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Ignoto
Quando calano le tenebre, e il buio si fonde con l'abisso, l'oceano rivela il suo volto mostruoso. Creature deturpate, un tempo umane, si aggirano inquiete per i mari in cerca di una nave che le accolga. Il relitto di un veliero chiama a sé incauti marinai, destinati a un'agonia senza salvezza. Urla strazianti si mischiano a fischi di demoni, capaci di risvegliare incubi ancestrali. Maestro del racconto gotico, Hope Hodgson esplora i limiti dell'esperienza umana, tra l'impossibilità di conoscere la natura e l'ossessione per orrori indicibili. Cinque racconti per abbandonare i porti sicuri della razionalità e immergersi nelle acque conturbanti dell'ignoto.
176 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 2019
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691 people want to read
About the author
William Hope Hodgson
871 books571 followersWilliam Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Early in his writing career he dedicated effort to poetry, although few of his poems were published during his lifetime. He also attracted some notice as a photographer and achieved some renown as a bodybuilder. Hodgson served with the British Army durng World War One. He died, at age 40, at Ypres, killed by German artillery fire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 10, 2020
Three to four stars for the content; one star for the editorial approach.
I guess this book is aimed at people who are not familiar with Hodgson, as a kind of sampler. That is certainly the impression given in the editor's introduction, which assumes that the reader has never come across – or perhaps even heard of – Hodgson before. The book contains ten stories: four Carnacki stories, and six tales of high strangeness on the high seas.
I'm a confirmed Carnacki fan, and any excuse to reread those is good enough for me – especially my favourite, "The Horse Of The Invisible", which is Hodgson at his greatest. And I confess I hadn't read the other six before. They were of variable quality, and some had aged badly, but it was interesting to see them, and a couple – "Out Of The Storm" and "The Riven Night" (how's that for a beautiful title?) – were excellent.
But if this volume is intended to attract new readers to Hodgson, the editor has certainly chosen an odd way of going about it.
For one thing, there's too much repetition of ideas between the stories. In particular, "A Tropical Horror" and "The Thing In The Weeds" both rest on the same premise. "Weeds" is by far the superior story, but the editor throws all of its shock power away by making us read "Tropical" first. No clear rationale is given for any of the editor's choices, so I have no idea why he does that.
In fact the ordering of the stories is my major beef. They are presented in chronological order of publication. Perhaps this makes sense in the editor's mind, but for a reader looking for weird thrills it makes no sense at all. The first two stories are the weakest, and if I hadn't already known I liked Hodgson I might easily have DNF'd the whole thing before I got to the (wonderful) third. The run of Carnacki tales is interrupted by two more seafaring mysteries, simply because of their publication dates rather than anything to do with the logic of the story cycle.
Overall this probably is a good introduction to Hodgson if you're coming to him for the first time. It certainly displays both his strengths and his weaknesses as a writer, and it gave me the chance to sample his nautical tales. But the editor's tin ear for narrative flow and dramatic contrast doesn't do anyone any favours. If you can get hold of it, you'll be much better off with The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder instead.
I guess this book is aimed at people who are not familiar with Hodgson, as a kind of sampler. That is certainly the impression given in the editor's introduction, which assumes that the reader has never come across – or perhaps even heard of – Hodgson before. The book contains ten stories: four Carnacki stories, and six tales of high strangeness on the high seas.
I'm a confirmed Carnacki fan, and any excuse to reread those is good enough for me – especially my favourite, "The Horse Of The Invisible", which is Hodgson at his greatest. And I confess I hadn't read the other six before. They were of variable quality, and some had aged badly, but it was interesting to see them, and a couple – "Out Of The Storm" and "The Riven Night" (how's that for a beautiful title?) – were excellent.
But if this volume is intended to attract new readers to Hodgson, the editor has certainly chosen an odd way of going about it.
For one thing, there's too much repetition of ideas between the stories. In particular, "A Tropical Horror" and "The Thing In The Weeds" both rest on the same premise. "Weeds" is by far the superior story, but the editor throws all of its shock power away by making us read "Tropical" first. No clear rationale is given for any of the editor's choices, so I have no idea why he does that.
In fact the ordering of the stories is my major beef. They are presented in chronological order of publication. Perhaps this makes sense in the editor's mind, but for a reader looking for weird thrills it makes no sense at all. The first two stories are the weakest, and if I hadn't already known I liked Hodgson I might easily have DNF'd the whole thing before I got to the (wonderful) third. The run of Carnacki tales is interrupted by two more seafaring mysteries, simply because of their publication dates rather than anything to do with the logic of the story cycle.
Overall this probably is a good introduction to Hodgson if you're coming to him for the first time. It certainly displays both his strengths and his weaknesses as a writer, and it gave me the chance to sample his nautical tales. But the editor's tin ear for narrative flow and dramatic contrast doesn't do anyone any favours. If you can get hold of it, you'll be much better off with The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder instead.
January 19, 2020
“...always be ready before the dark comes.”
I came across William Hope Hodgson for the first time last year when I read one of his stories, The Derelict, in another anthology and thought it was wonderfully weird and truly horrific. So I was thrilled when the British Library brought out this collection of ten of his stories, giving me an opportunity to get to know him better. I’m happy to report that he has lived up to my hopes – I thoroughly enjoyed every story in the collection, with the majority getting the full five stars.
I’m still fairly new to weird fiction, so certainly no expert. But the authors of whom I’ve read most seem each to develop a kind of overarching mythology in which they set most of their tales. The most famous of these is HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, full of ancient forces, Elder Gods and sometimes alien beings. It seems to me that Hodgson, writing a decade or two earlier, must have had some influence on Lovecraft, and the usual informative introduction, this time by Xavier Aldana Reyes, tells us that Lovecraft described him as ‘second only to Algernon Blackwood in his serious treatment of unreality’. I haven’t read enough Blackwood to confirm or argue with that, but my limited reading would put Hodgson third in the ranks of the weird greats, not far behind Lovecraft himself and Arthur Machen. Hodgson’s use of language isn’t nearly as lavishly spectacular as Lovecraft’s, but he does have one advantage as far as I’m concerned, in that he’s mastered the art of being succinct!
The stories collected here fall into two main categories. Many of them are set on the sea, making full use of the forces of nature, the isolation of the wide expanses of the oceans, and man’s ignorance, especially over a century ago, of what may be lurking in the deeps. Some of these use ‘natural’ horrors, such as monstrous squids or sea-serpents, while others have a supernatural element of the ghostly apparition variety, and yet others cross over into definite ‘weird’ territory. (Reyes defines ‘weird’ fiction as ‘a subgenre of speculative fiction concerned with the limits of human experience and the unknowability of the natural world that brings together elements of the horror, science fiction and fantasy literary traditions’.)
Hodgson’s own ‘mythos’ seems to be of forces beyond the understanding of puny humanity (puny humanity is a definite feature of weird fiction) which can channel themselves into inanimate matter, making it animate. He develops this more clearly in his second category of stories: those about Carnacki, a psychic investigator, who tackles all kinds of strange occurrences using the knowledge he has gained from the study of ancient texts (another recurring feature of weird). Carnacki talks of the ‘Outer Monstrosities’, psychic forces held in gases circling the planet far away which sometimes come to Earth to generally wreak havoc. The Carnacki stories take the form of him recounting his adventures to a group of friends as a kind of after-dinner entertainment. There’s quite a lot of repetition in how Carnacki goes about his work – lots of gadgets and harnessing of the powers of pentagrams and stuff – but there is a lot of originality in the horrors he faces, from a haunting by a horse, to an evil hog-like creature, to a mysteriously terrifying whistling room.
I often look at other reviews on Goodreads, and it seems as if I’m more enthusiastic about Hodgson than many of the other reviewers. Reading more closely, this often seems to be because the reviewer is comparing him unfavourably to Lovecraft, the undoubted master of the genre. I have mixed feelings about Lovecraft’s weirdest stuff, sometimes loving it but sometimes finding it too long and repetitive, and getting totally annoyed with his repeated assertion that the horrors his characters face are ‘indescribable’. Happily for me, Hodgson describes his horrors, perhaps with fewer adjectives but certainly with more clarity. So as always, it’s all subjective. I do hope the BL continues to do for ‘forgotten’ horror what they’ve done so well for vintage crime.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
I came across William Hope Hodgson for the first time last year when I read one of his stories, The Derelict, in another anthology and thought it was wonderfully weird and truly horrific. So I was thrilled when the British Library brought out this collection of ten of his stories, giving me an opportunity to get to know him better. I’m happy to report that he has lived up to my hopes – I thoroughly enjoyed every story in the collection, with the majority getting the full five stars.
