The House on the Borderland (Heathen Edition)
William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author best known for The Night Land (1912) and, this, his second novel, The House on the Borderland. Noted by H. P. Lovecraft as "a classic of the first water," it is considered a literary milestone that signaled a radical departure from the typical Gothic fiction of the late 19th century, ushering in a newer more realistic and scientific cosmic horror that left a marked impression on those who would become the great writers of weird tales of the mid-twentieth century.
The story within the story is a hallucinatory account of an old recluse and his very strange house in which he experiences attacks by supernatural swine-beasts, travels to otherworldly dimensions, and bears witness to the destruction of the solar system -- "it is galactic adventure, prophetic fantasy, macabre romance, and drugless trip, and brilliantly unites its many disturbing elements, easily equalling, if not surpassing, all predecessors and contemporaries."
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"This extraordinary novel defies categorization. It is galactic adventure, prophetic fantasy, macabre romance and drugless trip, and brilliantly unites its many disturbing elements, easily equaling, if not surpassing, all predecessors and contemporaries (including Jules Verne, Rider Haggard, and H.G. Wells). It is high time Hodgson's masterpiece was made available to the myriad readers he deserves." --Alexis Lykiard
"Hodgson hands us the whole of Time and Space in a couple chapters. The Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction/fantasy reader and, later, writer . . . this is where the screaming really starts, out in the void, with no-one left to hear." --Terry Pratchett
"Perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson's works . . . the wanderings of the narrator's spirit through limitless light-years of cosmic space and Kalpas of eternity, and its witnessing of the solar system's final destruction constitute something almost unique in standard literature. A classic of the first water." --H.P. Lovecraft
"Will produce genuine gooseflesh!" --The New York Times
"The tale is quite indescribable; its power is proved by the fascination with which it holds the fancy spellbound." --Daily Telegraph
"An imaginative tour de force whose power transcends its patchwork construction; the cosmic vision sequence makes it equally interesting as a scientific romance, but it definitely strikes what its admirer H. P. Lovecraft sought to define as 'the true note of cosmic horror.'" --Neil Barron
"Hodgson's imagination opens up endless vistas of time and space and rushes down them, headlong, leaving the reader breathless in his wake. The House on the Borderland, with its dizzying leaps through outer and inner space, remains a unique vision. It is good to see Hodgson's work once more receiving the attention it deserves." --Fantasy: The 100 Best Books
