''Demons by Daylight'' is a collection of stories by English author
Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awa ...
. Released in
1973
Events January
* January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...
, it was the author's second short story collection, after ''
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants''. Like the earlier book, it was published by
Arkham House
Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had pr ...
.
Campbell had completed work on the stories for it by 1968, and it was scheduled for publication in 1971; however, due to the 1971 death of editor and Arkham House co-founder
August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the ...
, the collection was delayed a further two years; it finally saw print in 1973. It was published in an edition totaling 3,472 copies and with dust jacket art by Eddie Jones, commissioned by Campbell.
A variant edition was published by Jove/HBJ in May 1979. In the section 'Relationships', this edition omits "The Second Staircase" and adds "Reply Guaranteed" and "The Telephones".
The 1990
Carroll & Graf
Carroll & Graf Publishers was an American publishing company based in New York City, New York, known for publishing a wide range of fiction and non-fiction by both new and established authors, as well as issuing reprints of previously hard-t ...
paperback reproduces the contents of the original Arkham House edition.
Critical response
Campbell has acknowledged that the stories in the book were written primarily under the stylistic influence of
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
. Campbell was attempting to move away from his dependence on the influence of
H.P. Lovecraft, and the style of these stories is radically different from the
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an ...
tales found in his first collection.
The book's first appearance induced
T. E. D. Klein
Theodore "Eibon" Donald Klein (born July 15, 1947) is an American horror writer and editor.
Klein has published very few works, but they have all achieved positive notice for their meticulous construction and subtle use of horror: critic S. T. ...
to write an extensive and highly positive review, "Ramsey Campbell: An Appreciation" in ''Nyctalops'' magazine and critic
S. T. Joshi has stated
[Joshi, S. T. ''Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction'' (2001), p.56] that:
its ... allusiveness of narration; careful, at times even obsessive focusing on the fleeting sensations and psychological processes of characters; an aggressively modern setting that allows commentary on social, cultural and political issues - all conjoin to make ''Demons by Daylight'' perhaps the most important book of horror fiction since Lovecraft's ''The Outsider and Others
''The Outsider and Others'' is a collection of stories by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1939 and was the first book published by Arkham House. 1,268 copies were printed. It went out of print early in 1944 and has never been ...
''.
Contents
''Demons by Daylight'' contains the following stories, grouped into three sections:
# ''Nightmares''
#* "Potential"
#* "The End of a Summer's Day"
#* "At First Sight"
# ''Errol Undercliffe: a tribute''
#* "The Franklyn Paragraphs"
#* "The Interloper" (as by
Errol Undercliffe)
# ''Relationships''
#* "The Sentinels"
#* "The Guy"
#* "The Old Horns"
#* "The Lost"
#* "The Stocking"
#* "The Second Staircase"
#* "Concussion"
#* "The Enchanted Fruit"
#* "Made in Goatswood"
References
Sources
*
*
*
*{{cite book , last=Nielsen , first=Leon , title=Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide , location=Jefferson, NC and London , publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., pages=117 , year=2004 , isbn=0-7864-1785-4
1973 short story collections
Fantasy short story collections
Horror short story collections