Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson Read online

  The Complete Works of

  WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

  (1877-1918)

  Contents

  The Novels

  THE BOATS OF THE “GLEN CARRIG”

  THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND

  THE GHOST PIRATES

  THE NIGHT LAND

  THE DREAM OF X

  The Shorter Fiction

  CARNACKI, THE GHOST-FINDER

  MEN OF THE DEEP WATERS

  THE LUCK OF THE STRONG

  CAPTAIN GAULT, BEING THE EXCEEDINGLY PRIVATE LOG OF A SEA-CAPTAIN

  SARGASSO SEA STORIES

  The Short Stories

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Poetry Collections

  INTRODUCTION TO THE POETRY

  THE GHOST PIRATES, A CHAUNTY, AND ANOTHER STORY

  “POEMS” AND “THE DREAM OF X”

  THE CALLING OF THE SEA

  THE VOICE OF THE OCEAN

  The Poems

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Non-Fiction

  THE BAUMOFF EXPLOSIVE

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2015

  Version 1

  The Complete Works of

  WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

  By Delphi Classics, 2015

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2015.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

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  The Novels

  The village of Blackmore End, Essex — where Hodgson was born in 1877

  A promotional shot of Hodgson, taken to promote his School of Physical Culture in Blackburn; it was the realisation that his School was failing as a money-making enterprise that led Hodgson to take up writing as a means of subsistence

  THE BOATS OF THE “GLEN CARRIG”

  Originally published in 1907, this horror novel was Hodgson’s first full-length fictional work. The novel’s full title is: “The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’: Being an account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John Winterstraw, Gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript.” As this title suggests, the novel is written in an archaic style and is presented as a true account, written in 1757, of events occurring earlier. The narrator is a passenger that was travelling on the ship Glen Carrig, which was lost at sea when it struck “a hidden rock” (no other explanation is given) and the episodic narrative recounts the adventures of the survivors, who escaped the wreck in two lifeboats.

  Although memorably recounting a number of fantastically horrific encounters with strange creatures, the novel is peppered with details designed to create the illusion of a genuine ‘found manuscript’. Among these is the realistic use of nautical terminology and an emulation of eighteenth-century literary style. Perhaps most effective, however, is the way in which the narrative begins in media res (i.e. ‘in the middle of the action’). No detailed account is given of how the “Glen Carrig” was lost or what happened to the rest of the crew – it is as if the reader is given only a partial account, as if part of the manuscript is missing, or has been edited by a third party. This adds to the disorientating effect of the novel’s surreal, dreamlike atmosphere of nightmarish, unknown terror. Hodgson would use a similar technique in his most famous novel, The House on the Borderland. Intriguingly, the novel is identified by critic and author China Miéville as the first to establish the tentacle as a source of horror and dread!

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  I. The Land of Lonesomeness

  II. The Ship in the Creek

  III. The Thing That Made Search

  IV. The Two Faces

  V. The Great Storm

  VI. The Weed-Choked Sea

  VII. The Island in the Weed

  VIII. The Noises in the Valley

  IX. What Happened in the Dusk

  X. The Light in the Weed

  XI. The Signals from the Ship

  XII. The Making of the Great Bow

  XIII. The Weed Men

  XIV. In Communication

  XV. Aboard the Hulk

  XVI. Freed

  XVII. How We Came to Our Own Country

  As a teenager, Hodgson was apprenticed as a cabin boy, beginning his early career as a sailor – an experience which would shape much of his later fiction

  THE BOATS OF THE ‘GLEN CARRIG’

  Being an account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John Winterstraw, Gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript.

  By William Hope Hodgson

  1907

  Madre Mia

  People may say thou art no longer young

  And yet, to me, thy youth was yesterday,

  A yesterday that seems

  Still mingled with my dreams.

  Ah! how the years have o’er thee flung

  Their soft mantilla, grey.

  And e’en to them thou art not over old;

  How could’st thou be! Thy hair

  Hast scarcely lost its deep old glorious dark:

  Thy face is scarcely lined. No mark

  Destroys its calm serenity. Like gold

  Of evening light, when winds scarce stir,

  The soul-light of thy face is pure as prayer.

  I. The Land of Lonesomeness

  Now we had been five days in the boats, and in all this time made no discovering of land. Then upon the morning of the sixth day came there a cry from the bo’sun, who had the command of the lifeboat, that there was something which might be land afar upon our larboard bow; but it was very low lying, and none could tell whether it was land or but a morning cloud. Yet, because there was the beginning of hope within our hearts, we pulled wearily towards it, and thus, in about an hour, discovered it to be indeed the coast of some flat country.

