The League of Gentlemen and Inside No 9 co-creator has always displayed a sense of gothic unease, and his new book combines myth, memoir \u2013 and his own disquieting drawings<\/p>\n
When Reece Shearsmith was a boy, he overheard relatives chatting at a New Year gathering. \u201cOne of them was talking about [the ghost of] a woman they\u2019d seen standing on the village green at three in the morning,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnother knew a woman who woke up and found a figure sitting at the end of her bed. It\u2019s my first recollection of being properly scared and loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n
From then on, the Yorkshire-born Shearsmith was fascinated by all things uncanny. He would stay up late to watch Hammer horror films \u2013 his mother allowed it because she loved them, too \u2013 and immerse himself in books including the Hamlyn Book of Horror, Conan Doyle\u2019s Sherlock Holmes stories and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His obsession carried through into adulthood and his work: Shearsmith is best known as the co-creator of the surreal comedy series The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville<\/a> and the horror anthology Inside No 9<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve managed to forge a career from the things I loved as a kid,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5dbf10dabfae31dae5994b49e98d7ff533af8cf5\/0_402_3090_2472\/master\/3090.png?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=cec0f3a9c249b498a23f3a6bba35cd6e\" "\\"Severed")
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