Hodgson Panels at NecronomiCON this August!

I’m pleased to announce that I will be on TWO panels of interest to Hodgson fans at this August’s NecronomiCON in Providence, RI!

They are:

WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: LOVECRAFT’S ‘COSMIC’ PREDECESSOR

A discussion about Hodgson’s life and work. I’ll be talking about WHH along with other weird fiction scholars.

and:

OCCULT DETECTIVES

A review of this unique genre covering many of the classic characters as well as new ones. I’ll be representing WHH’s Carnacki at this one.

NecronomiCON is a convention devoted to the work of H.P. Lovecraft as well as weird fiction in general.  I encourage all to attend and especially to come to these two Hodgson panels! For more information, visit:
http://necronomicon-providence.com/welcome/

 

New Lovecraft Letter Surfaces!

The Lovecraft world is all abuzz with news that a previously unknown, 5,000 word letter from H.P. Lovecraft has been discovered. The letter (dated February 2, 1924) was from Lovecraft to then editor of WEIRD TALES, J. C. Henneberger. The letter was discovered by accident by James Machin at the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the University of Texas at Austin. The HRC is home to many different collections of various materials and is, in fact, where I discovered Hodgson’s letters to Coulson Kernahan many years ago.

This letter is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Lovecraft providing brief synopses of his novels, “Azathoth” and “The House of the Worm”, which were apparently never written or lost. I encourage everyone to go over to the site that explains the find and provides scans of the typewritten letter. It’s at:
http://blog.hrc.utexas.edu/2015/01/27/fellows-find-h-p-lovecraft-letter/

This is one of the most significant finds in Lovecraft letters in many years but, I hear you ask, “what does this have to do with Hodgson?”

Unfortunately, Lovecraft does not mention Hodgson by name  in the letter and, being written in 1924, this was still years before Lovecraft would even become aware of Hodgson. However, Lovecraft does mention the story “Fungus Island” by Phillip Fisher. Longtime readers of this blog will remember that I discussed Fisher’s story and it’s strong similarity to WHH’s “Voice in the Night” almost two years ago. (You can find the blog post where I talk about Fisher and the story itself here: https://williamhopehodgson.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/fungus-isle-by-phillip-fisher/.)

In the letter, Lovecraft has this to say about Fisher’s story:

 

Another man with promise is Phillip M. Fisher, Jr., who had a fine thing in a recent ALL-STORY, spoiled only by a tame ending obviously designed to suit the gentle Bob Davis. Told to let the human race go to hell, Fisher could accomplish wonders. His tale was called “Fungus Island”.

Given that Fisher’s story (mistakenly recalled by Lovecraft as “Fungus Island” rather than “Fungus Isle“) is so similar to Hodgson’s tale, it would seem reasonable to conclude that Lovecraft would have also enjoyed “Voice in the Night”. However, we have no evidence that HPL ever read this story by Hodgson or, indeed, any of Hodgson’s short stories other than the Carnacki series. Still, there may be a missing letter out there that might come to light someday and prove this theory.

 

 

 

The Life of William Hope Hodgson–Part 6

Here is the 6th part of our reprinting of R. Alain Everts’ biographical article about William Hope Hodgson.  In this section, Everts talks about WHH’s continuing attempts to become a successful author and his eventual disappointments.

We now commonly accept that the bulk of WHH’s best fiction was written early in his writing career.  We see here that the reason he did not continue in this vein was because of the poor sales of his work.  Who knows what works of imagination were lost because of an unappreciative public?

(I have not, as yet, been able to identify the source of the quote from Arthur Waugh.  Anyone have any clues?)

A nice profile shot of WHH in uniform. Likely around 1916 or so.

SOME FACTS IN THE CASE OF WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: MASTER OF PHANTASY

by R. Alain Everts

LITERARY CAREER, Part One

In late 1910, Hope decided that he would be able to make a better success of himself in the writing field if he were domiciled in London—and so he moved to London where he could be in the proximity of publishers, and where he could involve himself in the literary and cultural atmosphere of that great city.  In December, 1911, Lissie and her mother left Glaneifion and moved into a house, on the north-eastern outskirts of Borth, renamed Lisswood in honor of LIssie, where the would remain until Mrs. Hodgson’s death.

