Author: Michael Hodgson

1House on the Borderland

By William Hope Hodgson

In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. While there, they discover in the ruins of a very curious house a diary of the man who had once owned it. Its torn pages seem to hint at an evil beyond anything that existed on this side of the curtains of impossibility. This is a classic novel that worked to slowly bridge the gap between the British fantastic and supernatural authors of the later 19th century and modern horror fiction. Classic American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft lists this and other works by Hodgson among his greatest influences. (Summary by Wikipedia)

2Carnacki, the Ghost Finder

By William Hope Hodgson

Thomas Carnacki was a detective of the supernatural, created for a series of short stories by William Hope Hodgson. Hodsgon, also a noted photographer and bodybuilder, might have created more stories for this intrepid sleuth of the occult, but he unfortunately died at the youthful age of 40 in World War I. (Introduction by Samanem)

3Ghost Pirates

By William Hope Hodgson

The Ghost Pirates is a powerful account of a doomed and haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-devils (of quasi-human aspect, and perhaps the spirits of bygone buccaneers) that besiege it and finally drag it down to an unknown fate. With its command of maritime knowledge, and its clever selection of hints and incidents suggestive of latent horrors in nature, this book at times reaches enviable peaks of power. (Summary by Wikipedia)

4Boats of the 'Glen Carrig'

By William Hope Hodgson

Eighteenth-century sailors adrift in a lifeboat encounter strange lands and weird creatures in their search for home. A creepy tale of nautical adventure. - Summary by Jason Mills

5Night Land

By William Hope Hodgson

The Sun has gone out and the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, nearly eight miles high – the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of Energy, known as the "air clog", powered from a subterranean energy source called the "Earth Current". For millennia, vast living shapes—the Watchers—have waited in the darkness near the pyramid. It is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle's power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human.<br><br> To leave the protection of the Circle means almost certain death, or worse an ultimate destruction of the soul. As the story commences, the narrator establishes mind contact with an inhabitant of another, forgotten Lesser Redoubt. First one expedition sets off to succor the inhabitants of the Lesser Redoubt, whose own Earth Current has been exhausted, only to meet with disaster. After that the narrator sets off alone into the darkness to find the girl he has made contact with, knowing now that she is the reincarnation of his past love.<br><br> H. P. Lovecraft describes the novel as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written". Clark Ashton Smith wrote of it that "In all literature, there are few works so sheerly remarkable, so purely creative, as The Night Land. - Summary by Wikipedia

This book is not meant to be a History of English Literature, but an introduction for those who do not know much about it, or who may be thinking of it as a "dull, horrid thing" which they have to learn in school. I venture to hope that this book may become too dear to throw away when the study is done, and overall I have tried very hard not to write a "stuffy" book. Summary by Beth Thomas and the Introduction

7House on the Borderland (Version 2)

By William Hope Hodgson

This story helped propel 19th Century gothic fiction in the direction of “cosmic” horror. In fact, H.P. Lovecraft lists it as among his greatest influences. It begins simply enough: with two friends stumbling upon a ruined and curious house while vacationing in a remote village. After reading the tattered journal of the old recluse who lived there, they are shocked to discover an interdimensional, reality-bending nightmare full of nearly-indescribable horrors that range from demons, to bestial (somewhat Lovecraftian) monsters, and devastating parasitic fungal diseases. - Summary by jvanstan

Directly afterwards, a shrill, yelling noise seemed to fill the whole sky with a deafening, piercing sound. I glanced hastily over the port quarter. In that direction the whole surface of the ocean seemed to be torn up into the air in monstrous clouds of spray. The yelling sound passed into a vast scream, and the next instant the cyclone was upon us. (Summary by William Hope Hodgson, from "Through the Vortex of the Cyclone")