THE NIGHT LAND was unquestionably his magnum opus, a massively ambitious 500-plus page epic exploring a theme that was previously breached in THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND: the Earth in its final days, overtaken by a host of otherworldly monsters. His novels include the metaphysical time travel pastiche THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND (1908) and the nautical themed chillers THE BOATS OF THE GLEN CARRIG (1907) and THE GHOST PIRATES (1909), in addition to quite a few similarly minded short stories. William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was a seaman and soldier in addition to one of the world’s most gifted writers of horrific fantasy. …both the greatest and most problematic work of its brilliant author.

None was more intriguing to these eyes than William Hope Hodgson’s THE NIGHT LAND, a 1912 novel that Lovecraft praised as “one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written…there is a sense of cosmic alienage, breathless mystery, and terrified expectancy that is unrivalled in the whole range of literature.” Yet Lovecraft also ascribed a number of shortcomings to the text, including “painful verboseness, repetitiousness (and) artificial and nauseously sticky romantic sentimentality.” Having familiarized myself with THE NIGHT LAND, I can state with certainty that both verdicts are accurate: the novel is indeed a masterpiece, yet it’s also irredeemably flawed, being both the greatest and most problematic work of its brilliant author. Lovecraft’s SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE (1927) came as quite a revelation, with its tantalizing descriptions of countless intriguing-sounding novels and stories with which I was unfamiliar. Years ago, as a beginner to genre fiction, H.P.

The night land book