  Then, it might be a little after the hour of midday, we had come so close to it that we could distinguish with ease what manner of land lay beyond the shore, and thus we found it to be of an abominable flatness, desolate beyond all that I could have imagined. Here and there it appeared to be covered with clumps of queer vegetation; though whether they were small trees or great bushes, I had no means of telling; but this I know, that they were like unto nothing which ever I had set eyes upon before.

  So much as this I gathe
red as we pulled slowly along the coast, seeking an opening whereby we could pass inward to the land; but a weary time passed or ere we came upon that which we sought. Yet, in the end, we found it — a slimy-banked creek, which proved to be the estuary of a great river, though we spoke of it always as a creek. Into this we entered, and proceeded at no great pace upwards along its winding course; and as we made forward, we scanned the low banks upon each side, perchance there might be some spot where we could make to land; but we found none — the banks being composed of a vile mud which gave us no encouragement to venture rashly upon them.

  Now, having taken the boat something over a mile up the great creek, we came upon the first of that vegetation which I had chanced to notice from the sea, and here, being within some score yards of it, we were the better able to study it. Thus I found that it was indeed composed largely of a sort of tree, very low and stunted, and having what might be described as an unwholesome look about it. The branches of this tree, I perceived to be the cause of my inability to recognize it from a bush, until I had come close upon it; for they grew thin and smooth through all their length, and hung towards the earth; being weighted thereto by a single, large cabbage-like plant which seemed to sprout from the extreme tip of each.

  Presently, having passed beyond this clump of the vegetation, and the banks of the river remaining very low, I stood me upon a thwart, by which means I was enabled to scan the surrounding country. This I discovered, so far as my sight could penetrate, to be pierced in all directions with innumerable creeks and pools, some of these latter being very great of extent; and, as I have before made mention, everywhere the country was low set — as it might be a great plain of mud; so that it gave me a sense of dreariness to look out upon it. It may be, all unconsciously, that my spirit was put in awe by the extreme silence of all the country around; for in all that waste I could see no living thing, neither bird nor vegetable, save it be the stunted trees, which, indeed, grew in clumps here and there over all the land, so much as I could see.

  This silence, when I grew fully aware of it was the more uncanny; for my memory told me that never before had I come upon a country which contained so much quietness. Nothing moved across my vision — not even a lone bird soared up against the dull sky; and, for my hearing, not so much as the cry of a sea-bird came to me — no! nor the croak of a frog, nor the plash of a fish. It was as though we had come upon the Country of Silence, which some have called the Land of Lonesomeness.

  Now three hours had passed whilst we ceased not to labor at the oars, and we could no more see the sea; yet no place fit for our feet had come to view, for everywhere the mud, grey and black, surrounded us — encompassing us veritably by a slimy wilderness. And so we were fain to pull on, in the hope that we might come ultimately to firm ground.

  Then, a little before sundown, we halted upon our oars, and made a scant meal from a portion of our remaining provisions; and as we ate, I could see the sun sinking away over the wastes, and I had some slight diversion in watching the grotesque shadows which it cast from the trees into the water upon our larboard side; for we had come to a pause opposite a clump of the vegetation. It was at this time, as I remember, that it was borne in upon me afresh how very silent was the land; and that this was not due to my imagination, I remarked that the men both in our own and in the bo’sun’s boat, seemed uneasy because of it; for none spoke save in undertones, as though they had fear of breaking it.

  And it was at this time, when I was awed by so much solitude, that there came the first telling of life in all that wilderness. I heard it first in the far distance, away inland — a curious, low, sobbing note it was, and the rise and the fall of it was like to the sobbing of a lonesome wind through a great forest. Yet was there no wind. Then, in a moment, it had died, and the silence of the land was awesome by reason of the contrast. And I looked about me at the men, both in the boat in which I was and that which the bo’sun commanded; and not one was there but held himself in a posture of listening. In this wise a minute of quietness passed, and then one of the men gave out a laugh, born of the nervousness which had taken him.

  The bo’sun muttered to him to hush, and, in the same moment, there came again the plaint of that wild sobbing. And abruptly it sounded away on our right, and immediately was caught up, as it were, and echoed back from some place beyond us afar up the creek. At that, I got me upon a thwart, intending to take another look over the country about us; but the banks of the creek had become higher; moreover the vegetation acted as a screen, even had my stature and elevation enabled me to overlook the banks.

