The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell 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. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature.

Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, in 1915. As a young man he worked for the literary agency of his uncle, Laurence D'Orsay, before selling his first story, 'The Graveyard Rats', to Weird Tales in early 1936. In 1940 Kuttner married fellow writer C. L. Moore, whom he met through the 'Lovecraft Circle'", a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft.

During the Second World War, they were regular contributors to John W. Campbell's Astounding Science-Fiction, and collaborated for most of the 40's and 50's, publishing primarily under the pseudonyms Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell. In 1950 he began studying at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1954. He was working towards his masters degree but died of a heart attack in 1958, before it was completed.