About this title: Living in a bizarre, secluded mansion with his (possibly) insane sister and a number of cats, an old man begins to question his own sanity following a series of increasingly unsettling events. Written in 1908 and told through a framed narrative, THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND was a major influence on H.P. Lovecraft in its use of alternate realities, other-dimensional monsters, and bottomless pits from which Evil rises, unthwarted.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass market pb
Publisher: Ace, U. S. A.
Date Published: 1962
Description: Very Good. No dust jacket, as issued. a near fine book, has very minor edging and tanning. Unknown printing. Illustrated by. 159 p p. ; Ace D-553. read more
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. creases on cover (front and back) but spine uncracked. Good reading copy. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. Lovecraft calls this "a classic". He was right. Very creepy (and fun) novel. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Manor Books, New York
Date Published: 1977
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. (032906) Mass market paperback has a shadow crease upper right corner, otherwise in Near Mint condition. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: New. Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas. GREAT BUY. Brand New From US Distributor. WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 3, 500, 000 BOOKS SOLD. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Dover Pubns
Date Published: 2008-08-08
ISBN-13:9780486468792ISBN:0486468798
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780486468792. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Panther Books 1972
Date Published: 1972
ISBN-13:9780586026823ISBN:0586026827
Description: ISBN 0586026827. Mass Market Paperback Later Printing. Previous owners name and address in ink on the top of the front inside cover and some browning to the interior pages, otherwise a Tight sound unmarked copy in Good condition. Pretty much a tight sound reading copy. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: London: Grafton, 1990, 1st Printing
ISBN-13:9780586208632ISBN:0586208631
Description: Luis Rey Cover Art. Very Good+ -----------paperback, a very nice Very Good+ copy, wonderful Luis Rey cover art, any image directly beside this listing is the actual book and not a generic photo. read more
Edition: Unabridged.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Manor Books Inc.
Date Published: 1977
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Book #15304 Cover clean with soft corner creases. Price marked on first page corner. No other markings. Tight binding. Trade paperback (US). Radical Tradition in America. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Soft Editions
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781843500735ISBN:1843500736
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"This story is inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft in the way the Torah is inspiration to rabbis. It's drop-dead fascinating, with its wordy descriptions and imagination-bending worlds and experiences. It is a cold and mysterious work. It's singular. I see now not just Lovecraft writes horror and speculative fiction that rattles your sense of self and creates a sense of intense loneliness. This one does Lovecraft even better, with a protagonist who's not motivated most by curiosity but by longing for something he can only get in this horrid, forsaken home in the woods."
"First published a century ago last year, I tracked down the old Panther edition with the Ian Miller cover as opposed to this monstrosity. There's also a Richard Corben-adapted graphic novel I want to find. Cosmic horror that inspired Lovecraft, a more thorough write-up exists somewhere on my laptop so once I dig that up I'll post it separately."
"I discovered William Hope Hodgson initially as the author of one of the better stories in Cuddon's Penguin Book of Horror Stories, 'The Derelict', an atmospheric tale of sea-going monstrosity. He is also the author of the pulp series, 'Carnacki the Ghost Finder'.
Hodgson is an oddity and this is an odd story. He falls somewhere between the pulp author and the classic, not quite making the ranks of the latter but with ideas that can often take him over the line into at least the second rank of the literature of the uncanny.
A couple of Edwardian young gentleman go on a fishing and camping trip to the far West of Ireland which might as well be Tibet or Transylvania for all its connection with the 'modern world'. They discover a sinister ruin and a manuscript seemingly written by a madman which proceeds to tell of 'eldritch' horrors (Lovecraft's oft-repeated term is well used here since he seems to have considered the book a 'classic of the first water').
Since we are not into spoilers we will not tell more of the narrative but the reader should be warned that a good proportion of the book is taken up with a description of other dimensions and space-time that can only be understood as an attempt to translate Edwardian spiritual and theological concepts into the new science of astronomy.
First published in 1908. it sits, in this respect, somewhere between the severe scientific 'truth' of H. G. Wells' 'Time Machine' (a far superior book) of 1895 and the exceptionally dramatic but not at all religious space opera of Olaf Stapledon, the 'Star Maker' of 1937. Unfortunately, after reading Wells, Hodgson's approach already seems very old-fashioned, with hints perhaps of a debt to Swedenborg and imagery that is on the edge of reproducing the spectacular canvases of Martin rather than presenting something that is a credible horror based on science. This is a story of the old dark house and of received visions of heaven and hell, pits and all. It is the literary equivalent of standard Hollywood creep-outs.
The book should perhaps best be seen as a step not towards science fiction but towards Lovecraft, the master of terror, whose own world will manage to remove all the supernatural and spiritual elements implicit in the nineteenth century tradition and replace them with the idea of a universe that is meaningless, loveless and perfectly comprehensible, albeit not always by mere humans.
Recently re-issued as part of a series of minor and not-so-minor horror classics by Penguin in the UK, 'The House on the Borderland' is one for the library and for reading as part of one's general education in the history of the Anglo-Saxon horror genre but I suspect that most readers will find it clumsy in places and over-elaborate.
The horror is also mitigated a great deal by our being unable to get into the mind-set of the Christian believer, who might have a literal fear of hell and hope of heaven, of just over a century ago, while the love aspect now strikes us as merely sentimental. However, if you do believe in traditional Christian theology and have some knowledge of astronomy, then this might, just might, give you a sleepless night."
"A dark and mysterious horror of cosmic proportions besets a man living in the "house on the borderland" that presides over a bottomless pit. Hodgson successfully builds up the tension and horror throughout the book marred only by a strange interlude in which the pace of the story is brought to a crawl. In order to enjoy this bit you really need to just immerse yourself in the narrative and try hard to visualise and conceptualise all that is being described.
The book picks up pace again for the conclusion and it's horrific finish. What does it all mean, you may be left pondering. Very little is really explained and it is left to the reader to piece it together and (perhaps) draw their own conclusions.
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