William Hope Hodgson
Encyclopedia
William Hope Hodgson was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

, fantastic fiction
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his poems were published during his lifetime. He also attracted some notice as a photographer and achieved some renown as a bodybuilder. He died in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 at the age of 40.

Life

Hodgson was born in Blackmore End, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, the son of Samuel Hodgson, an Anglican priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

, and Lissie Sarah Brown. He was the second of twelve children, three of whom died in infancy. The death of a child is a theme in several of Hodgson's works including the short stories "The Valley of Lost Children", "The Sea-Horses", and "The Searcher of the End House".

Hodgson's father was moved frequently, and served 11 different parishes in 21 years, including one in County Galway
County Galway
County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...

, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. This setting was later featured in Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson.-Plot introduction:In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. Whilst there, they discover in the ruins of a very...

.

Hodgson ran away from his boarding school at the age of thirteen in an effort to become a sailor. He was caught and returned to his family, but eventually received his father's permission to be apprenticed
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

 as a cabin boy and began a four-year apprenticeship in 1891. Hodgson's father died shortly thereafter, of throat cancer, leaving the family impoverished; while William was away, the family subsisted largely on charity. After his apprenticeship ended in 1895, Hodgson began two years of study in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, and was then able to pass the tests and receive his mate's certificate; he then began several more years as a sailor.

At sea, Hodgson experienced bullying. This led him to begin a program of personal training. According to Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...

,

The primary motivation of his body development was not health, but self-defence. His relatively short height and sensitive, almost beautiful face made him an irresistible target for bullying seamen. When they moved in to pulverize him, they would learn too late that they had come to grips with easily one of the most powerful men, pound for pound, in all England.


The theme of bullying of an apprentice by older seamen, and revenge taken, appeared frequently in his sea stories.

While away at sea, in addition to his exercises with weights and with a punching bag, Hodgson also practised his photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, taking photographs of cyclones, lightning, sharks, aurora borealis, and the maggot
Maggot
In everyday speech the word maggot means the larva of a fly ; it is applied in particular to the larvae of Brachyceran flies, such as houseflies, cheese flies, and blowflies, rather than larvae of the Nematocera, such as mosquitoes and Crane flies...

s that infested the food given to sailors. He also built up a stamp collection, practised his marksmanship while hunting, and kept journals of his experiences at sea. In 1898 he was awarded the Royal Humane Society medal for heroism for saving another sailor who had fallen overboard in shark-infested waters.

In 1899, at the age of 22, he opened W. H. Hodgson's School of Physical Culture, in Blackburn, England, offering tailored exercise regimes for personal training. Among his customers were members of the Blackburn police force. In 1902, Hodgson himself appeared on stage with handcuffs
Handcuffs
Handcuffs are restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists close together. They comprise two parts, linked together by a chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each half has a rotating arm which engages with a ratchet that prevents it from being opened once closed around a person's wrist...

 and other restraining devices supplied by the Blackburn police department and applied the restraints to Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...

, who had previously escaped from the Blackburn city jail. His behavior towards Houdini generated controversy; the escape artist had some difficulty removing his restraints, complaining that Hodgson had deliberately injured him and jammed the locks of his handcuffs.

Hodgson was not shy of publicity, and in another notable stunt, rode a bicycle down a street so steep that it had stairs, an event written up in the local paper. Despite his reputation, he eventually found that he could not earn a living running his personal training business, which was seasonal in nature, and shut it down. He began instead writing articles such as "Physical Culture versus Recreative Exercises" (published in 1903). One of these articles, "Health from Scientific Exercise," featured photographs of Hodgson himself demonstrating his exercises. The market for such articles seemed to be limited, however; so, inspired by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

, H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

, Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

, Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

 and Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...

, Hodgson turned his attention to fiction, publishing his first short story, "The Goddess of Death", in 1904, followed shortly by "A Tropical Horror
A Tropical Horror
"A Tropical Horror" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1905.-Plot summary:In this story, a ship at sea is attacked by a giant, eel-like sea monster. The story is told from the point of view of the sole survivor, a young apprentice. The creature is aboard the ship for...

