Hodgson, William Hope

   (1877–1918)

   Weird novelist and short story writer who died in Belgium during World War I. He wrote four novels — The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” (1907), The House on the Borderland (1908), The Ghost Pirates (1909), and The Night Land (1912) — all written around 1902–5, probably published in reverse order (see Gafford). There is also a story collection, Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder(1913), imitating Blackwood’s “psychic detective,” John Silence. HPL read Hodgson in 1934 at the urging of bibliophile Herman C. Koenig, who was circulating his Hodgson volumes among HPL’s circle. HPL wrote an enthusiastic article, “The Weird Work of William Hope Hodgson” ( Phantagraph,February 1937), and added a section on him for a putative revised version of “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (this revised version was not published until its appearance in O). The cosmic terror of The House on the Borderlandand The Night Landmay have influenced “The Shadow out of Time.” Much of Hodgson’s work was collected and published posthumously. HPL’s enthusiasm for Hodgson’s work no doubt influenced August Derleth’s decision to republish much of it through Arkham House.

   See Sam Moskowitz, “William Hope Hodgson,” in Hodgson’s Out of the Storm (1975); William Hope Hodgson: Voyages and Visions, ed. Ian Bell (1987); Sam Gafford, “Writing Backwards: The Novels of William Hope Hodgson,” Studies in Weird FictionNo. 11 (Spring 1992): 12–15.