William Hope Hodgson, godfather to cosmic horror and ghost detectives alike, had two books reprinted in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, The Boats of the Glen Carrig and The Night Land. The Night Land was published in two volumes because of its length — more controversially it received heavy editing from series editor Lin Carter to render Hodgson’s deliberately difficult prose more accessible.
Both covers from Robert LoGrippo are stylized surrealist nightmares halfway between Hieronymus Bosch and Terry Gilliam. The wraparound cover for The Night Land was reversed and used again for the second volume; the ‘flipped’ obverse image of volume one becoming the cover of volume two.
Given Carter’s esteem for Hodgson, no doubt we would have gotten a BAF edition of The House on the Borderland and perhaps a Carnaki collection had the series continued its impressive run.