I’m still fairly new to weird fiction, so certainly no expert. But the authors of whom I’ve read most seem each to develop a kind of overarching mythology in which they set most of their tales. The most famous of these is HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, full of ancient forces, Elder Gods and sometimes alien beings. It seems to me that Hodgson, writing a decade or two earlier, must have had some influence on Lovecraft, and the usual informative introduction, this time by Xavier Aldana Reyes, tells us that Lovecraft described him as ‘second only to Algernon Blackwood in his serious treatment of unreality’. I haven’t read enough Blackwood to confirm or argue with that, but my limited reading would put Hodgson third in the ranks of the weird greats, not far behind Lovecraft himself and Arthur Machen. Hodgson’s use of language isn’t nearly as lavishly spectacular as Lovecraft’s, but he does have one advantage as far as I’m concerned, in that he’s mastered the art of being succinct!
The stories collected here fall into two main categories. Many of them are set on the sea, making full use of the forces of nature, the isolation of the wide expanses of the oceans, and man’s ignorance, especially over a century ago, of what may be lurking in the deeps. Some of these use ‘natural’ horrors, such as monstrous squids or sea-serpents, while others have a supernatural element of the ghostly apparition variety, and yet others cross over into definite ‘weird’ territory. (Reyes defines ‘weird’ fiction as ‘a subgenre of speculative fiction concerned with the limits of human experience and the unknowability of the natural world that brings together elements of the horror, science fiction and fantasy literary traditions’.)
Hodgson’s own ‘mythos’ seems to be of forces beyond the understanding of puny humanity (puny humanity is a definite feature of weird fiction) which can channel themselves into inanimate matter, making it animate. He develops this more clearly in his second category of stories: those about Carnacki, a psychic investigator, who tackles all kinds of strange occurrences using the knowledge he has gained from the study of ancient texts (another recurring feature of weird). Carnacki talks of the ‘Outer Monstrosities’, psychic forces held in gases circling the planet far away which sometimes come to Earth to generally wreak havoc. The Carnacki stories take the form of him recounting his adventures to a group of friends as a kind of after-dinner entertainment. There’s quite a lot of repetition in how Carnacki goes about his work – lots of gadgets and harnessing of the powers of pentagrams and stuff – but there is a lot of originality in the horrors he faces, from a haunting by a horse, to an evil hog-like creature, to a mysteriously terrifying whistling room.
I often look at other reviews on Goodreads, and it seems as if I’m more enthusiastic about Hodgson than many of the other reviewers. Reading more closely, this often seems to be because the reviewer is comparing him unfavourably to Lovecraft, the undoubted master of the genre. I have mixed feelings about Lovecraft’s weirdest stuff, sometimes loving it but sometimes finding it too long and repetitive, and getting totally annoyed with his repeated assertion that the horrors his characters face are ‘indescribable’. Happily for me, Hodgson describes his horrors, perhaps with fewer adjectives but certainly with more clarity. So as always, it’s all subjective. I do hope the BL continues to do for ‘forgotten’ horror what they’ve done so well for vintage crime.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
July 5, 2025
A collection of ten short stories by William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918), who, despite dying before weird fiction officially became a thing with Weird Tales magazine, seems to have been a key player in the development of the weird tale, mixing elements of science fiction, horror and the occult. He has apparently inspired a lot of science fiction and fantasy writers both in Britain and America. For instance, Gene Wolf, China Miéville and my favorite writer, Clark Ashton Smith. Even Lovecraft praised him, saying that “few can equal him in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities (…) or in conveying feelings of the spectral and the abnormal in connexion with regions or buildings” (page 77 of Supernatural Horror in Literature: And Notes on Writing Weird Fiction).
In the introduction, editor Xavier Aldana Reyes writes that “The various stories in this collection come together to create a fictional mosaic representative of Hodgsons achievements in the weird, and hopes to act as an introduction to this writer for avid Gothic and horror readers. The tales included here are all a testament to the creative abilities of an author who deserve the attention he has been commanding in recent years and who will no doubt continue to be recuperated as a key British figure in the history of weird fiction.” (11)
Hodgson is mostly known for two novels in particular: the supernatural horror novel The House on the Borderland and Other Novels (1908) and the post-apocalyptic fantasy novel The Night Land. He’s also known for writing short stories featuring a detective named Thomas Carnacki, who’s hired to investigate supernatural phenomena to ascertain whether they truly are supernatural and to somehow fix whatever is troubling people. Four of them are included in this collection.
But a lot of his stories have a maritime setting, isolating a crew out in the open sea and mercilessly terrorizing them with dangers beyond apprehension, reminding us just how treacherous and almighty the sea can be, and just how claustrophobic it can get when the mist rolls in.
I agree with other reviewers that his Carnacki stories are tedious, uneven and repetitive. These stories could use a lot of editing and should’ve been at least 5 pages shorter. They are too similar, drawn-out, and it’s easy to get bored towards the end. Hodgson seems to have had plenty of cool ideas here but often fails to do right by them.
His other stories were highly imaginative to me, though. Granted, as Lovecraft points out, he has a “rather uneven stylistic quality” (76). He also generally doesn’t flesh out his characters, sacrificing, in my opinion, empathy for action and atmosphere, but I found them quite effective in evoking a sense of dread, horror and weirdness. Many of the part of his Sargasso Sea Stories cycle.
A fellow named Chris Williams describes Hodgson’s maritime oeuvre perfectly:
“For Hodgson the sea is never a benign environment, rather it is the lair of monsters and ancient terrors, phantom derelicts and the ghosts of the sea-dead rising to revenge themselves on the living. Mariners find themselves cast away on dripping, alien islands that have risen temporarily from the ocean floor or they are buffeted and blasted by spectral winds that converge from the four corners of the earth. The sea is a borderland of the soul, a liminal neither/neither place that partakes both of the sacred and the profane. A place where the boundaries that separate us from the beyond are blurred and merged, where it is possible to hear in the wash of the waves the beast rising from the deeps.”
(Source: https://www.oldstyletales.com/single-...)
Here are my individual reviews with a rating and some selected favorite quotes to give you a feel for Hodgon’s style and the vibe of each respective story:
A Tropical Horror – (1905) - ★★★★
This is one of Hodgsons earliest publications, and on some level, it shows. The setting is a boat on the open sea, and one paragraph of calm where the narrator and another man is talking and smoking is all we get before a sea monster attacks their boat. The rest of the story is basically a horrifying, fast paced, action-packed description of the attack. The limited point of view from the narrator’s eyes makes the situation all the more distressing and claustrophobic as he desperately tries to stay alive. I wanted a bit more background and suspense, and less nautical terminology, but I had fun regardless!
The Voice in the Night – (1907) - ★★★★★
We’re on a boat again, but this time, the men on the boat are not attacked. Instead, a man approaches them on another, smaller boat. He needs help, but doesn’t want to come aboard, doesn’t want to be seen by them. I really loved this story because it stimulated my imagination a great deal. There’s a queer voice in the darkness and the fog, an unseen mystery, some tragedy or threat awaiting to be revealed. And when more is revealed about what the man has experienced and how he got there and what happens to him, it’s all incredibly gross and weird and sad. I loved the ending too; it was horrifying yet leaves so many questions unanswered.
I do wonder, though, if this is one of the earliest tales ever written about . I know Poe wrote about that, but even so, I find it to be an original piece of writing, all things considered, and I have huge respect for that.
