William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918)

Soldier, Sailor, Author, Bodybuilder, Photographer

Born November 15, 1877, Blackmore End, Essex, England

Died April 19, 1918, On the Battlefield at Ypres, Flanders, Belgium

In observance of Memorial Day, here is a posting on one of the great early writers of science-fantasy, William Hope Hodgson, who was killed on the battlefield during World War I. Much has been written on his life and work. H.P. Lovecraft himself knew of Hodgson and commented on his works in Lovecraft's own "Supernatural Horror in Literature." You can read an excerpt on an interesting website devoted to Hodgson called "The Night Land," here.

Hodgson died before Weird Tales came into existence, but the magazine printed one of his stories, "The Hog," in its January 1947 issue. "The Hog" is the longest in a series of stories featuring Hodgson's supernatural detective, Carnacki the Ghost Finder. Perhaps because of its length, it was not printed as the others were in the British magazines The Idler and The New Magazine between 1910 and 1912. Hodgson's powers and limitations as a writer are on full display in the Carnacki stories. He had a great imagination--an imagination ahead of its time really--and was capable of describing dreadful wonders. On the other hand, his stories and novels are often overlong, repetitive, mawkish, and formulaic. Hodgson's needless framing devices alone are enough to drive you crazy. In any other writer these flaws might prove fatal. Hodgson, though, is always worth reading because when he is good, he is unmatched.

William Hope Hodgson's Stories in Weird Tales

"The Hog" (Jan. 1947)

"A Tropical Horror" (Summer 1973)

"Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani" (Fall 1973)

"The Terror of the Water Tank" (Winter 1973)

"The Finding of the Graiken" (Summer 1974)

Further Reading

William Hope Hodgson's work has been reprinted repeatedly during the last century. If you can find Ballantine's paperback reprints from the early 1970s, that might be a good place to start. In any case, his works include the following (with selected paperback reprints that might be easier on your wallet should you decide to add them to your library):

• The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907; Ballantine, 1971)
• The House on the Borderland (1908; Ace, 1962)
• The Ghost Pirates (1909; Hyperion, 1976)
• The Night Land (1912; Ballantine, 1972)
• Carnacki the Ghost-Finder (1913; Panther, 1973)

And many, many short stories. In addition, Sam Moskowitz was a particular fan of Hodgson and published one of his stories in each of Moskowitz's four issues of the revived Weird Tales in the early 1970s. Moskowitz also wrote and published a three-part critical, biographical, and bibliographical study of Hodgson in the Summer 1973 issue through the Winter 1973 issue, the first of its kind.

Some websites:
The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks
http://www.amalgamatedspooks.com/index.html

Alan Gullette
http://alangullette.com/lit/hodgson/

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918), one of the casualties in the unspeakable slaughter and waste that was the First World War. 

It's hard to beat Ace for great science fiction and fantasy covers. Here is the cover of Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland, done by the indispensable Ed Emshwiller.

Finally, the cover of Carnacki the Ghost-Finder in a British edition from Panther (1973). The illustration is for "The Hog," the longest story in the book and the only one to be reprinted in Weird Tales. The cover artist is Bob Haberfield.

Hodgson's long short story "The Hog" was the cover story of the January 1947 issue of Weird Tales magazine. "The Hog" is not my favorite Carnacki story--I think it's overlong and a little repetitive--but I can't complain as long as his work gets out there into the world. The cover artist was Albert Roanoke Tilburne (1887-1965) who also served during World War I. In Tilburne's case, it was with the U.S. Naval Reserve Force, the same branch in which Jacob Clark Henneberger served in the last year of the war.

Revised slightly on October 20, 2019.
Recognition should go to Randal A. Everts for his yeoman's work in discovering the proper death date of William Hope Hodgson.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley