Williams worked as an editor for the Oxford University Press. His seven novels appeared from 1930 onwards. His first, War in Heaven (1930) has my favorite first sentence of any novel:
The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.
Unlike much fantasy fiction, Williams' novels deal with the "irruption of supernatural elements into everyday life".
All Hallows' Eve (1945), the last novel Williams wrote, is so creepy, it is the first thing I think of when Halloween is mentioned.
The following is from T.S. Eliot 's introduction to the edition I have of All Hallow's Eve and illustrates several of the unique qualities of Williams.
"Williams seemed equally at ease among every sort and condition of men, naturally and unconsciously, without envy or contempt, without subservience or condescension. I have always believed that he would have been equally at ease in every kind of supernatural company; that he would never have been surprised or disconcerted by the intrusion of any visitor from another world, whether kindly or malevolent; and that he would have shown exactly the same natural ease and courtesy, with an exact awareness of how one should behave, to an angel, a demon, a human ghost, or an elemental. For him there was no frontier between the material and the spiritual world. Had I ever had to spend a night in a haunted house, I should have felt secure with Williams in my company: he was somehow protected from evil, and was himself a protection. He could have joked with the devil and turned the joke against him. To him the supernatural was perfectly natural, and the natural was also supernatural. And this peculiarity gave him that profound insight into Good and Evil, into the heights of Heaven and the depths of Hell, which provides both the immediate thrill, and the permanent message of his novels."