Hope’s first book was published in October, 1907, after it had been rejected many times.  Shortly after its appearance, Hope traveled to Town, and dropped in on his publisher at Chapman & Hall, Mr. Arthur Waugh, who recalled more than two decades later:

“That eccentric but highly imaginative young novelist, W. Hope Hodgson, author of an eerie story called The Boats of the “Glen Carrig”.  It is good stuff, but it was not selling as it deserved, and Hope Hodgson plunged into the office all afire with a tremendous idea for publicity.  A huge boat was to be constructed, with cutter sails and rigging, the mainsail to bear the name of the book, and the entire craft to be mounted on a lorry and driven along the Strand, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and all thoroughfares where idle shoppers most do congregate.  On the lorry were to be about a dozen men dressed as sailors, selling The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” to the crowd as they passed. When it was objected that the firm would most certain be indicted for obstructing traffic, Hope Hodgson banged out into the street again, swearing picturesquely.  He never really forgave the firm its lack of enterprise, but the interval of his transit was lively and amusing.”

Such was the attitude, energy, enthusiasm and the confidence of W. Hope Hodgson—confidence that his work would sell well if sold properly.  Hope was so disappointed with Chapman & Hall’s lack of initiative that although The House on the Borderland was published by them in the following year, the dissatisfied Hope went in search of another publisher.  It was at Stanley Paul & Co., that he encountered a thoughtful and considerate publisher—Arthur St. John Adcock (1864-1930).

Hope had already been in touch with St. John Adcock, editor of the literary review The Bookman in which many of the favorable reviews of Hope’s writings first appeared.  Hope first met him shortly after April 1909, when the following letter appeared at the office of The Bookman, published by Stanley Paul & Co.:

Dear Sir

I don’t know whether you remember a certain “muscular” individual who figured lately in your portrait gallery?  Anyway he’s at the other end of these keys, and would be immensely obliged, if you would let him run up to have five minutes talk with you.

Five minutes: not a second longer.

You needn’t be afraid that I’ll either bore or keep you.  I’d be more likely to kill, than do either.

Believe me dear Sir, Yours very

Faithfully,

William Hope Hodgson

This letter began a long friendship between the two men, and some years after Hope’s untimely death, in 1920, St. John Adcock recalled this first meeting:

I first met Hope Hodgson about eleven years ago.  At that date his three best novels had been written; two of them The Boats of the “Glen Carrig”  and The House on the Borderland had been published, and the third, The Ghost Pirates, was in the press.  In those three stories he showed himself a writer of quite exceptional imaginative gifts, a master of the weird, the eerie, the terrible, whose strange and grim imaginings were not unworthy of comparison with the bizarre creations of Poe.  He had already given himself so entirely and enthusiastically to a literary career that the talk of our first meeting was wholly of books and of his hopes as an author.  He aimed high, and was taking his art very seriously, had a frank, unaffected confidence in his powers, which was party the splendid arrogance of youth and partly the heritage of experience, for he had tested and proved them.

There was something curiously attractive in his breezy, forceful, eager personality; his dark eyes were wonderfully alert and alive; he was wonderfully and restlessly alive and alert in all his mind and body.  He was emphatic and unrestrained in his talk, but would take the sting out of an extravagant denunciation of some inartistic popular author, or of some pestilent critic, and the egotism out of some headlong confession of his own belief in himself with the pleasant boyish laugh that brushed it all aside as the mere spray and froth of a passing thought.  His dark, handsome features were extraordinarily expressive; they betrayed his emotions as readily as his lips gave away whatever happened to rise in his mind.  Always he had the courage of his opinions and no false modesty; it never seemed to occur to him to practice political subterfuges; and it was this absolute candor and naturalness that compelled you to like him and before long strengthened your liking into a friendly affection.