(36-37)
Out of the Storm – (1909) - ★★★★
Once again, I would like to refer to Chris William’s sharp observations, for he has summarized this particular story perfectly:
"Of all Hodgson’s sea stories “Out Of The Storm”, first published in 1909, stands apart in it’s abject horror. The story begins conventionally enough with a tone of Edwardian domesticity as a caller pays a visit to a scientific friend to find him receiving a message from a sinking ship via a strange telegraph-like machine. But as the narrative unfolds we are subjected to an intense and hallucinary description of a man at the point of death, mortally afraid and in the grip of dire spiritual revelation. The son of an Anglican vicar Hodgson must have been well aware of the Christian symbolism associated with the sea. The figure of the steadfast mariner who clings to his faith and is rescued from the swell, Jonah’s time in the belly of the whale and the deluge that cleansed the world of the sinful were all fitting subject for pious hymns, sermons and pamphlets but in “Out Of The Storm” the narrator sets these traditional Christian motifs of salvation and redemption, so familiar to Hodgson’s readers, at naught. Instead God is mocked and abjured and in his extremity the narrator deifies and glorifies the raging storm.”
Indeed, I have never before seen anyone write so fantastically about the sea, with such a heightened awareness of it. I could feel it all as if I were there, taste the salt, hear the swells, like an alarming presence gripping me with blasphemous, fanatical brilliance. Hodgson effectively forces me to confront my own fears of the sea, which is quite uncomfortable, but in a good way. It’s a liberated kind of madness, and I’m here for it.
The Gateway of the Monster – (1910) - ★★★★
This is the first Carnacki story of the collection, which means it was my first Carnacki story. At the time, I had the luxury of NOT being familiar with the pattern/similarities between the Carnacki stories and had no idea what to expect. I think that worked in this story’s favor, as I actually liked it. Others seem to disagree with me on this, but I think it builds up quite nicely to a satisfying ending.
So, Carnacki investigates a haunted house. There is something called the Grey Room, lots of slamming of doors and similar bumps in the night. After his thorough investigation, Carnacki performs some curious rituals to deal with the problem. He creates like a water circle, mentions the Black veil case and even makes use of a camera. It’s all pretty interesting and strange and occult. Kind of creepy too.
What’s even stranger, though, is that he at some point drinks coffee just before bedtime!
Mad as a hatter, that one.
The Horse of the Invisible – (1910) - ★★
Two Carnacki stories in a row. When it dawns on you how similarly constructed they are, it gets old pretty fast. “The Horse of the Invisible” reads like a mission report, or a summary of events presented at a dull conference people go to for free snacks.
As you can probably tell, a horse is involved. Someone hears it galloping around the house and stuff like that - like a spectral fiend - and Carnacki is hired to investigate the matter. It starts off as spooky and menacing (is it a ghost or a demon?), but eventually it drags on as the same things keep happening. Carnacki performs some ritual again and the matter is … resolved. I won’t say how, but it’s very unsatisfying.
The Whistling Room – (1910) - ★★★
A third Carnacki story. This one’s pretty cool at first, when Carnacki investigates a room where people can hear a strange whistling noise. The setting is a castle in Ireland, which in turn evokes a gothic feel to the story. Carnacki uses various kinds of occult and scientific tests in the room and becomes increasingly concerned about what might manifest that noise.
Hodgson, I’ve noticed, tends to make the reader nervous by either stripping away his character’s ability to see, or has them hear strange noises. It’s creepy and unsettling, and this whistling noise sounds like “as if a devil or some rotten thing were laughing at you” (108). Despite the recurring repetitiveness, I really liked how he described the noise throughout, and this time I also liked the explanation behind the sound, which is why I gave it three stars.
The Derelict – (1912) - ★★★★★
Wow! It's been a long time since a story has made me this uncomfortable. To be honest, “The Derelict” literally frightened me. My heart was pounding so much I had to close the book at some point and just breathe and calm down. I just got so into it, you know, imagining myself on that boat with those men, being in the same situation as them, held down by a feeling of dread as they investigated an abandoned boat out in the open sea. It's officially one of my favorite weird horror short stories! I won’t spoil any other details, I just highly recommend checking this one out.
By the way, I looked up the term for my fear of deep bodies of water, which is called thalassophobia. I think I developed it when, as a kid, my cousin pushed me off a pier into water where someone had discarded a pile of dead fish, which I mere seconds before had discovered. So that might be why Hodgson's maritime horror has had such an effect on me. The setting alone gives me shivers.
The Thing in the Weeds – (1916) - ★★★★
What is that stench, out here? Out in the open sea? How disturbing! “My imagination began to awaken to horrible discomforts; a thousand dreadful impossibilities of the sea became suddenly possible”. (165) And oh no, what about this creepy mist? “I remember how the lamps made just two yellow glares in the mist, ineffectual, yet serving somehow to make extraordinary plain the vastitude of the night and the possibilities of the dark.” (166)
The Hog – (1947) - ★★★
The fourth Carnacki story. This time, he meets a man who is having recurring nightmares of a pretty peculiar nature; he can hear grunts and squeals and pig howls. And it’s utterly horrible! “It seems to shake everything… It’s like a spiritual earthquake. The howling, squealing, grunting, rolling clamour of swinish noise coming up out of that place, and then the monstrous GRUNT rising up through it all, an ever-recurring beat out of the depth – the voice of the swine-mother of monstrosity beating up from below through that chorus of mad swine-hunger…” (181)
It’s unpleasant and disturbing at first, and then it teeters on the edge of ridiculousness, and then it becomes repetitive and drawn-out again, so that the noises and the creepiness looses some of its effects. It takes frustratingly long to investigate the matter and try to resolve the issue.
The Riven Night – (1973) - ★★★★
A very atmospheric piece. A crew on a boat is on their way home as they find themselves in the midst of a strange weather phenomena with strange lights and colored clouds. I wish Hodgson had written more like this; it’s so eerie and beautiful.
Favorite new words:
Lots of nautical terms were new to me, but my favorite is the poop deck (!), which is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear of a boat. It’s technically a stern deck, but in my mind, it doubles as a toilet where you’re not allowed to pee.
Halation = a blurred effect around the edges of highlight areas in a photographic image caused by reflection and scattering of light through the emulsion from the back surface of the film support or plate.
Encrustation = a crust or coat of anything on the surface of a body; covering, coating, or scale.
In the introduction, editor Xavier Aldana Reyes writes that “The various stories in this collection come together to create a fictional mosaic representative of Hodgsons achievements in the weird, and hopes to act as an introduction to this writer for avid Gothic and horror readers. The tales included here are all a testament to the creative abilities of an author who deserve the attention he has been commanding in recent years and who will no doubt continue to be recuperated as a key British figure in the history of weird fiction.” (11)
Hodgson is mostly known for two novels in particular: the supernatural horror novel The House on the Borderland and Other Novels (1908) and the post-apocalyptic fantasy novel The Night Land. He’s also known for writing short stories featuring a detective named Thomas Carnacki, who’s hired to investigate supernatural phenomena to ascertain whether they truly are supernatural and to somehow fix whatever is troubling people. Four of them are included in this collection.
But a lot of his stories have a maritime setting, isolating a crew out in the open sea and mercilessly terrorizing them with dangers beyond apprehension, reminding us just how treacherous and almighty the sea can be, and just how claustrophobic it can get when the mist rolls in.
I agree with other reviewers that his Carnacki stories are tedious, uneven and repetitive. These stories could use a lot of editing and should’ve been at least 5 pages shorter. They are too similar, drawn-out, and it’s easy to get bored towards the end. Hodgson seems to have had plenty of cool ideas here but often fails to do right by them.
His other stories were highly imaginative to me, though. Granted, as Lovecraft points out, he has a “rather uneven stylistic quality” (76). He also generally doesn’t flesh out his characters, sacrificing, in my opinion, empathy for action and atmosphere, but I found them quite effective in evoking a sense of dread, horror and weirdness. Many of the part of his Sargasso Sea Stories cycle.
A fellow named Chris Williams describes Hodgson’s maritime oeuvre perfectly:
“For Hodgson the sea is never a benign environment, rather it is the lair of monsters and ancient terrors, phantom derelicts and the ghosts of the sea-dead rising to revenge themselves on the living. Mariners find themselves cast away on dripping, alien islands that have risen temporarily from the ocean floor or they are buffeted and blasted by spectral winds that converge from the four corners of the earth. The sea is a borderland of the soul, a liminal neither/neither place that partakes both of the sacred and the profane. A place where the boundaries that separate us from the beyond are blurred and merged, where it is possible to hear in the wash of the waves the beast rising from the deeps.”
