William Hope Hodgson - Most Famous Works

Most Famous Works

Hodgson is most widely known for two works. The House on the Borderland is a novel of which H. P. Lovecraft wrote "but for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality would be a classic of the first water". The Night Land is a much longer novel, written in an archaic style and expressing a sombre vision of a sunless far-future world. These works both contain elements of science fiction, although they also partake of horror and the occult. According to critical consensus, in these works, despite his often laboured and clumsy language, Hodgson achieves a deep power of expression, which focuses on a sense not only of terror but of the ubiquity of potential terror, of the thinness of the invisible boundary between the world of normality and an underlying, unaccountable reality for which humans are not suited.

The Ghost Pirates has less of a reputation than The House on the Borderland, but is an effective seafaring horror story of a ship attacked and ultimately dragged down to its doom by supernatural creatures. The book purports to be the spoken testimony of the sole survivor, and the style lacks the pseudo-archaism which makes The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and The Night Land tedious reading for many.

Hodgson is also known for his short stories featuring recurring characters: the "detective of the occult" Thomas Carnacki, and the smuggler Captain Gault. The Carnacki story "The Whistling Room" has been reprinted in numerous anthologies, including collections introduced by Alfred Hitchcock. Hodgson's single most famous short story is probably "The Voice in the Night", which has been adapted for film twice. Another story regarded highly by critics is "The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder".

It is claimed that Hodgson was an influence on H.P. Lovecraft. In a 2009 essay, China Miéville traces the origin of "the tentacle" as an object of horror to Hodgson's The Boats of the "Glen Carrig".