Apparently they talked of other matters, for Hodgson was given job reviews—book to review for The Bookman.  On 19, October 1909, he writes to St. John Adcocke that he is enclosing the review to Kipling’s “Actions and Reactions”, with a review of “How to Study the Stars” to follow in time for the 30 October.  Hope also requested to have “The Unseen Thing” by Anthony Dallington—obviously a horror book—so that he can review it.  Without doubt this reviewing continued successfully for some time, and without a doubt the literary lure of London, plus the dispersing of the Hodgson family, convinced Hope that he could do well on his own in London.  Hope continued to sell his mss from Borth, but about mid-1911, he moved to London, mixing in the numerous literary get-togethers and events, meeting such authors as Frank Swinnerton and George Bernard Shaw, and of course pushing his short stories with numerous magazine offices.  Hope had his Carnacki, The Ghost Finder and a poem appear in London and New York in 1910—comprising apparently of the one tale and one poem—(editor’s [Everts] note, abridged version of four of the tales and the poem “Lost”)—it was later to be reprinted as a collection of six stories (Eveleigh Nash, 1913).  He had also arranged to have Eveleigh Nash accept his prodigious The Night Land, which finally came out in August, 1912.  By now, Hope’s fortunes, financially and literary, were picking up, and he contemplated marriage—not to the young debutantes that he knew—but to an old home-town girl, Bessie Gertrude Farnworth.

This period also was to end Hope’s serious writings in the genre of the horror and phantasy tale (1910-1912)—The Night Land, the third part of what Hope referred to as his first trilogy (The House on the Borderland; The Ghost Pirates; The Night Land), and the part he considered to be his magnum opus.  He was terribly disappointed when it did not sell well, and so for the remainder of his life he turned to short stories only—never to return to the novel format.  And, notably he rarely returned to phantasy or horror after the failure of The Night Land, employing a new type of story as he described it, allowing him to present new ideas—could this be a reference to his almost, from then on, simple sea stories??  If so, how sad—but unfortunately, these pot-boilers brought him a steady income.  His disappointment extended not only to the reading public for failure to admire and appreciate the masterpiece he had written, but also to his own family.  None of the Hodgsons were able to understand any of Hope’s writings completely—the girls were scared to death by most of his horror tales—while the Farnworth family was just as bad.

From then on, Hope stuck for the most part to light sea stories—which guaranteed an income instantly as opposed to the profits on slow selling novels (he claimed in 1915 that neither Carnacki or The Night Land brought him “one farthing”)—trite for the most part, and boring little bits of fluff.  His subsequent books were the reprint Carnacki, The Ghost Finder (Eveleigh Nash, 1913) and a cheaper reprint the following year: Men of the Deep Waters, also from Eveleigh Nash, coming out in September, 1914, and made up primarily of sea stories (with some horror) written mostly prior to 1910; The Luck of the Strong, a collection similar to Men, put out by Nash in 1916; and a final collection of stories—Captain Gault (Eveleigh Nash, 1917)—all tales therein having been written during Hope’s sojourns to France.  A posthumous collection of poems came out in March 1920—The Calling of the Sea—many early poems were included—and this proved of such interest that a second volume was put out in November 1921—The Voice of the Ocean—both from Selwyn & Blount of London.

ATTENTION ALL SCHOLARS!!!!

For some time now, I’ve wondered if there might be little caches of Hodgson letters squirreled about in various libraries and universities and the like.  So, I am issuing the call to all those readers of this blog to help me find them!

Seriously, the cause of Hodgson research and criticism has long suffered from a lack of primary sources such as letters and the such.  We need to find out if there are any out there which are available for scholars and historians to use.  This is a project that will benefit everyone looking to do research on/about Hodgson and those who want to read it!  And we’re not just looking for letters that Hodgson may have written but those by his family, friends, etc.

Please use all your resources.  Check everywhere you can!  Post your findings here in the comments section.  I will take all of them (hopefully, there will be some) and create a new page here on the blog listing these resources and those scholars who brought it to my attention.

The only collection I am aware of is the letters that form part of a collection at the Harry Ransom center at the University of Texas at Austin.  Anything else is fair game.

So, as Carnacki would say at the end of a story, “out you go!”

Where next?

The study of the life and work of William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) has been making great strides lately.  I’d like to think that this blog might be one of the reasons for this increased interest.  Whatever the cause, Hodgson is getting some more attention and this will only increase later this year with the publication of the first issue of SARGASSO: JOURNAL OF WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON studies.  We have already received several important contributions discussing WHH’s poetry, characters and even the legendary ‘writing log’ WHH kept.  As we move forward, I think it’s important to identify and illuminate some of the areas that need more attention.

1. Biography

We still know very little about Hodgson the man.  We can state that WHH was in certain places at certain times and did certain things but we know little about who he was or what he thought.  As I’ve said before, we have very little of his personal letters to study.  Reminiscences of WHH are also in short supply.  We can theorize and guess the type of fellow he was and his thoughts and ideas but, in the end, these are just educated guesses.  More than anything, I would love to see more researchers trying to piece together this puzzle.  I send out a call for researchers and archivists to search out more biographical information.  Perhaps a worldwide search (of libraries, universities, collections) will yield more letters and memos.  I would happily self-publish a volume of Hodgson’s letters IF I had enough to publish!

2. Hodgson’s other characters

Everyone knows Carnacki but Hodgson’s other characters such as Captain Gault, Captain Jat and others have been virtually ignored.  Thanks to Mark Valentine, the first issue of SARGASSO will include an article on Captain Gault which will hopefully open up this field.  I truly feel that, in order to understand a writer, we have to consider their entire output and not just those things we like and enjoy.

3.  Hodgson’s poetry

Hodgson considered poetry a major part of his life and yet the study of this has been severely limited.  Again, the first issue of SARGASSO will contain a major study of WHH’s poetry by Phillip Ellis but this is a framework upon which much more work needs to be done.  To correctly criticize poetry, to me, requires as poetic a soul as the poet themselves.

4. Hodgson’s influence

One of the ways to prove the value of a writer is to examine how they have influenced others who have come after them.  Virtually no work has been done in this area.  Surely there is much to be said?

These are merely a few areas that I believe we need to focus on as we strive to bring Hodgson to both a wider audience and a deeper critical appreciation.  This blog is meant to be an area for the sharing of such information and work.  Please take advantage of it and help us advance the cause of Hodgsonian Studies!

Call for Help!

Recently, I came across this listing for a London magazine:

Picture Politics, A Penny Popular Monthly [No. 104, June-July 1902] ed. F. Carruthers Gould (The Westminster Gazette and Budget; London, 1d, 16pp, 9½” x 13″)

[fiction and poetry only have been listed] [JE]
• 2 · “Peace”: June 1, 1902 · Arabella Romilly · pm
• 8 · A Way They Have in the Navy · W. H. H. · pm; [by William Hope Hodgson ??????]
• 11 · The Political Jungle-Book: III. Hugheera’s Hunting · Saki · vi
• 13 · The New Gregorian Chant · W. H. H. · pm; [by William Hope Hodgson ??????]
• 15 · May 24 · S. C. S. · pm
• 15 · The West Indian Disaster · L. A. C. · pm
• 15 · A Song of Peace · E. C. · pm

As you can see, it lists two poems possibly being by WHH.  Does anyone know anything about this or have a way to track down a copy of this magazine?  Any help is deeply appreciated.–Sam Gafford

100!!!!!!

This marks the 100th posting on the William Hope Hodgson Blog!

Back when I started this blog, several people questioned if there would be enough material to keep it going.  It wasn’t an entirely unjustified question.  After all, Hodgson doesn’t have as much devoted to him as, say, Lovecraft does.  But I felt that, whatever material I did have was important enough to present.

Hodgson is kind of the underdog in weird literature.  Doesn’t get a lot of press.  Guillermo del Toro isn’t lining up to direct a move based on THE NIGHT LAND.  There isn’t a convention devoted to Hodgson taking place in Blackburn.  There aren’t even any comic books doing “Hodgsonian” tales.

When I was a small press publisher back in the 1990s, I had a table at a local convention/show where I was selling my Hodgson reprints as well as a couple of Machen books and others.  The convention’s GOH was Neil Gaiman who was kind enough to stop by the table and talk a bit.  We chatted about Machen for a few minutes and gave him complimentary copies of my Machen books but, when I tried to interest him in the Hodgson, he wasn’t biting.  He just wasn’t all that keen on WHH…even when I was trying to give him FREE copies.  I’ve gotten that reaction a lot.

I guess that kind of stuck with me over the years as an example of Hodgson being the “Rodney Dangerfield” of weird fiction.  “He don’t get no respect!”