(Source: https://www.oldstyletales.com/single-...)
Here are my individual reviews with a rating and some selected favorite quotes to give you a feel for Hodgon’s style and the vibe of each respective story:
A Tropical Horror – (1905) - ★★★★
This is one of Hodgsons earliest publications, and on some level, it shows. The setting is a boat on the open sea, and one paragraph of calm where the narrator and another man is talking and smoking is all we get before a sea monster attacks their boat. The rest of the story is basically a horrifying, fast paced, action-packed description of the attack. The limited point of view from the narrator’s eyes makes the situation all the more distressing and claustrophobic as he desperately tries to stay alive. I wanted a bit more background and suspense, and less nautical terminology, but I had fun regardless!
The Voice in the Night – (1907) - ★★★★★
We’re on a boat again, but this time, the men on the boat are not attacked. Instead, a man approaches them on another, smaller boat. He needs help, but doesn’t want to come aboard, doesn’t want to be seen by them. I really loved this story because it stimulated my imagination a great deal. There’s a queer voice in the darkness and the fog, an unseen mystery, some tragedy or threat awaiting to be revealed. And when more is revealed about what the man has experienced and how he got there and what happens to him, it’s all incredibly gross and weird and sad. I loved the ending too; it was horrifying yet leaves so many questions unanswered.
I do wonder, though, if this is one of the earliest tales ever written about . I know Poe wrote about that, but even so, I find it to be an original piece of writing, all things considered, and I have huge respect for that.
(36-37)
Out of the Storm – (1909) - ★★★★
Once again, I would like to refer to Chris William’s sharp observations, for he has summarized this particular story perfectly:
"Of all Hodgson’s sea stories “Out Of The Storm”, first published in 1909, stands apart in it’s abject horror. The story begins conventionally enough with a tone of Edwardian domesticity as a caller pays a visit to a scientific friend to find him receiving a message from a sinking ship via a strange telegraph-like machine. But as the narrative unfolds we are subjected to an intense and hallucinary description of a man at the point of death, mortally afraid and in the grip of dire spiritual revelation. The son of an Anglican vicar Hodgson must have been well aware of the Christian symbolism associated with the sea. The figure of the steadfast mariner who clings to his faith and is rescued from the swell, Jonah’s time in the belly of the whale and the deluge that cleansed the world of the sinful were all fitting subject for pious hymns, sermons and pamphlets but in “Out Of The Storm” the narrator sets these traditional Christian motifs of salvation and redemption, so familiar to Hodgson’s readers, at naught. Instead God is mocked and abjured and in his extremity the narrator deifies and glorifies the raging storm.”
Indeed, I have never before seen anyone write so fantastically about the sea, with such a heightened awareness of it. I could feel it all as if I were there, taste the salt, hear the swells, like an alarming presence gripping me with blasphemous, fanatical brilliance. Hodgson effectively forces me to confront my own fears of the sea, which is quite uncomfortable, but in a good way. It’s a liberated kind of madness, and I’m here for it.
It is a little after midday; but the sky is the colour of mud—do you understand?—grey mud! Down from it there hang vast lappets of clouds. Not such clouds as I have ever before seen; but monstrous, mildewed-looking hulls. They show solid, save where the frightful wind tears their lower edges into great feelers that swirl savagely above us, like the tentacles of some enormous Horror. (44)
I know now why we are afraid of the dark. I had never imagined such secrets of the sea and the grave (which are one and the same). (44)
The Gateway of the Monster – (1910) - ★★★★
This is the first Carnacki story of the collection, which means it was my first Carnacki story. At the time, I had the luxury of NOT being familiar with the pattern/similarities between the Carnacki stories and had no idea what to expect. I think that worked in this story’s favor, as I actually liked it. Others seem to disagree with me on this, but I think it builds up quite nicely to a satisfying ending.
So, Carnacki investigates a haunted house. There is something called the Grey Room, lots of slamming of doors and similar bumps in the night. After his thorough investigation, Carnacki performs some curious rituals to deal with the problem. He creates like a water circle, mentions the Black veil case and even makes use of a camera. It’s all pretty interesting and strange and occult. Kind of creepy too.
What’s even stranger, though, is that he at some point drinks coffee just before bedtime!
Mad as a hatter, that one.
I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the ‘creep’ had come upon me (…) (63)
The Horse of the Invisible – (1910) - ★★
Two Carnacki stories in a row. When it dawns on you how similarly constructed they are, it gets old pretty fast. “The Horse of the Invisible” reads like a mission report, or a summary of events presented at a dull conference people go to for free snacks.
As you can probably tell, a horse is involved. Someone hears it galloping around the house and stuff like that - like a spectral fiend - and Carnacki is hired to investigate the matter. It starts off as spooky and menacing (is it a ghost or a demon?), but eventually it drags on as the same things keep happening. Carnacki performs some ritual again and the matter is … resolved. I won’t say how, but it’s very unsatisfying.
The Whistling Room – (1910) - ★★★
A third Carnacki story. This one’s pretty cool at first, when Carnacki investigates a room where people can hear a strange whistling noise. The setting is a castle in Ireland, which in turn evokes a gothic feel to the story. Carnacki uses various kinds of occult and scientific tests in the room and becomes increasingly concerned about what might manifest that noise.
Hodgson, I’ve noticed, tends to make the reader nervous by either stripping away his character’s ability to see, or has them hear strange noises. It’s creepy and unsettling, and this whistling noise sounds like “as if a devil or some rotten thing were laughing at you” (108). Despite the recurring repetitiveness, I really liked how he described the noise throughout, and this time I also liked the explanation behind the sound, which is why I gave it three stars.
As the door flew open, the sound beat out at us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard it—with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and honing; and yet all the time aware of you in particular. (109)
The Derelict – (1912) - ★★★★★
Wow! It's been a long time since a story has made me this uncomfortable. To be honest, “The Derelict” literally frightened me. My heart was pounding so much I had to close the book at some point and just breathe and calm down. I just got so into it, you know, imagining myself on that boat with those men, being in the same situation as them, held down by a feeling of dread as they investigated an abandoned boat out in the open sea. It's officially one of my favorite weird horror short stories! I won’t spoil any other details, I just highly recommend checking this one out.
By the way, I looked up the term for my fear of deep bodies of water, which is called thalassophobia. I think I developed it when, as a kid, my cousin pushed me off a pier into water where someone had discarded a pile of dead fish, which I mere seconds before had discovered. So that might be why Hodgson's maritime horror has had such an effect on me. The setting alone gives me shivers.
I could see it for some minutes beforehand, tearing the sea, in the gloom, into a wall of phosphorescent foam (…) (156)
The Thing in the Weeds – (1916) - ★★★★
What is that stench, out here? Out in the open sea? How disturbing! “My imagination began to awaken to horrible discomforts; a thousand dreadful impossibilities of the sea became suddenly possible”. (165) And oh no, what about this creepy mist? “I remember how the lamps made just two yellow glares in the mist, ineffectual, yet serving somehow to make extraordinary plain the vastitude of the night and the possibilities of the dark.” (166)
The Hog – (1947) - ★★★
The fourth Carnacki story. This time, he meets a man who is having recurring nightmares of a pretty peculiar nature; he can hear grunts and squeals and pig howls. And it’s utterly horrible! “It seems to shake everything… It’s like a spiritual earthquake. The howling, squealing, grunting, rolling clamour of swinish noise coming up out of that place, and then the monstrous GRUNT rising up through it all, an ever-recurring beat out of the depth – the voice of the swine-mother of monstrosity beating up from below through that chorus of mad swine-hunger…” (181)
It’s unpleasant and disturbing at first, and then it teeters on the edge of ridiculousness, and then it becomes repetitive and drawn-out again, so that the noises and the creepiness looses some of its effects. It takes frustratingly long to investigate the matter and try to resolve the issue.
The Riven Night – (1973) - ★★★★
A very atmospheric piece. A crew on a boat is on their way home as they find themselves in the midst of a strange weather phenomena with strange lights and colored clouds. I wish Hodgson had written more like this; it’s so eerie and beautiful.
