The House on the Borderland Illustrated
- ISBN-10
- ISBN-13
- 9798499243763
- Series
- The House on the Borderland Illustrated
- Pages
- 170
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-10-18
- Author
- William Hope Hodgson
Description
The House on the Borderland (1908) is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson. The novel is a hallucinatory account of a recluse's stay at a remote house, and his experiences of supernatural creatures and otherworldly dimensions. On encountering Hodgson's novels in 1934, American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft praised The House on the Borderland and other works by Hodgson at length, and Terry Pratchett has called the novel "the Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer". Two men on a two-week fishing vacation in remote western Ireland are surprised to discover a strange abyss. On a rock spur above this pit they find ruins and buried in them a journal, which they read. The author of the journal introduces himself as an old man who has lived for years in an ancient house accompanied only by his sister, who serves as housekeeper, and his dog, Pepper. He has no contact with the local inhabitants, who say he is mad. The house is circular in form and its weird appearance includes peculiar decorations that suggest leaping flames. It has had an evil reputation for centuries and had been empty for many years when he purchased it. The diary will record his strange experiences and thoughts. Late one night, as he was reading in his study, the light suddenly turned green and then red. Pepper hid under his chair and he sat still, frightened. The red light went low, and he was no longer afraid. The far side of the room became a vision of a vast empty plain. He floated like a bubble into space, leaving the earth and sun behind as he traveled into utter darkness and despair. He reached the world of the vast plain, whose sun is a wreath of red flame. He was brought to an arena: an immense green jade copy of his own house, at the center of a circle miles across, circled by mountains containing hundreds of huge idols of Beast-gods and Horrors. As he nears the huge building, a humanoid creature with the repellent head and face of a huge swine is trying to get into the House. The Swine-creature suddenly and horribly moves toward him, but he is borne upward, then reverses his travel through space to return to his study. Several months later, horrible man-sized creatures with dead-white skin emerge from a nearby Pit and assault the House. The Swine-Things are strong and intelligent but are unable to break in; after a night and day in which the Recluse kills some of them they disappear. He is terrified by the violent creatures and he waits several days before leaving the House with Pepper to search the former gardens outside. A week later, he and Pepper explore the Pit that appears to be the source of the Swine-Things. A tunnel leads to an immensely deep abyss. Water flows down the tunnel and the struggle of wading against it to get back out is exhausting. Two weeks afterwards the Pit has become a lake. He revisits a trap door in the Cellar, realizing that it opens to the bottomless abyss.
