The second of the five-volume set, The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places, collects Hodgson’s mystery and suspense fiction, including those starring the occult detective Thomas Carnacki, and the titular novel The House on the Borderland, a seminal and influential work of early weird fiction.
Two friends on a fishing trip discover a manuscript that chronicles a tale of cosmic horror in the ruins of an oddly shaped house at the edge of an abyss in a remote Irish landscape. The manuscript describes the apparent descent into madness of its author, a recluse who, according to his strange account, witnesses the destruction of the solar system and time itself. The House on the Borderland is a singular work that transcends Gothic-style psychological haunting to introduce a modern, evocative blend of horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
“An enduring classic of cosmic terror.”
—Ramsey Campbell
“The Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer.”
—Terry Pratchett
“Few can equal [Hodgson] in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities through casual hints and significant details, or in conveying feelings of the spectral and abnormal.”
—H. P. Lovecraft