“Brighter grew the brilliance of those lights until their vidid green-ness smote intolerably up into the violet impalpableness like two transparent pillars through which played a shiver of lambent flame, and suddenly the murky vastness beneath were heaved upwards into a might wave that drove towards us threateningly.” (235)
Favorite new words:
Lots of nautical terms were new to me, but my favorite is the poop deck (!), which is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear of a boat. It’s technically a stern deck, but in my mind, it doubles as a toilet where you’re not allowed to pee.
Halation = a blurred effect around the edges of highlight areas in a photographic image caused by reflection and scattering of light through the emulsion from the back surface of the film support or plate.
Encrustation = a crust or coat of anything on the surface of a body; covering, coating, or scale.
March 18, 2023
I arrive late to the wonderful world of William Hope Hodgson.
Born in 1877 to a wealthy family, in Essex, his father was a Church of England minister. He ran away from boarding school when he was 13, and after being caught, got his father’s permission to become a cabin boy. His father died soon after, leaving the family without income, surviving on charity until William returned some years later.
He was bullied at sea, by older officers. The sea is a feature of many of his short stories, and in particular, his revenge, albeit a literary one, satisfied by a conglomeration of sea serpents, ghost ships and other unpleasant things emerging from the depths.
He lived with his mother in poverty until after his first novel was published in 1907 when he began to receive something of an income, but he was never affluent.
Apart from the sea being a common background in his writing, Hodgson is also known for his short stories featuring recurring characters: the "detective of the occult" Thomas Carnacki, and the smuggler Captain Gault.
In this British Library collection, the stories are about half of each. There are very few duffers, and this is an excellent way to become familiar with his style.
The most well-known of his Carnacki stories is The Whistling Room which is in many anthologies, and even introduced by Alfred Hitchcock in one. These are more of a classic horror, ghost story model, but have the habit of taking a direction different to the expected one late in the story - hence their categorisation as weird.
For me though, the stories of the sea are when he is at his strongest. Specifically I would select The Derelict. This is a perfect example of weird fiction with elements of a classic ghost ship story, moving into science fiction and cosmic horror. It is genuinely scary, and put me in mind several times of Dan Simmons, to whom he surely was an influence.
His experimentation into the weird was limited by his need to make some money, and hence he returned more often than he would have liked to Carnacki stories, as they at least made some money; in the ilk of Algernon Blackwood, Poe and Conan Doyle. But it was when he had a free rein to do his own thing he was at his best.
He was killed at Ypres in 1918. After his death his work was largely forgotten, and except for a minor resurgence in the 1930s, it was only recently it has received the attention and readership it deserves.
His work is said to have influenced H.P. Lovecraft, though Lovecraft did not read his works until 1934. and also, more recently, China Miéville.
The British Library put out some tremendous stuff. This is in their series Tales of the Weird, which has just published number 36 in the series, The Flaw in the Crystal: And Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair with 37 and 38 due out in the next couple of months.
There’s a 3 for 2 offer on their website at the moment, to give them a well-earned plug..
Born in 1877 to a wealthy family, in Essex, his father was a Church of England minister. He ran away from boarding school when he was 13, and after being caught, got his father’s permission to become a cabin boy. His father died soon after, leaving the family without income, surviving on charity until William returned some years later.
He was bullied at sea, by older officers. The sea is a feature of many of his short stories, and in particular, his revenge, albeit a literary one, satisfied by a conglomeration of sea serpents, ghost ships and other unpleasant things emerging from the depths.
He lived with his mother in poverty until after his first novel was published in 1907 when he began to receive something of an income, but he was never affluent.
Apart from the sea being a common background in his writing, Hodgson is also known for his short stories featuring recurring characters: the "detective of the occult" Thomas Carnacki, and the smuggler Captain Gault.
In this British Library collection, the stories are about half of each. There are very few duffers, and this is an excellent way to become familiar with his style.
The most well-known of his Carnacki stories is The Whistling Room which is in many anthologies, and even introduced by Alfred Hitchcock in one. These are more of a classic horror, ghost story model, but have the habit of taking a direction different to the expected one late in the story - hence their categorisation as weird.
For me though, the stories of the sea are when he is at his strongest. Specifically I would select The Derelict. This is a perfect example of weird fiction with elements of a classic ghost ship story, moving into science fiction and cosmic horror. It is genuinely scary, and put me in mind several times of Dan Simmons, to whom he surely was an influence.
His experimentation into the weird was limited by his need to make some money, and hence he returned more often than he would have liked to Carnacki stories, as they at least made some money; in the ilk of Algernon Blackwood, Poe and Conan Doyle. But it was when he had a free rein to do his own thing he was at his best.
He was killed at Ypres in 1918. After his death his work was largely forgotten, and except for a minor resurgence in the 1930s, it was only recently it has received the attention and readership it deserves.
His work is said to have influenced H.P. Lovecraft, though Lovecraft did not read his works until 1934. and also, more recently, China Miéville.
The British Library put out some tremendous stuff. This is in their series Tales of the Weird, which has just published number 36 in the series, The Flaw in the Crystal: And Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair with 37 and 38 due out in the next couple of months.
There’s a 3 for 2 offer on their website at the moment, to give them a well-earned plug..
March 21, 2020
This is one of those occasions where judging a book by its cover paid off as I have never heard of William Hope Hodgson and only picked this up as the cover has a brilliantly spooky yellow horse with a skull head on it (always guaranteed to result in me parting with my money). Hodgson is clearly a writer of Lovecraft standards and Reyes has pulled together a superb collection that covers a wide time frame and so many different aspects of Hodgson's writing with stories ranging from the bizarre to the downright terrifying. Not only has this collection opened up the world of Hodgson's writing but it has also introduced me to the British Library Tales of the Weird collection, a collection that seems almost too perfect.
The opening story, A Tropical Horror, is chilling and breathless as a unnamed beast from below lays siege to a merchant ship 130 days out from Melbourne. Told through the recollections of one survivor as he and another are trapped in a deck-house listening and glimpsing all that unfolds on deck over the days and nights that the beast remains. This is followed by The Voice in the Night, which is shrouded in mystery until the last few pages. Out of the Storm is less about the bizarre and more about the real horror a ship going down as we are given a step by step insight via the new communication technology of the time, a chilling reminder of how small we really are. The Gateway of the Monster starts as a traditional haunted room story but quickly and terrifyingly develops into something so much more while The Horse of the Invisible will leave you doubting your very senses. The Whistling Room is written in the style of story telling as one man recounts his story for acquaintances and leaves little doubt how tortuous some sounds can be while The Derelict hints at the development of life through unconventional means and the darkness of the result. The Thing in the Weeds is a more traditional monster tale that puts men back on the food chain dinner menu while The Hog shows that while we may be able to communicate across different planes, it might not be to our benefit to do so. The final story, The Riven Night, leaves much to your imagination as the crew of a merchant ship comes across strange violet lights on their homeward bound journey.
The opening story, A Tropical Horror, is chilling and breathless as a unnamed beast from below lays siege to a merchant ship 130 days out from Melbourne. Told through the recollections of one survivor as he and another are trapped in a deck-house listening and glimpsing all that unfolds on deck over the days and nights that the beast remains. This is followed by The Voice in the Night, which is shrouded in mystery until the last few pages. Out of the Storm is less about the bizarre and more about the real horror a ship going down as we are given a step by step insight via the new communication technology of the time, a chilling reminder of how small we really are. The Gateway of the Monster starts as a traditional haunted room story but quickly and terrifyingly develops into something so much more while The Horse of the Invisible will leave you doubting your very senses. The Whistling Room is written in the style of story telling as one man recounts his story for acquaintances and leaves little doubt how tortuous some sounds can be while The Derelict hints at the development of life through unconventional means and the darkness of the result. The Thing in the Weeds is a more traditional monster tale that puts men back on the food chain dinner menu while The Hog shows that while we may be able to communicate across different planes, it might not be to our benefit to do so. The final story, The Riven Night, leaves much to your imagination as the crew of a merchant ship comes across strange violet lights on their homeward bound journey.
September 10, 2022
6 nautical stories and 4 supernatural detective ones. Having them all in a row like this kind of highlights the formulaic aspects (most of the nautical stories are essentially 'what if a big monster/some mould got on a boat' for instance), but it was still pretty enjoyable. Carnacki the ghost-finder affectionately refers his friend as 'a brick', on making mistakes loudly announces that he's 'funked it', and ends every story by abruptly demanding his friends get out of his house. Frankly I don't know what more you can ask for from a fictional Edwardian posho ghost scientist.
January 23, 2025
"La voce nella notte":
In una notte di bonaccia, una goletta viene avvicinata da una zattera dalla quale giunge una voce, è un uomo, o ció che ne resta, affamato e smanioso di raccontare cosa accadde a lui e alla sua compagna.
"Il portale del mostro":
Un detective dell’occulto viene chiamato a investigare su una strana stanza grigia che pare infestata, al suo interno scoprirà più di quello che avrebbe voluto scoprire.
"La stanza che fischia":
Irlanda, in un castello dove presto due innamorati si sposeranno c’è una stanza dalla quale proviene un fischio continuo e a tratti mostruoso, ad indagare sul fenomeno verrà chiamato un detective dell’occulto che forse riuscirà a far luce sull’orrendo fischio che pervade gli ambienti del castello.
"Il relitto":
Dopo una tempesta che ha danneggiato la nave disalberandola, i membri dell’equipaggio si accorgono di non essere soli, li vicino scorgono un relitto ma qualcosa di strano lo avvolge, una densa melma scura che la imprigiona, ció che troveranno a bordo li lascerà senza parole.
"Lo squarcio nelle tenebre":
Una nave che naviga in una notte serena e tranquilla si imbatte in qualcosa di mai visto, davanti a sè un colossale squarcio di luce fende le tenebre e la nave pare diretta proprio verso di essa.
Una raccolta di cinque racconti che spaziano in un arco di tempo che va dal 1907 al 1975 scritti da William Hope Hodgson.
Racconti brevi ma capaci di creare quella tensione giusta che questi lavori richiamano, la mostruosità e l’orrore sono ben celati lasciando spazio a storie che nel "vedo non vedo" riescono a far alzare la tensione e la sensazione di insicurezza scaturita dalla fantasia del lettore che puó immaginare liberamente ció che i protagonisti vedono o credono di vedere.
Personalmente mi sento di dire che non tutte e cinque le storie sono allo stesso livello, sicuramente apprezzabili "La voce nella notte" e "Il relitto", molto meno "La stanza che fischia" ma in generale tutti si fanno leggere.
In una notte di bonaccia, una goletta viene avvicinata da una zattera dalla quale giunge una voce, è un uomo, o ció che ne resta, affamato e smanioso di raccontare cosa accadde a lui e alla sua compagna.
"Il portale del mostro":
Un detective dell’occulto viene chiamato a investigare su una strana stanza grigia che pare infestata, al suo interno scoprirà più di quello che avrebbe voluto scoprire.
"La stanza che fischia":
Irlanda, in un castello dove presto due innamorati si sposeranno c’è una stanza dalla quale proviene un fischio continuo e a tratti mostruoso, ad indagare sul fenomeno verrà chiamato un detective dell’occulto che forse riuscirà a far luce sull’orrendo fischio che pervade gli ambienti del castello.
"Il relitto":
Dopo una tempesta che ha danneggiato la nave disalberandola, i membri dell’equipaggio si accorgono di non essere soli, li vicino scorgono un relitto ma qualcosa di strano lo avvolge, una densa melma scura che la imprigiona, ció che troveranno a bordo li lascerà senza parole.
"Lo squarcio nelle tenebre":
Una nave che naviga in una notte serena e tranquilla si imbatte in qualcosa di mai visto, davanti a sè un colossale squarcio di luce fende le tenebre e la nave pare diretta proprio verso di essa.
Una raccolta di cinque racconti che spaziano in un arco di tempo che va dal 1907 al 1975 scritti da William Hope Hodgson.
Racconti brevi ma capaci di creare quella tensione giusta che questi lavori richiamano, la mostruosità e l’orrore sono ben celati lasciando spazio a storie che nel "vedo non vedo" riescono a far alzare la tensione e la sensazione di insicurezza scaturita dalla fantasia del lettore che puó immaginare liberamente ció che i protagonisti vedono o credono di vedere.
Personalmente mi sento di dire che non tutte e cinque le storie sono allo stesso livello, sicuramente apprezzabili "La voce nella notte" e "Il relitto", molto meno "La stanza che fischia" ma in generale tutti si fanno leggere.
August 29, 2019
3 * First review for this book - I seem to have managed to purchase and read this before its official release date somehow!
The stories in this book are very inconsistent in quality for me, and I actually seemed to prefer the earlier ones, which is odd, as usually a writer develops a particular writing style with time and really finds their voice. I felt the opposite happened here and the later stories were more derivative.
There are a lot of sea tales of terror involving various monsters of the deep, but it's all been done much better by Lovecraft unfortunately. The Carnacki stories really reminded me of the Diogenes Club stories by Kim Newman, but again, his are better written.
Overall, I was entertained by most of these, but it's not a stand out collection for me. Usually when I buy anthologies I keep them to "dib into" stories at a later date, but I think the only reason I'll hang onto this one is to build my set of British Library Weird Tales (of which there are 12 altogether, I think.)
The stories in this book are very inconsistent in quality for me, and I actually seemed to prefer the earlier ones, which is odd, as usually a writer develops a particular writing style with time and really finds their voice. I felt the opposite happened here and the later stories were more derivative.
There are a lot of sea tales of terror involving various monsters of the deep, but it's all been done much better by Lovecraft unfortunately. The Carnacki stories really reminded me of the Diogenes Club stories by Kim Newman, but again, his are better written.
Overall, I was entertained by most of these, but it's not a stand out collection for me. Usually when I buy anthologies I keep them to "dib into" stories at a later date, but I think the only reason I'll hang onto this one is to build my set of British Library Weird Tales (of which there are 12 altogether, I think.)
April 30, 2021
3.5 stars - This is the average rating when all the stories are combined. As usual, some stories worked better for me than others. My personal favorites were The Voice In The Night and The Derelict.
The Weird Tales is a gripping collection of surreal, nightmarish horror stories that take every day settings and give them an ethereal cosmic horror twist. Each of the tales in this book were written well over 100 years ago, and while the writing style is different to what I'm used to, I never found it too difficult to grasp. It was a fascinating experience, to get a glimpse at the bones that make a modern horror story.
In this collection, you'll read stories about isolated rooms haunted by terrible beings, and lonely stories of horror at sea. William Hope Hodgson seems to be most comfortable when he's writing sea based horror, those stories always managed to eclipse the others.
The Weird Tales is a gripping collection of surreal, nightmarish horror stories that take every day settings and give them an ethereal cosmic horror twist. Each of the tales in this book were written well over 100 years ago, and while the writing style is different to what I'm used to, I never found it too difficult to grasp. It was a fascinating experience, to get a glimpse at the bones that make a modern horror story.
In this collection, you'll read stories about isolated rooms haunted by terrible beings, and lonely stories of horror at sea. William Hope Hodgson seems to be most comfortable when he's writing sea based horror, those stories always managed to eclipse the others.
March 15, 2024
Not as strong as The Night Land or as good as The House on the Borderland but absolutely worth checking out if you're interested in pre-Lovecraftian early weird fiction.
August 7, 2024
An absolute master of the creeping dread. Never before have I felt so spooked out, or enticed, by the idea of ships. I've seen my fair share of movies that take place on these wooden or metal goliaths, but I've never been much drawn to them. But after Hodgson, I feel a desire to explore further into the horrifying and adventurous possibilities of sea-travel - the utter loneliness of a crew of strangers thrust together by marine life on a plank of wood floating in the middle of nowhere, no land in sight, just endless water, and in the might, the endless dark, and whatever monsters your wandering mind might conjure.
Hodgson’s mind certainly wandered wonderfully, and the collection is blessed with several stories that are amongst the spookiest I've read, his ability to pull a curtain of dread over your head as the hapless leads stumble deeper into the mouth of some unnameable horror just wonderful.