Through the years, that has always been one of the driving forces behind my efforts.  I want Hodgson to get more respect both from the readers and the literary circles.  WHH will never reach the stature of a Poe or Lovecraft (nor would even I say he deserves to be elevated so far) but there is much in WHH to enjoy and study.

This staged photo of WHH at a ship’s wheel was used in his lectures about life at sea.

That was one of the reasons why I started this blog because there was no place on the internet to get a lot of this information.  You might get a bit here and there but it wasn’t centralized.  I wanted there to be a place where everyone could come to get old and new material and find out what’s going on in the world of Hodgson.

I hope that I have succeeded in that endeavor.

As we enter 2013, there are already new things in store for Hodgson and his fans.  Some new books are scheduled to come out and WHH is finally getting some of that critical attention that has been denied him for so long.

Hopefully, this year will see the publication of a new collection of Hodgson criticism and studies edited by Massimo Berruti and published by Hippocampus Press called VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND.  It is an anthology of some old pieces and a lot of new ones as well.  I am happy to say that I will be represented in this volume by several articles and am honored to be included.

One of the most important items in VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND will hopefully be the long-awaited Hodgson Bibliography which S. T. Joshi, Mike Ashley and I have been working on for well over 10 years now.  It is already over 100 pages long and covers international appearances as well as English.  It has been an invaluable resource in my own work and I look forward to sharing it with others.

A early photo of WHH. I am not sure of the year but probably roughly around 1903 or so.

Already this year we have seen a new paperback of Hodgson stories from Night Shade Books called THE GHOST PIRATES AND OTHERS edited by Jeremy Lassen.  This has marked the first appearance by WHH in an inexpensive, mass produced paperback in several years.  Hodgson also was mentioned in S.T. Joshi’s two volume history of weird literature; UNUTTERABLE HORROR.

Later this year, Centipede Press will be releasing a collection of Hodgson stories compiled by S. T. Joshi.  I do not know the full contents of this book yet but I do know that it will contain the text of the original edition of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND.  Unfortunately, given the tendency of Centipede Press to produce expensive items, I fear it will not be cheap but I am sure that it will be a very attractively produced book.

In addition, 2013 will see the first issue of SARGASSO: The Journal of William Hope Hodgson Studies.  This will be a yearly publication highlighting new articles about Hodgson as well as Hodgson inspired art and stories.  I’ve already gotten a number of submissions and am expecting new articles by some of the biggest names in Hodgson criticism.

Another project which I’m putting together is a special, 100th anniversary edition of CARNACKI.  This will be a deluxe edition, reprinting the original texts along with annotations.  With luck, I hope to have it available by November.  Going along with that, I would like to announce a collection of all-new Carnacki tales!  I’m opening this up to submissions today, with this post, in the hopes that everyone will spread the word!  I am looking for new tales of Carnacki in the Hodgson tradition so I encourage all of our writers out there to submit a story.  Details are still being negotiated so keep watching the blog for more announcements.

Already I am looking forward to the future.  Within the last 20 years, Hodgson has made great strides in critical and reader popularity.  Virtually all of his major fiction is now available either through e-books, print-on-demand or free online sites.  The next steps are to increase availability of his poetry and non-fiction so that, for new readers, everything is available.  This is a major difference from just a few years ago when it was difficult to easily find even Hodgson’s novels.  Today, we can state that Hodgson is better known and read than ever before.

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918)

And there is still so much more to learn!  Genealogy research has barely been touched and there is a great need for more study about Hodgson’s own life, opinions and beliefs.  Plus Hodgson has suffered from one major disadvantage: there has yet to be a full, book-length critical study of his works.  I hope to change this in the future.

It’s been a great 100 posts and I hope everyone will still around for the next 100!!

(I’d like to thank everyone who has helped with this blog over the last 100 posts.  I could not have done it without your overwhelming support and I humbly thank you all.  Whether you have contributed materials, shared knowledge, spread the word or just read the blog regularly, you are why I keep going and posting week after week.  I may be the person behind the blog but it is really for all of you.)

