With great sadness we announce that author and broadcaster Phil Rickman died on Tuesday 29th October at the age of 74.
Lancashire-born Rickman spent most of his adult life in Herefordshire and the Welsh borders. He was the author of 27 novels, including two under the name Will Kingdom and two as Thom Madley, as well as short stories and non-fiction. His debut novel, Candlenight, was published by Duckworth in 1991 and sold over half a million copies worldwide. It was later reissued by his current publisher, Atlantic Books’ imprint Corvus.
He is best known for the popular Merrily Watkins novels, a unique crime fiction series with supernatural elements set in the Welsh borders, whose titular character is both a vicar and an exorcist. Beginning with The Wine of Angels, first published in 1998, the Merrily Watkins series currently spans fifteen novels, with a sixteenth, The Echo of Crows, slated for release by Corvus in 2025. The series was adapted into a three-part ITV drama featuring Anna Maxwell Martin as Merrily Watkins in 2015.
Phil Rickman’s work has been widely reviewed and praised over the years, with his writing acclaimed by an array of authors, including Steven King, Bernard Cornwell, Peter James, Barbara Erskine, John Connolly and Elly Griffiths.
Having started his working life as a journalist and broadcaster, for many years Rickman also presented the BBC Radio Wales programme Phil the Shelf, which featured book news, author interviews and advice for unpublished writers. He was a long-serving mainstay of the Hay Festival, and lived just up the road from Hay-on-Wye, in a beautiful farmhouse surrounded by rescue donkeys, dogs, and the occasional peacock,
Phil is survived by his wife Carol – his first reader and sternest editor.
Phil’s current editor, Sarah Hodgson, said: ‘I first encountered Phil down the line from a studio at broadcasting house in London when I participated in an episode of Phil the Shelf many years ago, and had no inkling that I would one day have the privilege of publishing his work. He was known for his kindness and gentleness of spirit, and he had a unique creative vision. His loss will be felt deeply by all who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him, and by his many readers around the world. It is some consolation that he had already delivered his next, and now final, novel, a new case for his wonderful heroine Merrily Watkins, which we are proud to be publishing on the Corvus list next year.’
His agents Ed Wilson and Andrew Hewson at Johnson & Alcock added: ‘Crimewriting has lost a true one-off in Phil Rickman – a writer whose kindness and generosity, both with fans and other writers, was as well-known as his brilliant books. His career spanned decades and genres – from the early horror novels, to crime and supernatural thrillers, YA novels (before the term ‘YA’ existed) and even historical, with his two brilliant Dr Dee novels. He was a unique and wonderful man, and managed to be both commercially successful (the Merrily series sold over 300k copies) and also a cult author. His Facebook group PRAS (the Phil Rickman Appreciation Society) was one of the earliest on the platform, and there has been an outpouring of emotion online from the rich and varied community of fans. It is fitting tribute to his indefatigability that his final act was to complete another Merrily novel, which will be published in 2025 for his fans to enjoy.’
Nic Cheetham, MD of Head of Zeus, who was previously Phil Rickman’s longterm publisher said: ‘Phil's Merrily Watkins novels are a masterclass in how to write a series and Phil is entirely responsible for my love of big books, big casts and multiple instalments – not to mention writers doing something just a little to the left of the genre mainstream’