Sure, Hodgson has a few bad habits, some that Reyes, the editor, was quick to point out in his introduction, like some repetition in his word choice and ideas, but those didn't actually bother me. Far worse I found the few moments his predilection for explaining supernatural phenomena with pseudoscientific reasoning got out of hand and instead of getting some nice little world-building to add a feeling of reality to the tale, we rather get a long-winded essay detailing the nuances of made-up poppycock.
Far the worst offender in this is The Hog, which takes ages to get going, slows down several times for more blabber, and then after the story has finished, goes on for another six pages of inexplicable ideas about Hodgson's imaginary world. Were it interesting, that would be one thing, but it's also deadly boring. There is some glimmer of quality dress hidden within The Hog, but it's just drowned beneath all the weightless nonsense.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. The story was published posthumously as unfortunately WW1 took the author way too early, and perhaps if he had had the time, he could have cut and polished it enough so it would have been as enjoyable as the three other ghost stories sporting the same investigator (whose framing device is every time an amusingly pointless dinner party with guests who get nothing besides names). Unfortunately, in the present condition the story is just not worth reading and it brings down the quality of an otherwise almost excellent collection of horror stories. The final story, also published posthumously, fares better, even though it also doesn't reach the same heights of dread as Hodgson's strongest tales (it is however somewhat touching, even beautiful in its handling of a contact with those closest gone the way of all flesh).
Ultimately, even with the (slight) criticism, Hodgson is not a horror writer one can discount, and if nothing else, he's taught me that I quite fancy a spooky tale on the cramped and forlorn setting of a ship on sea. Now if I only had any idea on how to fulfil this new craving …
Hodgson’s mind certainly wandered wonderfully, and the collection is blessed with several stories that are amongst the spookiest I've read, his ability to pull a curtain of dread over your head as the hapless leads stumble deeper into the mouth of some unnameable horror just wonderful.
Sure, Hodgson has a few bad habits, some that Reyes, the editor, was quick to point out in his introduction, like some repetition in his word choice and ideas, but those didn't actually bother me. Far worse I found the few moments his predilection for explaining supernatural phenomena with pseudoscientific reasoning got out of hand and instead of getting some nice little world-building to add a feeling of reality to the tale, we rather get a long-winded essay detailing the nuances of made-up poppycock.
Far the worst offender in this is The Hog, which takes ages to get going, slows down several times for more blabber, and then after the story has finished, goes on for another six pages of inexplicable ideas about Hodgson's imaginary world. Were it interesting, that would be one thing, but it's also deadly boring. There is some glimmer of quality dress hidden within The Hog, but it's just drowned beneath all the weightless nonsense.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. The story was published posthumously as unfortunately WW1 took the author way too early, and perhaps if he had had the time, he could have cut and polished it enough so it would have been as enjoyable as the three other ghost stories sporting the same investigator (whose framing device is every time an amusingly pointless dinner party with guests who get nothing besides names). Unfortunately, in the present condition the story is just not worth reading and it brings down the quality of an otherwise almost excellent collection of horror stories. The final story, also published posthumously, fares better, even though it also doesn't reach the same heights of dread as Hodgson's strongest tales (it is however somewhat touching, even beautiful in its handling of a contact with those closest gone the way of all flesh).
Ultimately, even with the (slight) criticism, Hodgson is not a horror writer one can discount, and if nothing else, he's taught me that I quite fancy a spooky tale on the cramped and forlorn setting of a ship on sea. Now if I only had any idea on how to fulfil this new craving …
October 8, 2024
Seconda raccolta di racconti di W .H. Hodgson per la collana Dark Tales. La cinque storie presentate sono molto variegate. Si passa infatti dalle indagini dell'occulto con il detective Carnacki, alle terrificanti avventure marine su navi in balia delle insidie degli oceani.
I racconti scorrono veloci, complice una scrittura semplice e pulita. Mi sono piaciuti proprio tutti, ma devo dire che le storie che mi hanno impressionato maggiormente sono state La voce nella notte, con i suoi funghi parassiti, Il relitto, con la sua vecchia nave che diventa essa stessa un mostro affamato, e La stanza che fischia, con quel fischio foriero di una maledizione che arriva da lontano. Consigliato, come tutti i restanti albi di questa collana gotica.
I racconti scorrono veloci, complice una scrittura semplice e pulita. Mi sono piaciuti proprio tutti, ma devo dire che le storie che mi hanno impressionato maggiormente sono state La voce nella notte, con i suoi funghi parassiti, Il relitto, con la sua vecchia nave che diventa essa stessa un mostro affamato, e La stanza che fischia, con quel fischio foriero di una maledizione che arriva da lontano. Consigliato, come tutti i restanti albi di questa collana gotica.
August 19, 2022
3.5☆
what a great introduction into hodgson's work! the collection is a very engaging sample of william hope hodgson's storytelling that presents both his seafaring and his occult stories (through the cases of his detective character, carnacki).
of the former, "the voice in the night" was the most appealing to me while from the latter, i really liked both "the horse of the invisible" and "the hog".
what a great introduction into hodgson's work! the collection is a very engaging sample of william hope hodgson's storytelling that presents both his seafaring and his occult stories (through the cases of his detective character, carnacki).
of the former, "the voice in the night" was the most appealing to me while from the latter, i really liked both "the horse of the invisible" and "the hog".
December 29, 2025
Navi alla deriva che vagano nel mare più remoto, melma viva, grida nella notte, luci sull’acqua. Qui troverete alcuni racconti interessanti sull’ignoto e sulla paura
November 4, 2024
Having never read anything by William Hope Hodgson before, I was excited to read some of his short stories in this collection as a Halloween read.
Whilst I found myself skimming through some stories (the nautical ones, mostly), I thoroughly enjoyed each of the Carnacki tales. He reminded me of an occult version of Sherlock Holmes and the events he told were creepy and thrilling.
Whilst I found myself skimming through some stories (the nautical ones, mostly), I thoroughly enjoyed each of the Carnacki tales. He reminded me of an occult version of Sherlock Holmes and the events he told were creepy and thrilling.
October 26, 2024
This collection includes some maritime stories and stories featuring Hodgson’s occult detective, Carnacki.
A Tropical Horror (1905) ★★★★
A sea serpent attacks a ship, spanning multiple days and nights.
The Voice in the Night (1907) ★★★★★
The crew of a ship hear a voice calling out one night, which makes some mysterious requests.
Out of the Storm (1909) ★★★★
A man describes the horrors experienced on a ship caused by a raging ocean and storm.
The Gateway of the Monster (1910) ★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates strange occurrences in a room of a mansion.
The Horse of the Invisible (1910) ★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a haunting and discovers a spectral horse.
The Whistling Room (1910) ★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a mysterious room in an old mansion that emits terrifying whistling sounds.
The Derelict (1912) ★★★★★
A derelict ship is discovered in the middle of the ocean covered in a strange organic substance.
The Thing in the Weeds (1913) ★★★★
The crew of a ship experience a terrible smell one night in a thick mist, and discover the blood of a missing mate.
The Hog (1947) ★★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a man experiencing horrifying dreams.
The Riven Night (1973) ★★★
The crew of a ship encounter a mysterious "corpse candle" otherworldly light one night, that soon engulfs the ship.
A Tropical Horror (1905) ★★★★
A sea serpent attacks a ship, spanning multiple days and nights.
The Voice in the Night (1907) ★★★★★
The crew of a ship hear a voice calling out one night, which makes some mysterious requests.
Out of the Storm (1909) ★★★★
A man describes the horrors experienced on a ship caused by a raging ocean and storm.
The Gateway of the Monster (1910) ★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates strange occurrences in a room of a mansion.
The Horse of the Invisible (1910) ★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a haunting and discovers a spectral horse.
The Whistling Room (1910) ★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a mysterious room in an old mansion that emits terrifying whistling sounds.
The Derelict (1912) ★★★★★
A derelict ship is discovered in the middle of the ocean covered in a strange organic substance.
The Thing in the Weeds (1913) ★★★★
The crew of a ship experience a terrible smell one night in a thick mist, and discover the blood of a missing mate.
The Hog (1947) ★★★
Occult detective Carnacki investigates a man experiencing horrifying dreams.
The Riven Night (1973) ★★★
The crew of a ship encounter a mysterious "corpse candle" otherworldly light one night, that soon engulfs the ship.
