The October Book Beat reading group selection is The House on the Borderland (1908), a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson. The meeting will take place at Book Beat instore or on Zoom Wednesday November 5 at 7 p.m. The reading group is free and open to the public. Copies are in stock now and discounted 15%. Thank you for your support!
A hallucinatory weird tale of a recluse’s stay at a remote house, and his experiences of supernatural creatures and otherworldly dimensions.
It was a place shunned by the people of the village…a synonym of all that is unholy and dreadful… I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. -The House on the Borderland
“What make it a classic of its genre, a Book Which Shall Be Remembered, are Hodgson’s remarkable, captivating construction of the book’s settings and his steady building of a mood of mounting dread, vulnerability, and helplessness before unknown cosmic forces.”
–Fantastical Mr. Fox
“No one conveys the existential loneliness of man in a vast, incomprehensible, creepy and evil universe better than Hodgson.”
—Bewildering Stories
William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was a novelist and short-story writer whose pioneering works such as The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” (1907) and The Night Land (1912) are now regarded as foundational texts in the history of weird fiction which often featured themes of cosmic horror and explored the unknown. An experienced sailor, Hodgson’s life at sea directly influenced his writings. He also created the character of the supernatural detective Thomas Carnacki and authored cosmic horror classics such as The House on the Borderland. After a brief career as a bodybuilder, photographer, and lecturer, he joined the army and was killed in action during World War I.
Ann VanderMeer is an American publisher and editor, and the second female editor of the horror magazine Weird Tales. She is the founder of Buzzcity Press. Work from her press and related periodicals has won the British Fantasy Award, the International Rhysling Award, and appeared in several years’ best anthologies. She lives in Tallahassee.