". He also contributed to an article in The Grand Magazine
The Grand Magazine
The Grand Magazine was the first British pulp magazine. It was published monthly between February 1905 and April 1940. Published by George Newnes, it initially emulated Newnes's highly successful Strand Magazine, featuring a mix of fiction and non-fiction...

, taking the "No" side in a debate on the topic "Is the Mercantile Navy Worth Joining?" In this piece, Hodgson laid out in detail his negative experiences at sea, including facts and figures about salaries. This led to a second article in The Nautical Magazine
The Nautical Magazine
The Nautical Magazine is a monthly magazine published by Brown Son & Ferguson containing articles of general interest to seafarers. The magazine was first published in 1832 and has variously been known as The Nautical magazine and naval chronicle for ... and Nautical magazine and journal of the...

, an exposé on the subject of apprenticeships; at the time, families often were forced to pay to have boys accepted as apprentices. Hodgson began to give paid lectures, illustrated with his photography in the form of colorized slides, about his experiences at sea.

Although he wrote a number of poems, only a handful were published during his lifetime; several, such as "Madre Mia
Madre Mia
"Madre Mia" is a poem by William Hope Hodgson. It is presented as the dedication to his novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig".People may say thou art no longer youngAnd yet, to me, thy youth was yesterday,A yesterday that seems...

", appeared as dedications to his novels. Apparently cynical about the prospects of publishing his poetry, in 1906 he published an article in The Author magazine, suggesting that poets could earn money by writing inscriptions for tombstones. Many of his poems were published by his widow in two posthumous collections, but some 48 poems were not published until their appearance in the 2005 collection The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson.

While his poetry did not see print, in 1906 the American magazine The Monthly Story Magazine published "From the Tideless Sea"", the first of Hodgson's Sargasso Sea
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is a region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by ocean currents. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. This...

 stories. Hodgson continued to sell stories to American magazines as well as British magazines for the remainder of his career, carefully managing the rights to his work in order to maximize his remuneration. Still living with his mother in relative poverty, his first published novel, The Boats of the "Glen Carrig", appeared in 1907, to positive reviews. Hodgson also published '"The Voice in the Night
The Voice in the Night
"The Voice in the Night" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in the November 1907 edition of Blue Book Magazine.The story has been adapted a number of times, most prominently in the 1963 Japanese film Matango....

" the same year, as well as "Through the Vortex of a Cyclone", a realistic story inspired by Hodgson's experiences at sea and illustrated with tinted slides made from his own photographs. Hodgson also explored the subject of ships and cyclones in his story "The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder", published in 1908. Also in 1908, Hodgson published an unusual satirical science fiction story "Date 1965: Modern Warfare", a Swiftian satire in which it is suggested that war should be carried out by men fighting in pens with knives, and the corpses carefully salvaged for food, although in letters to the editor published at the time, he expressed strong patriotic sentiments.

He published his second novel, The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson.-Plot introduction:In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. Whilst there, they discover in the ruins of a very...

in 1909, again to positive reviews; he also published "Out of the Storm", a short horror story about "the death-side of the sea," in which the protagonist drowning in a storm rants about the horrors of a storm at sea. According to Moskowitz,

This story proved an emotional testament beyond all other evidence. Hodgson, whose literary success would be in a large measure based on the impressions he received at sea, actually hated and feared the waters with an intensity that was the passion of his life.


Also in 1909, Hodgson published another novel, The Ghost Pirates
The Ghost Pirates
The Ghost Pirates is a novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1909. The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe the Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published."...

. In the foreword, he wrote

...completes what, perhaps, may be termed a trilogy; for, though very different in scope, each of the three books deals with certain conceptions that have an elemental kinship. This book, the author believes that he closes the door, so far as he is concerned, on a particular phase of constructive thought.


The Bookman
The Bookman (London)
The Bookman was a monthly magazine published in London from 1891 until 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton. It was a catalogue of their current publications that also contained reviews, advertising and illustrations....

magazine in its review of the novel in 1909 included the comment

We can only hope that Mr. Hodgson may be induced to reconsider his decision, for we know of nothing like the author's previous work in the whole of present-day literature.