November 6, 2021
What would you define as weird fiction? Supernatural creatures? Occult happenings in the dead of night? In the realm of weird fiction nothing is off limits. The genre has been popularised by writing greats such as H.P Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen. A name that deserves to be mentioned alongside them is William Hope Hodgson, an author who blended the bizarre with the banal.
The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson feature ten short stories that delve into the horror of the unknown. I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Readers with weak constitutions take heed. Here be monsters.
The collection begins with a helpful introduction from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes on Hodgson’s life. The British author died at the Battle of Ypres during the First World War, which may have been a contributing factor to why his work was lost to history for so long. Hodgson was a sailor for many years and his connection to the sea is felt throughout the anthology.
‘A Tropical Horror’ kicks of the nautical theme with a bang. An unsuspecting crew are set upon by an otherworldly creature, which made me think of Lovecraft’s ‘Call of Cthulhu.’ The second story, ‘The Voice in The Night,’ deals with the madness of strange sounds, while ‘Out of the Storm’ focuses on the destructiveness of the ocean. Hodgson deserves praise for his monstrous inventiveness. His characters are frequently cast adrift and forced to face horrors like a man-eating ship and parasitic fungus.
Hodgson also explores the occult with his detective character, Carnacki. Stories like ‘The Whistling Room’ and ‘The Hog’ deal with themes of paranoia, suspense and hysteria. Carnacki is an intriguing character in that he investigates hoaxes and genuine supernatural phenomenon. His approach is built around scientific explanation, yet he employs occult tactics like drawing pentagrams in the floor. In my opinion, the strongest Carnacki tale is ‘The Horse of the Invisible,’ which blurs the line between magic and reality.
Creating a feeling of dread is Hodgson’s greatest strength. His language conjures an impending sense of doom and the reader is left pondering as to whether there really are things that go bump in the night.
However, Hodgson’s style is one of his shortcomings. In a lot of his stories it felt like he was repeating himself and some sentences felt like a slog to get through. Nevertheless, the author’s status as one of the founding fathers of weird fiction is undisputed.
The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson feature ten short stories that delve into the horror of the unknown. I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Readers with weak constitutions take heed. Here be monsters.
The collection begins with a helpful introduction from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes on Hodgson’s life. The British author died at the Battle of Ypres during the First World War, which may have been a contributing factor to why his work was lost to history for so long. Hodgson was a sailor for many years and his connection to the sea is felt throughout the anthology.
‘A Tropical Horror’ kicks of the nautical theme with a bang. An unsuspecting crew are set upon by an otherworldly creature, which made me think of Lovecraft’s ‘Call of Cthulhu.’ The second story, ‘The Voice in The Night,’ deals with the madness of strange sounds, while ‘Out of the Storm’ focuses on the destructiveness of the ocean. Hodgson deserves praise for his monstrous inventiveness. His characters are frequently cast adrift and forced to face horrors like a man-eating ship and parasitic fungus.
Hodgson also explores the occult with his detective character, Carnacki. Stories like ‘The Whistling Room’ and ‘The Hog’ deal with themes of paranoia, suspense and hysteria. Carnacki is an intriguing character in that he investigates hoaxes and genuine supernatural phenomenon. His approach is built around scientific explanation, yet he employs occult tactics like drawing pentagrams in the floor. In my opinion, the strongest Carnacki tale is ‘The Horse of the Invisible,’ which blurs the line between magic and reality.
Creating a feeling of dread is Hodgson’s greatest strength. His language conjures an impending sense of doom and the reader is left pondering as to whether there really are things that go bump in the night.
However, Hodgson’s style is one of his shortcomings. In a lot of his stories it felt like he was repeating himself and some sentences felt like a slog to get through. Nevertheless, the author’s status as one of the founding fathers of weird fiction is undisputed.
October 31, 2023
In the introduction to this volume, William Hope Hodgson is hailed as 'a key player in the development of the weird tale','a subgenre of speculative fiction concerned with the limits of human experience and the unknowability of the natural world that brings together elements of the horror, science fiction and fantasy literary traditions.
The introduction then goes on to warn the reader for the uneven quality of his work, 'prone to repetition at the level of vocabulary and content'. And alas, this turned out to be true.
Half of the stories in this volume deal with Hodgson's passion for the sea (he used to be a sailor). In a claustrophobic setting, sailors encounter nautical horrors, all too alike: it starts with funky smells and undetermined noises, moves on to weird funghi or giant sea creatures that end up consuming people.
The other stories share the same protagonist, the occult detective Carnacki. Interesting though some of his cases are, he always resolves to the same spiritual nonsense for an answer: setting up an electronic pentagram for protection. Big yawn.
No, a comparison to the master of the genre, Algernon Blackwood, is out of the question. I gladly make an exception for The voice in the night.
The introduction then goes on to warn the reader for the uneven quality of his work, 'prone to repetition at the level of vocabulary and content'. And alas, this turned out to be true.
Half of the stories in this volume deal with Hodgson's passion for the sea (he used to be a sailor). In a claustrophobic setting, sailors encounter nautical horrors, all too alike: it starts with funky smells and undetermined noises, moves on to weird funghi or giant sea creatures that end up consuming people.
The other stories share the same protagonist, the occult detective Carnacki. Interesting though some of his cases are, he always resolves to the same spiritual nonsense for an answer: setting up an electronic pentagram for protection. Big yawn.
No, a comparison to the master of the genre, Algernon Blackwood, is out of the question. I gladly make an exception for The voice in the night.
October 28, 2025
The stories in this collection fly by. There's not much character development or greater meaning in them, but they sure are fun to read. I'll remember most the one about the strange fungal growth that came to life in a derelict ship and the evil thing that possessed a man and took the form of a huge hog. That's one of three stories narrated by a psychic investigator, Carrick, who uses scientific methods and ancient symbols to ferret out spooks and pretend spooks. Some of the stories begin in medius res, and never let up. The author's ability to evoke dread and fear rivals that of one of his successors, H.P. Lovecraft. I would have read more of his stories.
May 24, 2020
The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson neatly collects 10 short horror stories from the early 20th century. I very much enjoyed the stories which were set at sea and also some of the stories which involved occult detective Carnacki, but towards the end I started to find the writing style a little repetitive and struggled to finish the book. By the midpoint of the book I wasn't exactly in the mood for horror stories and as such this probably reflects in my mediocre score for the book. This is perhaps one I will have to reread in the future.
October 10, 2022
Absolutely incredible stuff. At the least each story is unnerving, at it’s best outright terrifying. Hodgson’s prose is sometimes rough but his storytelling is chock full of ideas, mood, and atmosphere. Can’t wait to dig in and read some more of his. British Library, please keep issuing these collections of Weird Fiction!
October 31, 2023
I'm never disappointed by William Hope Hodgson. An excellent collection. Stories included in this collection are:
A Tropical Horror
The Voice in the Night
Out of the Storm
The Gateway of the Monster
The Horse of the Invisible
The Whistling Room
The Derelict
The Thing in the Weeds
The Hog
The Riven Night
A Tropical Horror
The Voice in the Night
Out of the Storm
The Gateway of the Monster
The Horse of the Invisible
The Whistling Room
The Derelict
The Thing in the Weeds
The Hog
The Riven Night
April 8, 2024
Another great collection. Seems that Hodgson has two types of weird short stories:
1.something horrific and undreamt of at sea.
2.his consulting detective of the supernatural, Carnacki
And that's totally fine by me. Both provide a wealth of chills
1.something horrific and undreamt of at sea.
2.his consulting detective of the supernatural, Carnacki
And that's totally fine by me. Both provide a wealth of chills
July 22, 2019
Not nearly as good as the weird tales by HP Lovecraft.
October 19, 2019
Interesting anthology, although some stories might look very similar to one another.
October 5, 2023
I loved these stories of weird and wonderful. My favourite being The Thing in the Weed.
April 26, 2024
Brilliant collection, wonderful tales. House in the borderlands would have been better if shortened to the length of some of these tales.
I see a returning theme with it and The Hog.
I see a returning theme with it and The Hog.
June 24, 2024
Found a couple of the stories rather dull but was a fair read for the most part
November 17, 2024
Ripetitivo
September 16, 2025
✔️The Voice in the Dawn, 9/16/2025
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