Eric Ericson (b. Blaby, Leicestersire, 23 June 1925; d.reg. North Surrey, Oct-Dec 2006)
In the short span of five years, between 1978 and 1983, Eric Ericson published four books, and then the name disappears from the public record. Three are occult novels, and the fourth is occult nonfiction. The only known facts about him, for many years, were that he was born in 1925 (sourced from the US copyright registrations), and, according to the short biographical note on the rear flap of one of his books, that in 1981 he lived in Sunbury-on-Thames (in North Surrey). Many have suspected that the name was a pseudonym; that is correct. An online commentator has noted that Eric Priestley Towers left his research papers for his 1986 biography of Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781) to the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, and an accompanying biographical file records that he wrote novels under the pseudonyms Roderick Milton, Eric Ericson, and Tony Caxton.* I believe this is correct.
Eric Priestley Towers was the son of Sidney Towers and Winnifred Priestley, who were married in Blaby in Leicestershire in the spring of 1924. Eric was educated at Newton's Grammar School and at Jesus College, Cambridge. During W.W.II he served in the army in Italy and Austria, and supported the Allied Military Government in Vienna. His first known writings were all published under the name Roderick Milton. These include contributions (stories and articles) to Lilliput magazine throughout the 1950s. His first two books were published by Rupert Hart-Davis, Magic City: Three Stories of Vienna under Allied Occupation (1950), per the title on the dust-wrapper, and The Lightning That Struck Me (1951), the story of a man who wants to escape from behind the Iron Curtain. Tell Them in Sparta (Methuen, 1962) is a historical novel of the Battle of Thermopylae. It came out in paperback from the New English Library in 1964.
 |
| author photo from a Tony Caxton book |
Towers married in 1947, and again in 1978 (his second spouse was named Helen: Towers dedicated two books to her). Towers worked professionally in corporate and public relations, so his use of pseudonyms for his secondary interest in writing may be seen as showing discretion. Certainly, for his next brace of books, with their details of the inner workings of sex-magic cults, a pseudonym would have been necessary. These are the four books published as Eric Ericson, three of which are mass market paperbacks from the New English Library. The first, The Sorcerer (February 1978), begins interestingly, with a young scientist introduced into a sex-magick cult by his latest lover. He quickly learns it is a coven of Satanistic witches, led by the sinister Frazer. The writing and plotting are over-the-top in many ways (particularly the sex scenes), but the supernatural powers are real and used mercilessly.
The second Ericson novel, The Woman Who Slept with Demons (January 1980), continues along the same line, following a young veterinarian who sees a woman having sex with a demon. The book quickly becomes a kind of exploration of various types of sexual debauchery.
The third Ericson book is not a novel but a dictionary of people associated with the dark arts, from artist Aubrey Beardsley to Aleister Crowley, Gilles de Rais, Rasputin and Gerald Gardner. The full title is: The World, the Flesh, the Devil: A Biographical Dictionary (1981). This book was dedicated to Helen.
The three novels published in mass market format have rather garish covers (see below). One can't recommend any of them; they are pulpish, crude, cringe-inducing, and sexist in dated ways. The first two Eric Ericson novels were published in hardcover in the US by St. Martin's of New York.
Towers published his next book under his own name, as by Eric Towers. It is a reconstructed biography of Sir. Francis Dashwood, an eighteenth century politician around whom legends of black magic and devil worship grew, making up the myth of the Hell Fire Club at Medmenham Abbey in Buckinghamshire. Dashwood: The Man and the Myth (1986) is the second book dedicated to Helen.
For his last two books, Towers returned to St. Martin's Press of New York, who had published hardcovers of two Eric Ericson novels. These two mystery novels were both set in England, but published only in the US, under the Tony Caxton byline. Murder in a Quiet Place came out in July 1994; Bowker's Bonfire in March 1996. Both feature Police Inspector Denis Bowler.
* This information appears in the Comments added by "Ged" to a post on the Ericson novels located here.
