ROBERT AICKMAN

www.robertaickman.com

Master of the modern strange tale, novelist, critic, editor, literary agent and saviour of the British waterways, Robert Aickman (1914-1981) is best known as one of the most accomplished writers of ghost stories of the twentieth century.

NEWS - BIOGRAPHY - BOOKS - STORIES - RESOURCES

NEWS

 

14th April 2018

Compulsory Games

New York Review of Books is to publish a new Robert Aickman collection, Compulsory Games. It will be released in the US in May, and in the UK in June. The new volume contains:

Compulsory Games

Le Miroir

Raising the Wind

Residents Only

Hand in Glove

Wood

Laura

Just a Song at Twilight

Letters to the Postman

Marriage

No Time Is Passing

The Strangers

The Fully-Conducted Tour

A Disciple of Plato

The Coffin House

Compulsory Games is thus a good companion volume to the Faber paperbacks, including various stories that have not been collected by that publisher. It also includes the best of the tales which are recently published by Tartarus Press in The Strangers.

 

Each story in this collection is a small masterpiece of unease and psychological perplexity….Aickman’s stories present dreamlike, inexplicable realities in prose both strangely sensual and entirely disarming, making this collection a treasure for fans of Poe, Kafka, and Lovecraft.

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

 

Aickman creates a disquieting universe in which everything is just off, a wall covered in pictures hung at imperceptibly crooked angles. His command of tone and tension far outstrips that of H.P. Lovecraft and presents a serious challenge to Henry James...As unnerving as it is sinuous; an absolute delight.

—Kirkus, starred review

 

***

 

15th September 2017

British Library Celebration

The British Library will be celebrating the purchase of the Robert archive with an "uncanny evening of readings and discussion". The details have changed since first reported, and the line-up now includes Ramsey Campbell, Leslie Gardner, Victoria Nelson and Jeremy Dyson.

***

 

8th September 2017

Wormwoodiana

Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker from Tartarus Press have recently written a guest blog for Wormwoodiana, discussing the Robert Aickman archive, and its sale to the British Library. It also gives detail of a celebration event at the British Library.

***

 

17th December 2016

The Hospice

Aickman's short story, 'The Hospice', read by Gideon Coe, can be heard at the BBC Radio 4 Extra website.

***

 

24th November 2016

A Weekend of Weird

On Sunday 26 November, 10.30-12.30 pm, Aickmania is the panel discussion at Loughborough University's A Weekend of Weird. With Nick Freeman and R.B. Russell, this session features discussions of Aickman's work and influence, and includes screenings of the Tartarus Press documentary, Robert Aickman: Author of Strange Tales and HTV's television adaptation of his story, 'The Inner Room', unseen since 1987.

***

 

23rd November 2016

New Website

We have launched a new website at www.robertaickman.com

 

NEWS - BIOGRAPHY - BOOKS - RESOURCES