The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Before the madness locked within the Necronomicon, before the unmasking of the King in Yellow was unmasked as something else, before the first whispers of the black waters of Hali lapping the shores beside doomed Carcosa...before Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth and the rest, there was William Hope Hodgson, and there was The House on the Borderland.
Amazon:
‘...The book is a milestone that signals a radical departure from the typical gothic supernatural fiction of the late 19th century. Hodgson creates a newer more realistic/scientific cosmic horror that left a marked impression on the people who would become the great writers of the weird tales of the middle of the 20th century, most notably Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft.’
DC Comics:
‘This adaptation of William Hope Hodgson’s timeless 1908 horror classic gains new depth and realism through its graphic storytelling in the comic book genre. In this tale of fantasy, science fiction, and occult horror, two backpackers discover the decaying diary of an elderly man in the ruins of an old Irish manor. As they read aloud from the manuscript, they witness Byron Gault’s haunting adventures in a hidden cavern beneath his house. Battling cloven-hoofed half-humans and journeying to a parallel reality, Gault, along with his sister and faithful canine, lead a life of horrific supernatural occurrences and eternal terror.’
Goodreads:
‘A manuscript is found: filled with small, precise writing and smelling of pit-water, it tells the story of an old recluse and his strange home — and its even stranger, jade-green double, seen by the recluse on an otherworldly plain where gigantic gods and monsters roam.
Soon his more earthly home is no less terrible than his bizarre vision, as swine-like creatures boil from a cavern beneath the ground and besiege it. But a still greater horror will face the recluse — more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.’
Worth noting for readers of the ‘New Wave’ writers of fantasy and science fiction, one author, Roger Zelazny, specifically cited Hodgson as an inspiration for his 1981 fantasy novel The Changing Land, which concludes the adventures (begun in the fix-up novel Dilvish, the Damned) of Dilvish, a hero out of time. (Dilvish, tangled up in the machinations of the Elder Gods, is as much involved in the Cthulhu Mythos as Jack from A Night in the Lonesome October.) It might also be worth noting that Hodgson is known for another ahead-of-its-time work, The Night Land, and connections between it and The House on the Borderland with Zelazny’s novel would be hard to ignore.
The dedication for The Changing Land reads:
To Stephen Gregg, Stuart David Schiff, and Lin Carter, who, in that order, called Dilvish back from the smoky lands; and to the shade of William Hope Hodgson, who came along for the ride, bringing friends.
For those interested in The House on the Borderland:
Project Gutenberg: The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
For those interested in The Night Land:
Project Gutenberg: The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
And for those curious about the hero whose career Zelazny charted before turning to another knight on a vengeance quest (who sometimes went by the name Carl Corey), excerpts from, and minor commentary on, the story of Dilvish can be found starting here:
Intro to “A Knight for Merytha” by Roger Zelazny
