Robert Aickman

Robert Fordyce Aickman (27 June 1914 – 26 February 1981) was an English writer and conservationist. As a conservationist, he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, a group which has preserved from destruction and restored England's inland canal system. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories". Aickman's fiction often relied on unsettling atmosphere and indirect suggestion, along with characters who experience "dislocation in time and space", rather than explicit depiction of supernatural or gory events. The writer of his obituary in The Times, as quoted by Mike Ashley, said: "... his most outstanding and lasting achievement was as a writer of what he himself like to call 'strange tales.' He brought to these his immense knowledge of the occult, psychological insights and a richness of background and characterisation which rank his stories with those of M. R. James and Walter de la Mare." Ashley himself wrote: "Aickman's writings are an acquired taste like fine wines. I have no doubt that his work will always remain unknown to the majority of readers, and perhaps he would have wanted it that way. He wrote what and how he wanted, for expression, not for popularity. In another of his letters to me he said 'I have received a good deal of esteem, but never a big commercial success, and am usually wondering whether anything by me will ever be published again.' ... It is astonishing that someone of Aickman's stature should have difficulty in selling his work. Perhaps now, too late for Aickman's benefit, someone will have the sense to publish it." This situation has since been remedied by an extensive programme of reprints of Aickman's work by Tartarus Press, Faber, and New York Review Books Classics. Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography (2022), by R. B. Russell, is the first full-length biography of Aickman.