SOURCE: "The Bare Bones: An Introduction," in Scared Stiff: Seven Tales of Seduction and Terror by Ramsey Campbell, Warner Books, 1987, pp. ix-xii.

Barker is an English short story writer, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director known especially for the horror stories published in his popular six-volume collection, Clive Barker's Books of Blood (1984-86). In the following excerpt from an essay that was written in 1986, he commends Campbell for his ability to blend sex and horror in Scared Stiff.

Death and the Maiden.

It's an eternally popular subject for painters, and in a sense for writers and filmmakers too. What does the image conjure? A woman, naked perhaps, or nearly so, gazing at us with horror (or, on occasion, with a sublime indifference) while Death stretches a rotted paw to touch her breast, or leans its worm-ridden skull towards her as if to ply her with kisses.

Corruption and...