A Guide to Hodgson Criticism

Sometimes I am asked what is the ‘best’ scholarly work on Hodgson to read?  Usually this comes from people who have read Hodgson’s writings and want to learn more about the man and his work.  Happily (or unhappily), unlike Lovecraft, there has not been so much work done on Hodgson as to be overwhelming.  Indeed, there is much yet to be done but, like everything, there is a beginning.  This list contains comments regarding the items which are purely my own opinion.

We must first divide this list into two parts: Biographical and Critical.  Although some contain elements of both, most fall firmly into one camp or the other.

Biographical

There have been several significant biographical pieces on Hodgson.  It is due to them that we have what little information that we do today.

The earliest came from R. Alain Everts 1974’s, William Hope Hodgson: THE NIGHT PIRATE, Volume 2 .  This was the result of much individual research by Everts and interviews with Hodgson’s then surviving siblings.

Sam Moskowitz provided the longest and most detailed analysis with his essay which first appeared in three issues of Weird Tales in 1973 when he was that magazine’s editor.  These installments were combined into one article which served as the introduction to the important collection, Out of the Storm (Grant, 1975).

Both Everts and Moskowitz deserve reading.  However, they often disagree on various points.  Moskowitz, for example, claims that WHH had a good relationship with his parents while Everts refutes this.  Because much of this information is apocryphal, it cannot be independently verified at this point.  My belief is that much of the information both scholars quoted was gained from interviews they conducted with WHH family.  As such, we must adjust for faulty memories or the more typical tendency to ‘revise’ history to make it appear more palpable.  Read with an open mind.

Moskowitz would go on to pen two more forewords to the other two WHH collections from Grant that he edited.  Much useful information is contained in both.  In The Haunted Pampero (1991), Moskowitz describes the efforts of Hodgson’s widow to keep his work alive until her death in 1943.  In Terrors of the Sea (1996), Moskowitz’s introduction picks up after the death of Hodgson’s widow when the literary estate reverted to Hodgson’s sister, Lissie.  This essay is particularly interesting in that it describes how Lissie often did more harm than good albeit unintentionally as she did not understand publishing and contracts.

The next major biographical step would come with Jane Frank’s The Wandering Soul.  After Moskowitz’s death in 1997, Frank and her husband purchased Moskowitz’s Hodgson collection which Jane Frank used to put together this anthology of WHH’s non-fiction and essays.

In addition to an excellent essay covering Hodgson’s life and career, Frank presents several unpublished WHH items that have significant impact on our knowledge of Hodgson’s life.  These include the lectures “A Sailor and His Camera” and “Ship’s Log”.  Recently, Frank has mentioned that she still has some unpublished items from Moskowitz’s files and is searching for a publisher for them.

Criticism

One of the earliest examples of Hodgson Criticism is H. P. Lovecraft’s essay, “The Weird Work of William Hope Hodgson”.  This was originally published in The Phantagraph in 1937 and then later in H. C. Koenig’s amateur magazine, The Reader and Collector (1944).  This essay was reprinted in full on this blog here.  Lovecraft had taken the portions on Hodgson that he had included in his revised essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, and expanded them in this article.

That issue of The Reader and Collector marked the first time that serious critical attention had been focused on Hodgson.  Through the kind generosity of Koenig’s son-in-law, Gene Biancheri, we have reprinted that issue in it’s entirety on this blog.  The issue included essays by Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Koenig, E. A. Edkins and Ellery Queen.

Arkham House, 1946.

In 1947, Koenig provided the introduction to Arkham House’s edition of House on the Borderland which was the first time many readers had read anything about Hodgson.

For the next several decades, the bulk of Hodgson Criticism would primarily be contained in introductions to various reprints of his work.  Many library encyclopedias and indexes would appear in the 1970s and 80s which would include sections on Hodgson but would be priced beyond the means of most readers.

In 1987, Hodgson enthusiast Ian Bell would self publish William Hope Hodgson: Voyages and Visions which would collect many significant essays on Hodgson.  It was the most significant gathering of scholarly articles on Hodgson since 1944’s Reader and Collector.

Recently, academic scholars have taken up the Hodgson banner.  Writers such as Emily Alder and Kelly Hurley have placed articles in volumes published by Cambridge University Press and others.

