Hugh Barnett Cave (11 July 1910 – 27 June 2004) was an American writer of various genres, perhaps best remembered for his works of horror, weird menace and science fiction.

[1] Cave was one of the most prolific contributors to pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, selling an estimated 800 stories not only in the aforementioned genres but also in western, fantasy, adventure, crime, romance and non-fiction.

Cave relocated to Florida and regularly published original material until about the year 2000, and won a World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 1999.

His Caribbean experiences resulted in his best-selling Voodoo-themed novel, The Cross on the Drum (1959), an interracial story in which a white Christian missionary becomes enamored of a black Voodoo priest's sister.

[1] During this midpoint in his career Cave advanced his writing to the "slick" magazines, including Collier's, Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and the Saturday Evening Post.

It was in this latter publication, during 1959, that "The Mission," his most popular short story, was published—- issued subsequently in hardcover format by Doubleday company, reprinted in textbooks, and translated into a number of languages.

According to The Guardian, during the 1970s, with the golden era of pulp fiction now in the past, Cave's "only regular market was writing romance for women's magazines."

He was rediscovered, however, by Karl Edward Wagner, who published Murgunstrumm and Others, a horror story collection that won Cave the 1978 World Fantasy Award.

During his entire career he composed more than 1,000 short stories in nearly all genres (though he is remembered best for his horror and crime pieces), approximately forty novels, and a notable body of nonfiction.