Peter Haining

Peter Haining (1940-2007) was a British journalist, author, and anthologist born in Enfield, Middlesex, who worked as a reporter in Essex before joining the London publisher New English Library in 1963, eventually becoming its editorial director. He left publishing for full-time writing in the early 1970s and went on to produce more than 170 books, including three novels and a vast range of horror, fantasy, and true-crime anthologies; he also wrote under the pen names Ric Alexander and Richard Peyton for crime collections. His nonfiction ranged widely, from studies of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes on screen to popular-history books such as The Jail That Went to Sea and The Banzai Hunters, though his claims about Sweeney Todd's historical existence drew later scholarly criticism. Haining won the British Fantasy Awards' Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.