I would be remiss if I did not at least mention my own article, Writing Backwards: The Novels of William Hope Hodgson”, which was first published in 1992.  In it, I provided evidence that Hodgson’s novels were published in the reverse order of publication which changes many conceptions about Hodgson and his work.  I reprinted the essay on this blog here.

These are, to my mind, the primary sources that one should read for a basic understanding of Hodgson Criticism.  In an earlier post, I provided a more detailed listing of what was published and when which can be read here.

There is a great deal more work left to be done on Hodgson.  To date, he has not even received a book length analysis of his life and work.  In many ways, the field of Hodgson Criticism is as unexplored as many of the locales in his stories.  This needs to be corrected.–Sam Gafford

The Nonfiction Hodgson

Although William Hope Hodgson is mostly known for his fiction and novels, he wrote a number of non-fiction articles over his lifetime.  According to the latest version of the bibliography (compiled by S.T. Joshi, Mike Ashley and myself with the assistance of several other researchers), 40 different are listed.  They range from physical culture to writings issues to essays about the sea.

In fact, the first piece of writing which Hodgson ever had published was nonfiction.  This was his article, “Dr. Thomas’s Vibration Method versus Sandow’s” which appeared in the August, 1901, issue of Sandow’s Magazine.  This was the beginning of Hodgson’s professional writing career and, although he would sell several articles on physical culture, they all appeared by 1904 (“Chair Exercises” in Penny Pictorial Weekly, June 25, 1904).  It appears that Hodgson wrote nothing more on this subject after this point.

About this time, Hodgson’s attention turned more to ‘authorial’ matters.  He wrote several articles for the Author magazine regarding concerns facing writers.  Hodgson appeared in this magazine several times:

“Regarding Similar Names.” (Author, January 1906)

“Totems for Authors.” (Author, February 1906)

“The Poet v. the Stonemason; or, Why Not a New Market for Poetry?” (Author, March 1906)

“A Review of the Totem Question.” (Author, April 1906)

These are rather odd little articles as they are obsessed with the problems of authors having similar names and proposes the use of different icons (or “Totems”) to differentiate between authors.  The poetry article argues that there is a market for poetry but only as written by genuine poets which is ironic considering Hodgson’s lifelong attempts to publish his own poetry.

Of course, Hodgson wrote several articles about life on the sea and a few of these were transcriptions of lectures he had given.  Of these, the best examples are “Through the Vortex of a Cyclone” (Cornhill Magazine, November 1907), “Ten Months at Sea” and “A Sailor and his Camera”.  The last two were unpublished during Hodgson’s lifetime but were collected in Jane Frank’s The Wandering Soul.  Other notable items are “Is the Mercantile Navy Worth Joining?” (Grand Magazine, September 1905), “The ‘Emergency Door’ of the Sea: ‘Out Boats'” (Westminster Gazette, April 1914), and “The ‘Prentices Mutiny” (Wide World Magazine, 1912).  The second article was likely written in response to the Titanic tragedy which had happened two years earlier while the third is an account of an actual mutiny written in the manner of a short story.

Less easy to classify are such items as “Date 1965: Modern Warfare” (New Age, December 1908), “The Peril of the Mine” (Ideas, April 1910), “The Psychology of Species”, and “Writers of Ghost Stories”.  The last two were unpublished but also included in Frank’s collection.

The last nonfiction pieces to appear during Hodgson’s lifetime are three short pieces obviously written during the early days of the war:

“How the French Soldier Deals with Spies”

“An Old French Woman and Her Chickens”

“A Pen Picture of How Frenchmen Fight”

All three appeared in the October, 1914, issue of Westminster Gazette.  The French aspect is interesting and must relate to the time Hodgson and his wife spent in France between their marriage in 1913 and their return to England in 1914.

Although Hodgson would publish more new fiction between 1914 and his death in 1918, this was the end of his nonfiction input.  Although ranging across several different subjects, the spirit of Hodgson comes across strongest in the Physical Culture and Sea articles.  In these, we see his devotion to the disciple of the body as well as his true feelings about the sea he spent so much time on in his young years.

S. T. Joshi on Hodgson

William Hope Hodgson doesn’t always fare well when it comes to histories of weird literature.  He’s either forgotten about completely or only gets a brief mention if at all.  That’s why it’s so rewarding to see noted critic S. T. Joshi give WHH plenty of attention in his new, two volume history of weird literature; UNUTTERABLE HORROR.