Despite the critical success of his novels, Hodgson remained relatively poor. To try to bolster his income from short story sales, he began working on the first of his recurring characters: the Carnacki
Carnacki
Thomas Carnacki is a fictional supernatural detective created by English fantasy writer William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki was the protagonist of a series of six short stories published between 1910 and 1912 in The Idler magazine and The New Magazine....

 character, featured in several of his most famous stories and partly inspired by Algernon Blackwood's occult detective John Silence. The first of these, "The Gateway of the Monster", was published in 1910 in The Idler. In 1910 Hodgson also published "The Captain of the Onion Boat", an unusual story that combines a nautical tale and a romance. He continued to publish many stories and non-fiction pieces, occasionally resorting to the use of recycled plot elements and situations, sometimes to the annoyance of his publishers.

His last novel to see publication, The Night Land
The Night Land
The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...

, was published in 1912, although it likely had its genesis a number of years earlier. Hodgson also worked on a 10,000 word novelette version of the novel, now known as The Dream of X
The Dream of X
The Dream of X is an abridged version of the 1912 science fiction novel by William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land. The abridgment was originally published as part of the chapbook collection Poems and the Dream of X in 1912 by R. Harold Paget. It was first published as a stand-alone book in 1977 by...

. He continued to branch out into related genres, publishing "Judge Barclay's Wife", a western adventure, in the United States, as well as several non-supernatural mystery stories and the science fiction story "The Derelict
The Derelict (Hodgson)
The Derelict is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912.As he does in many of his stories, Hodgson employs a framework or "story within a story." In the framework, an elderly ship's doctor recounts a strange event that happened to him some years earlier, in the context of...

", and even war stories (several of the Captain Gault
Captain Gault
Captain Gault is a fictional sea captain created by English writer William Hope Hodgson. Many of the Captain Gault stories were collected in the book Captain Gault, Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain, published in 1917....

 tales feature wartime themes).

In 1912, Hodgson married Betty Farnworth, known also as Bessie, a staff member for the women's magazine Home Notes. After a honeymoon in the south of France, they took up residence there, owing in part to the low cost of living. Hodgson began a work entitled "Captain Dang (An account of certain peculiar and somewhat memorable adventures)" and continued to publish stories in multiple genres, although financial security continued to elude him.

Hodgson returned with his wife to England. He joined the University of London's Officer's Training Corps. Refusing to have anything to do with the sea despite his experience and Third Mate
Third Mate
A Third Mate or Third Officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The third mate is a watchstander and customarily the ship's safety officer and fourth-in-command...

's certificate, he received a commission as a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...

. In 1916 he was thrown from a horse and suffered a broken jaw and a head injury; he received a mandatory discharge, and returned to writing. Refusing to remain on the sidelines, Hodgson recovered sufficiently to re-enlist. His published articles and stories from the time reflect his experience in war. He was killed by an artillery shell at Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...

 in April 1918; sources suggest either the 17th or 19th. He was eulogized in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 
on 2 May 1918. The American magazine Adventure
Adventure (magazine)
Adventure magazine was first published in November 1910 as a monthly pulp magazine. Adventure went on become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed of all the American pulp magazines...

, to which Hodgson had contributed fiction, also ran a obituary which reprinted a clipping from his widow, describing how Hodgson led a group of
NCOs
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...

 to safety under heavy fire.

Most famous works

Hodgson is most widely known for two works. The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson.-Plot introduction:In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. Whilst there, they discover in the ruins of a very...

is a novel of which H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

 wrote "but for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality [it] would be a classic of the first water". The Night Land
The Night Land
The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...

is a much longer novel, written in an archaic style and expressing a sombre vision of a sunless far-future world. These works both contain elements of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, although they also partake of horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 and the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

. According to critical consensus, in these works, despite his often laboured and clumsy language, Hodgson achieves a deep power of expression, which focuses on a sense not only of terror but of the ubiquity of potential terror, of the thinness of the invisible boundary between the world of normality and an underlying, unaccountable reality for which humans are not suited.

The Ghost Pirates
The Ghost Pirates
The Ghost Pirates is a novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1909. The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe the Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published."...

has less of a reputation than The House on the Borderland, but is an effective seafaring horror story of a ship attacked and ultimately dragged down to its doom by supernatural creatures. The book purports to be the spoken testimony of the sole survivor, and the style lacks the pseudo-archaism
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...

 which makes The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and The Night Land tedious reading for many.

