A conversational review by Sam Gafford & The joey Zone
Gafford and Zone were participants in William Hope Hodgson: An Appreciation, a panel held at 2017’s NecronomiCon in Providence. Sam, in particular, has been one of the main authorities on the writer and his work editing the critical watershed WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND.
Swan River Press is an independent small press publisher based in Dublin, Ireland dedicated to supernatural and fantastic literature. It is responsible for high quality editions of authors such as Bram Stoker, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and the journal THE GREEN BOOK. This is a noteworthy appearance of Hodgson’s novel, not only in its deluxe presentation, but coming out now with the renewed and deserved popularity of the writer in this year, 140 years since his birth and 100 since his death.
Let this conversation not only serve as a fitting coda then to this Year of Hodgson but also to further discussion…
Sam Gafford: One hundred years after his death in WWI 1918, William Hope Hodgson still struggles for critical and popular acknowledgement. Despite his status as a pioneer of horror and science fiction literature, he still remains unknown to many. But, thanks to the efforts of people like Brian Showers from Swan River Press, his name stretches farther and farther each year.
Hodgson (1877-1918) lived a remarkable life by anyone’s standards. He ran away to sea at the age of 13 and joined the Merchant Marine. For ten years, he sailed the seas in what has become known as the last great age of sailing ships. He circumnavigated the globe several times, saved a crewman from shark infested waters off the coast of Australia, was a pioneer of the very early science of maritime photography (credited with taking the first pictures of ‘stalk lightning’ which is a phenomena where lightning rises from the ocean during a storm up into the sky), and even achieved his Second Mate’s certificate. However, bitter and disillusioned, Hodgson left the sea in 1900, never to return other than in his writings.
Back home in Blackburn, Hodgson opened a ‘School for Physical Culture’ (which closed shortly after a controversial attempt by Hodgson to shackle the great magician Houdini that Houdini would describe as the most brutal treatment he had ever received during his many handcuff challenges) and then became a writer. His writing ‘life’ was brief. He wrote for basically only fourteen or so years from 1902 to 1916 when he joined the British Army to fight in WWI. And, even then, there is evidence to indicate that his best and greatest work was done early during this time and probably completed around 1905-1906. This would include his four novels, Carnacki stories and several of his best known works like “The Voice in the Night”.
Despite his raw imagination and talent, Hodgson never attained ‘best-seller’ status as indicated by the drop in publishers as time went on. Although his work often received favorable critical notices, he never caught the fancy of the reading majority which was something that perplexed and depressed him. While contemporary writers like Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and others were being embraced as the giants in a new literary field, Hodgson was left by the wayside.
The joey Zone: Even giants such as these need perennial literary renewal. Lovecraft, as another example, went from Arkham House , to Ballantine , with smaller imprints in between, before finally gaining a more permanent ‘list status’ as a Penguin Classic.
Sam Gafford: Of his four novels, THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is perhaps Hodgson’s most famous and influential work. Telling the story of a recluse in a house in remote Ireland via the discovery of a lost manuscript found among ruins, it is a piece of literature that stubbornly refuses categorization, summation or even examination. In parts adventure novel and other parts conscious expanding science fiction, it has captured readers ever since its first publication in 1908. It is a work that can mean many different things to many different readers and each interpretation can be just as valid and worthy as the next. It has influenced many writers and received accolades from others including H. P. Lovecraft in his ground-breaking essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. According to the official Hodgson bibliography, published in WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: VOICES FROM THE BORDERLAND (Hippocampus Press, 2014), it has appeared in no less than 45 editions which doesn’t even include the many Print On Demand versions of dubious and questionable merit.
The joey Zone: Artist John Coulthart was interviewed in ESOTERRA #9 magazine in 2000. He brought up the idea of doing ”an illustrated edition of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND (originally for Savoy Press)…we’re intending that this should be as definitive as we can make it.” On his seminal blog Feuilleton in 2010 he followed up that with “ I’ve been talking for years about doing a series of illustrations for HoTB and may yet make good on that threat: never say never.”
In other words…we’ve been waiting 18 years for this!
Sam Gafford: All of them, and anyone in the future considering reprinting THE HOUSE ON BORDERLAND, can now pack it in and give up the ghost because Swan River Press has produced the best version ever. There is no need for any other for none will match this triumph.
Beginning with an effective and atmospheric cover by John Coulthart (and, believe me, most previous editions DON’T have appropriate covers like the paperback with an ear of corn in the foreground and a farm scene in the back), you know that this is a production of superior quality. Here is a publisher who is giving the work the respect and dedication it deserves.
The joey Zone: There are a LOT of deluxe versions of Lovecraft, Poe, etc. THIS HoTB is really….incomparable. The bar has been raised on Hodgsonian illustration. Collectors of the many editions of THE HOUSE such as Gafford (and Brian Showers) call this…an affliction. We would posit the term affection.
Sam Gafford: The famed writer, Alan Moore (who is himself a Hodgson fan and has included Carnacki in his LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series), provides a thought-provoking introduction to the novel which effectively summarizes Hodgson’s life and places the novel in perspective of both its own time and today. Moore makes the brilliant observation that THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is a literary equivalent of the recent ‘found footage’ film type and discusses it as a piece of psychogeography. Moore also wrote an introduction to the graphic novel adaptation of the novel by Richard Corben which is worth checking out but his essay here is new and written specifically for this edition.
Next comes a beautifully designed text with stunning artwork by John Coulthart. It would be easy for me to say that, so far, none have come as close as Coulthart in capturing the spirit and terror of Hodgson’s writing. The very first plate is especially stunning and evocative.
The joey Zone: The illustration for the “Searching of The Gardens” chapter is reminiscent of the work of Thomas Cole in its quiet yet sinister sublimity. This edition’s images go beyond the usual delineations of swine things into the visionary tableaus encountered by the narrator.
Sam Gafford: All of Coulthart’s illustrations should be collected and printed as a separate portfolio of prints. Some editions of the book also include a CD of accompanying music by Jon Mueller which provide an appropriately moody addition to the experience.
The joey Zone: An elephant folio would do justice to the detail! The illustrator engendered quite a “Annus Mirabilis” in 2017: As of December, John ‘only’ did at ‘least’ 87 or so illustrations including Editorial Alma’s Spanish edition of Edgar Allan Poe with definitive versions of the tales that surpass some images by Wilfred Satty and even Harry Clarke.
In a way, this presentation of THE HOUSE could be compared to Savoy Books’ edition of David Lindsay’s A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, the plus being that he fully illustrated the text as well. Coulthart said of the binding: “Nothing elaborate, a solarized collage of Gothic window and a starry sky”—yet! that more than succeeds in emphasizing the cosmic dimension as much as the horror. The latter usually overwhelms the former when it comes to illustration of this work even though its only about half of the novel. It is almost a crime then that a dust wrapper covers the boards on this!
Sam Gafford: Finishing the book is a reprint of an essay by Iain Sinclair which appeared in an earlier edition of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND. Sinclair’s thoughts are interesting and provocative and, although I’m not sure I agree with them, are worth reading.
The joey Zone: All of William Hope Hodgson’s work engenders depth: In discussion towards differing interpretations. The perennial renewal of his visionary art is justified in following years as well as this one. In other words, this is just the start of the conversation on “Hope”!
Sam Gafford: I wish that all of Hodgson’s novels could receive such an appreciative and affectionate reprint. How wonderful would that be to see them lined up on my bookshelf as the pinnacle of Hodgson editions? For now, we need to be grateful to Brian Showers and Swan River Press for this handsome volume of one of the most truly unique novels in the history of horror or science fiction.