TRAUMEREI,
by Charles BeaumontINTRODUCTION
“Charles Beaumont was one of the seminal influences on writers of the fantastic and macabre.”
—Dean Koontz
Charles Beaumont (1929–1967) was born Charles Leroy Nutt in Chicago. He was the only child of Charles Hiram Nutt (an auditor of freight accounts for the Chicago & Alton Railroad) and Violet “Letty” (Phillips) Nutt, a homemaker who had been a scenarist at Essanay Studios. Letty is known to have dressed young Charles in girls’ clothes, and once threatened to kill his dog to punish him. These early experiences inspired the celebrated short story “Miss Gentilbelle,” but according to Beaumont, “Football, baseball, and dime-store cookie thefts filled my early world.”
School did not hold his attention, and his last name of “Nutt” made him the b
