Creation Books is a British publishing house specializing in experimental literature, surrealism, erotic and decadent literature. Creation also publish non-fiction, with books on magic, subcultures, and taboo topics such as suicide and serial killers. They are best known for publishing a number of books underground film, experimental cinema, horror film and cult film. Contributors and authors include Jeremy Reed, Peter Sotos, David Kerekes, David Slater, Romain Slocombe, Kenji Siratori and Jack Sargeant.
Founded in England in 1989, Creation Books began by publishing psych-horror-surrealist author James Havoc's anti-novel Raism, before moving on to publishing non-fiction books, initially on the imprint Annihilation before moving all titles to the Creation Books catalogue. The first non-fiction titles included Simon Dwyer's Rapid Eye journal. Three volumes were published and included groundbreaking pieces on Genesis P-Orridge and Derek Jarman. Volume 2 was notable for a lengthy essay on Dwyer's journey through the American underground.
In this early period Creation also published avant-garde poetry by Aaron Williamson and Geraldine Monk as well as a collection of horror stories: Red Stains. They also published Olivia Gladwell's postfeminist analysis of music Catamania and the Mike Philbin novel Red Hedz. Later novels published include Lydia Lunch's Paradoxia, Mathew Stokoe's Cows, Pan Pantziarka's House of Pain and Peter Sotos's Index.
Creation published numerous literary classics including books by Oscar Wilde, H. P. Lovecraft, Dalí, Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, and Antonin Artaud.
Creation began publishing their film studies series with Killing for Culture, before moving on to publishing Jack Hunter's Inside Terradome and Jack Sargeant's Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression. This numbered series would come to include books on topics ranging from erotica and pornography, beatnik film, Japanese punk film, road movies, and cannibal horror movies. By the mid-nineties Creation's non-fiction catalogue had grown to include nonfiction titles by Jack Stevenson and Stephen Barber, as well as editions of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, Nietzsche's The AntiChrist and Francis King's Megatherion.
Non-fiction books included numerous books on pop / rock music, including Alan Parker's Sid Vicious biography, and books by Jeremy Reed on Marc Almond, Brian Jones, and Scott Walker, as well as Bill Drummond and Mark Manning's cult Bad Wisdom.
Creation expanded into photography books and published two books by French artist Romain Slocombe, as well as a book by underground film maker Peter Whitehead. Slocombe, Havoc and Lunch also featured in Sargeant's book Suture. Other art books published by Creation include a volume of extreme manga by Suehiro Maruo.
Creation Books' erotic imprint; Velvet, published the one-off journal Heat and new translations of works by Marquis de Sade, alongside classic decadent erotica and works by dominatrix author Terrence Sellers. Velvet also published two Torture Garden volumes edited by David Wood, co-founder of the fetish club of the same name.
Creation Books also published a handful of pulp titles under the Attack! Books imprint, edited by the late Steven Wells, an early supporter of Creation. This imprint included books by Mark Manning aka Zodiac Mindwarp. The imprint was discontinued but Manning continued to publish with Creation Books, while Wells was featured in an anthology published by Creation side project Future Fiction.