Ramsey Campbell was born in Liverpool in 1946 and still lives on Merseyside. The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes him as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films.

H.P. Lovecraft is a modern master of horror and gothic fiction, influencing a generation of writers and creating dark worlds that still haunt the speculative fiction of today. Lovecraft's father died in a mental institution when Lovecraft was only two years of age and he spent very little time at school, due to illnesses. In his early years though he corresponded with amateur writers and editors, wrote essays, poetry and reviews for amateur magazines. In the 1920s he began to sell to the popular pulp magazines of the day, particularly Weird Tales and Astonishing Tales.