Hodgson is also known for his short stories featuring recurring characters: the "detective of the occult" Thomas Carnacki
Carnacki
Thomas Carnacki is a fictional supernatural detective created by English fantasy writer William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki was the protagonist of a series of six short stories published between 1910 and 1912 in The Idler magazine and The New Magazine....

, and the smuggler Captain Gault
Captain Gault
Captain Gault is a fictional sea captain created by English writer William Hope Hodgson. Many of the Captain Gault stories were collected in the book Captain Gault, Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain, published in 1917....

. The Carnacki story "The Whistling Room" has been reprinted in numerous anthologies, including collections introduced by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

. Hodgson's single most famous short story is probably "The Voice in the Night
The Voice in the Night
"The Voice in the Night" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in the November 1907 edition of Blue Book Magazine.The story has been adapted a number of times, most prominently in the 1963 Japanese film Matango....

", which has been adapted for film twice. Another story regarded highly by critics is "The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder".

It is sometimes assumed that Hodgson was an influence on H.P. Lovecraft. But he was out of print for a number of years following his death, so Lovecraft presumably did not read his works until 1934 (unless he had access to a used copy) – and so Lovecraft's own work almost certainly could not have been influenced by him. There may have been a roundabout influence, via the works of other authors, however. In a 2009 essay, China Miéville
China Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...

 traces the origin of "the tentacle" as an object of horror to Hodgson's The Boats of the "Glen Carrig".

Hodgson's literary estate

Hodgson's widow, Bessie, worked to keep his books in print, and to publish works he was not able to get published during his lifetime. This work included two books of poetry. After Bessie Hodgson died in 1943, Hodgson's sister Lissie took over his literary estate.

While the first six Carnacki
Carnacki
Thomas Carnacki is a fictional supernatural detective created by English fantasy writer William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki was the protagonist of a series of six short stories published between 1910 and 1912 in The Idler magazine and The New Magazine....

 stories were collected during Hodgson's lifetime, "The Haunted Jarvee" appeared posthumously in 1929, and two more Carnacki stories, "The Find" and "The Hog," were not published until 1947 by August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...

. Some critics suspected that Derleth might actually be the author of these two stories, but that theory has been discounted.

One Captain Gault
Captain Gault
Captain Gault is a fictional sea captain created by English writer William Hope Hodgson. Many of the Captain Gault stories were collected in the book Captain Gault, Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain, published in 1917....

 story, "The Plans of the Reefing Bi-Plane," was not published until 1996, when it was included in the short story collection Terrors of the Sea.

Some of Hodgson's poems were first published in 2005, when they appeared in The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson. Some may be still under copyright protection.

A number of other Hodgson works are reprinted for the first time since their original publication in the five-volume Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson series published by Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books is an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It was started in 1997 by Jason Williams, with Jeremy Lassen coming on board as a partner shortly after the company's founding...

.

Copyright protection has now expired on most of Hodgson's work, with the exception of some of the works published posthumously, including many of his poems.

Novels

  • The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907)
  • The House on the Borderland
    The House on the Borderland
    The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson.-Plot introduction:In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. Whilst there, they discover in the ruins of a very...

    (1908)
  • The Ghost Pirates
    The Ghost Pirates
    The Ghost Pirates is a novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1909. The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe the Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published."...

    (1909)
  • The Night Land
    The Night Land
    The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...

    (1912)
  • The Dream of X
    The Dream of X
    The Dream of X is an abridged version of the 1912 science fiction novel by William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land. The abridgment was originally published as part of the chapbook collection Poems and the Dream of X in 1912 by R. Harold Paget. It was first published as a stand-alone book in 1977 by...

    (1912) (a 20,000 word abridgement of the 200,000 word novel The Night Land)
  • Captain Dang (unfinished)

Order of writing versus order of publication

Sam Gafford, in his essay "Writing Backwards: The Novels of William Hope Hodgson" has suggested that Hodgson's four major novels may have been published in roughly the reverse order of their writing. If this is true, then The Night Land
The Night Land
The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre...

was Hodgson's first novel, in which he poured out his imagination at its most unbridled, and not his last. Gafford writes:

This concern over the order of composition of the novels may seem of little importance until we consider the implications toward Hodgson's work overall. .. in effect, Hodgson moved away from TNL’s quasi-science fiction scenario (which contained an astounding number of original conceptions) and toward BoGC’s more basic adventure slant.


