A Look at William Hope Hodgson by Bill Ward The English writer William Hope Hodgson (15 November 1877 – 19 April 1918) is an author whose influence on those that came after him greatly exceeds his current renown among readers. This despite being hailed as one of the originators of Cosmic Horror, the sub-genre of horror fiction most readily associated with H.P. Lovecraft, and The Dying Earth tradition of science fantasy as later typified by Jack Vance, as well as producing two acknowledged classics of Weird Fiction, The Night Land and The House on the Borderland. Perhaps this is due in part to Hodgson’s frequent use of antiquarian or complex style. Unlike his almost exact contemporary, Jack London (1876-1916), the American author whose brisk, muscular prose ensured that generations of children and adults alike would read with pleasure works such as The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf, Hodgson’s own language was much closer to the 19th century tradition of English letters. But this style also made it much more suited to Hodgson’s subject matter of supernatural horror, ghost stories, and wild visionary flights of dark imagination. Comparison with London isn’t purely due to a coincidence of lifespan, but because the two writers had similar, eclectic backgrounds. Both fled home at an early age for life on the sea, and both had a roving, restless spirit that saw them experiment in various occupational ventures until finally settling on writing. Indeed, it was Hodgson’s early essays on bodybuilding and physical culture – he was, among other things, what might be termed today as a personal trainer – that lead him to fiction. Much of Hodgson’s early stories drew on his experiences as a sailor, always a popular theme in the adventure magazines of the day. He wrote numerous short stories along these lines but, in his first published novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig, he arrived at a fantastic fusion of nautical adventure and otherworldly horror. Describing the increasingly fraught struggle for survival on an uncharted island by the remnant crew of a lost ship, Glen Carrig masterfully escalates the tension as mysteries and oddities abound in the form of mutated sea-life, ghost ships, and yet stranger things beside. The same unfolding weirdness and uniquely imagined horror characterizes The House on the Borderland, perhaps Hodgson’s most famous book. Ostensibly...