This new history is nothing short of amazing.  Spanning the entirety of weird literature from Gilgamesh to modern day, Joshi provides an awe-inspiring overview of the field.  The amount of work that this book represents is truly mind-boggling.  Not just the sheer number of texts which Joshi had to read in order to be so comprehensive but the ability to analyze and evaluate all of this information is a herculean task.

And, in volume two, Joshi turns his critical eye towards Hodgson.

The eleventh chapter, titled “Novelists, Satirists, and Poets”, begins with a section devoted entirely to Hodgson: “William Hope Hodgson: Things in the Weeds”.  In seven pages, Joshi succinctly recaps the major points of Hodgson’s  writings.  “One of the most distinctive voices in early-twentieth-century supernatural fiction was the British writer William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918), whose promising career was cut short on a battlefield in Belgium toward the end of the Great War.”  (UT, p 445)

Joshi’s attitude towards Hodgson’s short stories is a bit harsh:  “Hodgson appears to have had a relatively small body of distinctive short story ideas, and he often wrote several tales on the same basic premise with only slight variations in tone, setting, and execution.” (UT, p 445)  However, he devotes much space to Hodgson’s Sargasso Sea stories and “The Voice in the Night”.  It is regarding the latter story that Joshi has an interesting theory to expound claiming that it possesses “an element of religious criticism that is rare in Hodgson’s work”.  (UT, p 448)  The unintentional parallel to Lovecraft’s later story, “The Colour Out of Space”, is also noted.

Later, Joshi discusses Hodgson’s use of the sea as a setting:

“That the great proportion of Hodgson’s tales, of whatever type, take place in a maritime setting suggests that Hodgson, himself a former seaman, saw in such a setting a convenient means for effecting that ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ so critical to the success of a supernatural tale.  Because the sea–especially in its more remote stretches, as in the immensities of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean–is a relatively unknown quantity to most readers, and because of the known existence of unusual creatures lurking in the depths of the ocean, a sea setting can be the locus of horrors that, on land, might appear too incredible for belief.  This technique is no different in kind from other weird writers’ use of remote locales, and Hodgson incorporates within his zone of mystery not only the inaccessible reaches of the sea but those hapless islands of humanity–ships–that dare to venture upon it.”  (UT, p 446)

Of Hodgson’s novels, Joshi retains the most praise for The House on the Borderland calling it “Hodgson’s most substantial work” but claiming that is is also “marred by defects”.  The crux of his argument being that the ‘super dimensional’ visions of the narrator as veering off from the main narrative and critizing Hodgson’s use of the manuscript structure as fragmentary and detracting from the novel as a whole.  “Overall, The House on the Borderland succeeds as a series of horrific interludes but not as a unified novel.”  (UT, 451)

Despite his admiration for The Night Land (“…this novel is Hodgson’s most sustained venture into pure imagination”), Joshi concludes that it is not within the scope of this study as it is “fantasy or perhaps even…proto-science fiction” but is “well worth the herculean effort of reading it.”

Summing up, Joshi declares that The Night Land, “as with Hodgson’s [work] as a whole, represents a substantial contribution to the literature of the weird, and no devotee can afford to overlook it.”  (UT, 451)

On a personal level, I know that S. T. Joshi has a great fondness and respect for Hodgson’s work which, dispite some criticisms, comes through in this short essay.  Hopefully, Joshi will write more about Hodgson in the future.

UNUTTERABLE HORROR: A HISTORY OF SUPERNATURAL FICTION is now available in a 2 volume, hardcover edition from PS Publishing.  It can be ordered here.

PS Publishing is located in the UK so shipping can be expensive.  Although Joshi mentions in his latest blog entry that copies will be available for US readers either through Mark Zeising or Subterrean Press, neither website currently lists it as available.

These two volumes are must reading for any fan or weird fiction with even a limited interest in the history of the field.  Despite the higher price, it is worth every penny.

Works Cited

Joshi, S. T. UNUTTERABLE HORROR: A HISTORY OF SUPERNATURAL FICTION.  PS Publishing: Hornsea, England.  2012.  (Denoted in text as “UT”)