection as well as "Woods" really restored it to the point where I bought about 15 or 20 of his books that I didn't own over a few weeks. Enough said.
April 3, 2025
I went into this book quite excited about it for what it is, but after finishing all the stories and the novella 'The Last Revelation of Gla'aki', I find that I've had enough. It's an interesting collection, but a read-through of Inhabitant of the Lake or Cold Print should be sufficient exposure to the Ramsey Campbell Mythos for all but the most ardent completists. Worth it for Randy Broecker's fantastic illustrations.
May 19, 2020
“All creation is a dream of itself. The universe dreamed itself into existence and continues to do so...” - Ramsey Campbell
Visions of Brichester collects Ramsey Campbell’s mythos stories that aren’t included in ‘The Inhabitant of the Lake’ and span his career from the 1960s to 2013. These stories are a step up from the very Early Lovecraft pastiches that Campbell wrote as they blend all the influences one can usually find in these sorts of stories with his own style.
The setting for most of these stories is the fictional creation of the Severn Valley/Brichester in rural Gloucestershire. This setting sits happily alongside King’s Maine or Lovecraft Country/Massachusetts as a classic cosmic horror locale. The collection finishes with a number of appendixes such as essays and early drafts of various stories which may be of interest.
As per usual my ratings are below. They do not indicate objective quality but are used as a reference for myself on my enjoyment of the stories.
- The Stone on the Island - 7
- Before the Storm - 3
- Cold Print - 8
- The Franklyn Paragraphs - 8
- A Madness from the Vaults - 8
- among the pictures are these - 3
- The Tugging - 8
- The Faces at Pine Dunes - 9
- Blacked Out - 7
- The Voice of the Beach - 8
- The Horror Under Warrendown - 7
- The Other Names - 8
- The Correspondence of Thaddeus Nash - 5
- The Last Revelation of Glaaki - 8
Visions of Brichester collects Ramsey Campbell’s mythos stories that aren’t included in ‘The Inhabitant of the Lake’ and span his career from the 1960s to 2013. These stories are a step up from the very Early Lovecraft pastiches that Campbell wrote as they blend all the influences one can usually find in these sorts of stories with his own style.
The setting for most of these stories is the fictional creation of the Severn Valley/Brichester in rural Gloucestershire. This setting sits happily alongside King’s Maine or Lovecraft Country/Massachusetts as a classic cosmic horror locale. The collection finishes with a number of appendixes such as essays and early drafts of various stories which may be of interest.
As per usual my ratings are below. They do not indicate objective quality but are used as a reference for myself on my enjoyment of the stories.
- The Stone on the Island - 7
- Before the Storm - 3
- Cold Print - 8
- The Franklyn Paragraphs - 8
- A Madness from the Vaults - 8
- among the pictures are these - 3
- The Tugging - 8
- The Faces at Pine Dunes - 9
- Blacked Out - 7
- The Voice of the Beach - 8
- The Horror Under Warrendown - 7
- The Other Names - 8
- The Correspondence of Thaddeus Nash - 5
- The Last Revelation of Glaaki - 8
March 25, 2020
New early master work from Campbell.
August 28, 2023
Kirjoitan tästä Kuiskaus pimeässä nro 2/2023:ssa.
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