  And so, after a little while, the crying died away, and there was another silence. Then, as we sat each one harking for what might next befall, George, the youngest ‘prentice boy, who had his seat beside me, plucked me by the sleeve, inquiring in a troubled voice whether I had any knowledge of that which the crying might portend; but I shook my head, telling him that I had no knowing beyond his own; though, for his comfort, I said that it might be the wind. Yet, at that, he shook his head; for indeed, it was plain that it could not be by such agency, for there was a stark calm.

  Now, I had scarce made an end of my remark, when again the sad crying was upon us. It appeared to come from far up the creek, and from far down the creek, and from inland and the land between us and the sea. It filled the evening air with its doleful wailing, and I remarked that there was in it a curious sobbing, most human in its despairful crying. And so awesome was the thing that no man of us spoke; for it seemed that we harked to the weeping of lost souls. And then, as we waited fearfully, the sun sank below the edge of the world, and the dusk was upon us.

  And now a more extraordinary thing happened; for, as the night fell with swift gloom, the strange wailing and crying was hushed, and another sound stole out upon the land — a far, sullen growling. At the first, like the crying, it came from far inland; but was caught up speedily on all sides of us, and presently the dark was full of it. And it increased in volume, and strange trumpetings fled across it. Then, though with slowness, it fell away to a low, continuous growling, and in it there was that which I can only describe as an insistent, hungry snarl. Aye! no other word of which I have knowledge so well describes it as that — a note of hunger, most awesome to the ear. And this, more than all the rest of those incredible voicings, brought terror into my heart.

  Now as I sat listening, George gripped me suddenly by the arm, declaring in a shrill whisper that something had come among the clump of trees upon the left-hand bank. Of the truth of this, I had immediately a proof; for I caught the sound of a continuous rustling among them, and then a nearer note of growling, as though a wild beast purred at my elbow. Immediately upon this, I caught the bo’sun’s voice, calling in a low tone to Josh, the eldest ‘prentice, who had the charge of our boat, to come alongside of him; for he would have the boats together. Then got we out the oars and laid the boats together in the midst of the creek; and so we watched through the night, being full of fear, so that we kept our speech low; that is, so low as would carry our thoughts one to the other through the noise of the growling.

  And so the hours passed, and naught happened more than I have told, save that once, a little after midnight, the trees opposite to us seemed to be stirred again, as though some creature, or creatures, lurked among them; and there came, a little after that, a sound as of something stirring the water up against the bank; but it ceased in a while and the silence fell once more.

  Thus, after a weariful time, away Eastwards the sky began to tell of the coming of the day; and, as the light grew and strengthened, so did that insatiable growling pass hence with the dark and the shadows. And so at last came the day, and once more there was borne to us the sad wailing that had preceded the night. For a certain while it lasted, rising and falling most mournfully over the vastness of the surrounding wastes, until the sun was risen some degrees above the horizon; after which it began to fail, dying away in lingering echoes, most solemn to our ears. And so it passed, and there
came again the silence that had been with us in all the daylight hours.

  Now, it being day, the bo’sun bade us make such sparse breakfast as our provender allowed; after which, having first scanned the banks to discern if any fearful thing were visible, we took again to our oars, and proceeded on our upward journey; for we hoped presently to come upon a country where life had not become extinct, and where we could put foot to honest earth. Yet, as I have made mention earlier, the vegetation, where it grew, did flourish most luxuriantly; so that I am scarce correct when I speak of life as being extinct in that land. For, indeed, now I think of it, I can remember that the very mud from which it sprang seemed veritably to have a fat, sluggish life of its own, so rich and viscid was it.

  Presently it was midday; yet was there but little change in the nature of the surrounding wastes; though it may be that the vegetation was something thicker, and more continuous along the banks. But the banks were still of the same thick, clinging mud; so that nowhere could we effect a landing; though, had we, the rest of the country beyond the banks seemed no better.

  And all the while, as we pulled, we glanced continuously from bank to bank; and those who worked not at the oars were fain to rest a hand by their sheath-knives; for the happenings of the past night were continually in our minds, and we were in great fear; so that we had turned back to the sea but that we had come so nigh to the end of our provisions.

  II. The Ship in the Creek

  Then, it was nigh on to evening, we came upon a creek opening into the greater one through the bank upon our left. We had been like to pass it — as, indeed, we had passed many throughout the day — but that the bo’sun, whose boat had the lead, cried out that there was some craft lying-up, a little beyond the first bend. And, indeed, so it seemed; for one of the masts of her — all jagged, where it had carried away — stuck up plain to our view.