If we accept Gafford's thesis, then Hodgson actually wrote The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" last, and it benefits from the modernization of style to the point where it is Hodgson's most accessible novel:

When he finishes the group with BoGC, Hodgson has managed to rid himself of these affectations of style and produces a book written in a flat but serviceable tone. With each book, Hodgson learns better control of language and more writing savvy and eventually begins to develop his own voice.


But despite the excessively archaic prose style, which does make them less approachable, it is actually Hodgson's earlier works that are considered masterpieces today. And as Gafford says:

...we can only wonder what wonderfully imaginative excesses like The Night Land may have been lost because of an unappreciative public.

Miscellaneous stories

Note: the following list of stories is based on the 5-volume Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson published by Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books is an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It was started in 1997 by Jason Williams, with Jeremy Lassen coming on board as a partner shortly after the company's founding...

 to be completed in late 2006.
  • "The Goddess of Death" (Hodgson's first published story, which appeared in 1904 in Royal Magazine)
  • "Terror of the Water-Tank" (first published in 1907 in The Blue Book
    The Blue Book
    On March 7, 1946 the Federal Communications Commission of the United States issued a report on Public Service Responsibility for Broadcast Licensees, nicknamed The Blue Book, reminding radio and television broadcasters of their commitment to public service...

    )
  • "Bullion" (first published in 1911 in Everybody's Weekly)
  • "The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship" (first published in 1911 in Grand Magazine)
  • "The Ghosts of the Glen Doon" (first published in 1911 in The Red Magazine)
  • "Mr. Jock Danplank" (first published in 1912 in The Red Magazine)
  • "The Mystery of Captain Chappel" (first published in 1917 in The Red Magazine)
  • "The Home-Coming of Captain Dan" (first published in 1918 in The Red Magazine)
  • "Merciful Plunder" (first published in 1925 in Argosy-Allstory Weekly
    Argosy (magazine)
    Argosy was an American pulp magazine, published by Frank Munsey. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.-Launch of Argosy:In late September 1882,...

    )
  • "The Haunting of the Lady Shannon" (first published in 1975 in the collection Out of the Storm)
  • "The Heathen's Revenge" (first published in 1988 in a chapbook as "The Way of the Heathen")
  • "A Tropical Horror
    A Tropical Horror
    "A Tropical Horror" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1905.-Plot summary:In this story, a ship at sea is attacked by a giant, eel-like sea monster. The story is told from the point of view of the sole survivor, a young apprentice. The creature is aboard the ship for...

    " (first published in 1905)
  • "The Voice in the Night
    The Voice in the Night
    "The Voice in the Night" is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in the November 1907 edition of Blue Book Magazine.The story has been adapted a number of times, most prominently in the 1963 Japanese film Matango....

    " (first published in 1907)
  • "The Derelict
    The Derelict (Hodgson)
    The Derelict is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912.As he does in many of his stories, Hodgson employs a framework or "story within a story." In the framework, an elderly ship's doctor recounts a strange event that happened to him some years earlier, in the context of...

    " (first published in 1912)
  • "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani
    Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani
    Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani is a short story by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1919 under the title The Baumoff Explosive. This story is one of Hodgson's most powerful and disturbing, and is especially relevant to modern times because of its themes of blasphemy, religious mania,...

