In addition to horror and detective fiction, Copper was perhaps best known for his series of Solar Pons stories continuing the character created as a tribute to Sherlock Holmes by August Derleth.
[4] Copper was a longtime resident of Sevenoaks in Kent, and was survived by his French-born wife Annie (née Guerin) to whom he had been married since 1960.
Copper's best-known macabre tales include: "The Academy of Pain", "Amber Print", "The Recompensing of Albano Pizar" (dramatised by BBC Radio 4) "The Candle in the Skull' (read over Hallowe'en on BBC Radio 4), "Better Dead", the acclaimed Lovecraftian novella "Beyond the Reef", "Bright Blades Gleaming" and "Ill Met by Daylight".
Copper's novel The Great White Space (1975) describes an expedition into a remote part of Asia to discover the location of the mysterious Old Ones.
The Great White Space was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft and includes elements of the latter author's Cthulhu Mythos stories.
[7] The TV adaptation was of his well-known macabre story "Camera Obscura", filmed as an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery in 1971.
In March 2010, Darkness, Mist and Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper was launched at the Brighton World Horror Convention as a two-volume set by PS Publishing.