The House on the Borderland (light wear) – William Hope Hodgson
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson, intro by Ann VanderMeer / From the British Library’s “Tales of the Weird” series / ISBN 9780712354646 / 204-page paperback / light wear from inbound shipping
***
I had been staying just within the shadow of the exit of the great rift. Now, without volition on my part, I drifted out of the semi-darkness and began to move slowly―toward the House.
Amidst the din of roaring water, in a chasm where a house once stood in an isolated corner of Ireland, a manuscript is discovered entitled The House on the Borderland. Penned by the enigmatic Recluse, it tells of a revelatory descent into the uncanny. For the Recluse seems to have discovered another land and in it another House; a jade-green double of his own in a realm rife with beasts and cosmic beings without name, encroaching on the bounds of reality itself.
With a new introduction by Ann VanderMeer exploring why Hodgson’s tale is the ‘perfect embodiment of a weird novel’, this edition of the 1908 cult classic still thrums with the visionary energy which influenced countless writers including H. P. Lovecraft and Terry Pratchett.
William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was a key figure in British weird fiction, renowned for tales of horror and adventure at sea as well as his post-apocalyptic fantasy novel The Night Land. Following his death near Ypres during World War I, his stories continued to be published posthumously throughout the 20th century.