    " (first published as "The Baumoff Explosive" in 1919)
  • "The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder"
  • "Out of the Storm"
  • "The Albatross"
  • "The 'Prentices' Mutiny"
  • "The Island of the Crossbones"
  • "The Stone Ship"
  • "The Regeneration of Captain Bully Keller"
  • "The Mystery of Missing Ships"
  • "We Two and Bully Dunkan"
  • "The Haunted Pampero"
  • "The Real Thing: 'S.O.S.'"
  • "Jack Grey, Second Mate"
  • "The Smugglers"
  • "In the Wailing Gully"
  • "The Girl with the Grey Eyes"
  • "Kind, Kind and Gentle Is She"
  • "A Timely Escape"
  • "The Homecoming of Captain Dan"
  • "On the Bridge"
  • "Through the Vortex of a Cyclone"
  • "A Fight with a Submarine"
  • "In the Danger Zone"
  • "Old Golly"
  • "Demons of the Sea"
  • "The Wild Man of the Sea"
  • "The Habitants of Middle Islet"
  • "The Riven Night"
  • "The Heaving of the Log"
  • "The Sharks of the St. Elmo"
  • "Sailormen"
  • "By the Lee"
  • "The Captain of the Onion Boat"
  • "The Sea-Horses"
  • "The Valley of Lost Children"
  • "Date 1965: Modern Warfare"
  • "My House Shall Be Called the House of Prayer"
  • "Judge Barclay's Wife"
  • "How the Honorable Billy Darrell Raided the Wind"
  • "The Friendship of Monsieur Jeynois"
  • "The Inn of the Black Crow"
  • "What Happened in the Thunderbolt"
  • "How Sir Jerrold Treyn Dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove"
  • "Jem Binney and the Safe at Lockwood Hall"
  • "Diamond Cut Diamond with a Vengeance"
  • "The Room of Fear"
  • "The Promise"

Sargasso Sea stories

  • "From the Tideless Sea Part One" (first published in 1906 in Monthly Story Magazine)
  • "From the Tideless Sea Part Two: Further News of the Homebird" (first published in 1907 in Blue Book Magazine)
  • "The Mystery of the Derelict" (first published in 1907 in Story-teller)
  • "The Thing in the Weeds" (first published in 1912 in Story-teller)
  • "The Finding of the Graiken" (first published in 1913 in The Red Magazine)
  • "The Call in the Dawn" (first published as "The Voice in the Dawn" in 1920 in Premier Magazine)

Carnacki stories

  • "The Thing Invisible" (first published in 1912 in The New Magazine)
  • "The Gateway of the Monster" (first published in 1910 in The Idler)
  • "The House Among the Laurels" (first published in 1910 in The Idler)
  • "The Whistling Room" (first published in 1910 in The Idler)
  • "The Searcher of the End House" (first published in 1910 in The Idler)
  • "The Horse of the Invisible" (first published in 1910 in The Idler)
  • "The Haunted Jarvee" (first published in 1929 in The Premier Magazine)
  • "The Find" (first published in 1947 as part of the Carnacki the Ghost Finder collection)
  • "The Hog" (first published in 1947 in Weird Tales)

Captain Jat stories

  • "The Island of the Ud" (first published in 1912 in The Red Magazine)
  • "The Adventure of the Headland" (first published in 1912 in The Red Magazine)

Captain Gault stories

  • "Contraband of War" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "The Diamond Spy" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "The Red Herring" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "The Case of the Chinese Curio Dealer" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "The Drum of Saccharine" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "From Information Received" (first published in 1914 in London Magazine)
  • "The German Spy" (first published in 1915 in London Magazine)
  • "The Problem of the Pearls" (first published in 1915 in London Magazine)
  • "The Painted Lady" (first published in 1915 in London Magazine)
  • "The Adventure of the Garter" (first published in 1916 in London Magazine)
  • "My Lady's Jewels" (first published in 1916 in London Magazine)
  • "Trading with the Enemy" (first published in 1916 in London Magazine)
  • "The Plans of the Reefing Bi-Plane" (not published until its inclusion in Terrors of the Sea in 1996)

D.C.O. Cargunka stories

  • "The Bells of the Laughing Sally" (first published in 1914 in The Red Magazine)
  • "The Adventure with the Claim Jumpers" (first published in 1915 in The Red Magazine)

Selected short story collections

  • Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder (1913) (collection of short stories)
  • Men of the Deep Waters (1914) (collection)
  • The Luck of the Strong (1916) (collection)
  • Captain Gault
    Captain Gault
    Captain Gault is a fictional sea captain created by English writer William Hope Hodgson. Many of the Captain Gault stories were collected in the book Captain Gault, Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain, published in 1917....

    , Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain
    (1917) (collection)
  • Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder
    Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder
    Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder is a collection of supernatural detective short stories by author William Hope Hodgson. It was first published in 1913 by the English publisher Eveleigh Nash. In 1947, a new edition of 3,050 copies was published by Mycroft & Moran and included three additional stories. ...

    (1947) (expanded from the 1913 edition)

Poems

  • "Amanda Panda"
  • "Beyond the Dawning"
  • "Billy Ben"
  • "Bring Out Your Dead"
  • "The Calling of the Sea"
  • "Down the Long Coasts"
  • "Eight Bells"
  • "Grey Seas are Dreaming of My Death"
  • "The Hell! Oo! Chaunty" (appears in The Ghost Pirates
    The Ghost Pirates
    The Ghost Pirates is a novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1909. The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe the Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published."...

    )
  • "I Come Again"
  • "I Have Borne My Lord a Son"
  • "Listening"
  • "Little Garments"
  • "Lost"
  • "Madre Mia
    Madre Mia
    "Madre Mia" is a poem by William Hope Hodgson. It is presented as the dedication to his novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig".People may say thou art no longer youngAnd yet, to me, thy youth was yesterday,A yesterday that seems...

    " (appears as the dedication in The Boats of the "Glen Carrig")
  • "Mimosa"
  • "The Morning Lands"
  • "My Babe, My Babe"
  • "Nevermore"
  • "The Night Wind"
  • "O Parent Sea"
  • "The Pirates"
  • "The Place of Storms
    The Place of Storms
    "The Place of Storms" is a long poem by William Hope Hodgson. It is notable for its internal rhymes and assonance, extensive use of metaphor, and powerful imagery, all put to the service of describing a storm at sea....

    "
  • "Rest"
  • "The Ship"
  • "The Sobbing of the Freshwater" (first published in 1912 in London Magazine)
  • "The Song of the Great Bull Whale" (first published in 1912 in Grand Magazine)
  • "Song of the Ship"
  • "Speak Well of the Dead"
  • "Storm"
  • "Thou Living Sea"
  • "To My Father"
  • "The Voice of the Ocean"
  • "Shoon of the Dead" (appears in The House on the Borderland
    The House on the Borderland
    The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson.-Plot introduction:In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. Whilst there, they discover in the ruins of a very...

    )
  • "Who Make Their Bed in Deep Waters"

Poetry collections

  • The Calling of the Sea (published posthumously by Hodgson's widow in 1920)
  • The Voice of the Ocean (published posthumously by Hodgson's widow in 1921)
  • Poems of the Sea (published in 1977 and collecting the poems from the two previously published collections)
  • The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson (published in 2005, edited by Jane Frank, including 43 previously unpublished poems)

Recent publications of Hodgson's work

  • Out of the Storm: Uncollected Fantasies
    Out of the Storm
    Out of the Storm is a collection of fantasy short stories by William Hope Hodgson. It was first published in 1975 by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc...

    (1975) (Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...

    , ed.) The 1975 hardcover edition contains an introductory 100-page essay by Moskowitz about Hodgson's life and work; the paperback reissue lacks the essay.
  • The Haunted "Pampero" (1992) (Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...

    , ed.)
  • Terrors of the Sea (Unpublished and Uncollected Fantasies) (1996) (Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz
    Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...

    , ed.)
  • The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and Other Nautical Adventures: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 1 (2004) ISBN 1-892389-39-8
  • The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 2 (2004) ISBN 1-892389-40-1
  • The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 3 (2005) ISBN 1-892389-41-X
  • The Night Land and Other Romances: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 4 (2005) ISBN 1-892389-42-8
  • The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson Volume 5 (2009) ISBN 1-892389-43-6
  • Adrift on The Haunted Seas: The Best Short Stories of William Hope Hodgson (2005) (Douglas A. Anderson
    Douglas A. Anderson
    Douglas Allen Anderson is an author and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R...

    , ed.)
  • The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson (published in 2005, edited by Jane Frank, including 43 previously unpublished poems)
  • The Wandering Soul: Glimpses of a Life: A Compendium of Rare and Unpublished Works (2005), edited by Jane Frank. This volume contains photographs, articles, and essays by and about Hodgson, including an essay on bodybuilding
    Bodybuilding
    Bodybuilding is a form of body modification involving intensive muscle hypertrophy. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. In competitive and professional bodybuilding, bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their...

    , one of his sailing logs, and his obituary.

External links


See also

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