Born in the UK, he spent nine years at sea as a Merchant Seaman between 1891 and 1899. His first published story was "The Goddess of Death" published in 1904 in Royal Magazine. This was a mystery, but it was not long before he started drawing on his maritime experiences. Not all of these stories were supernatural, but all drew on the loneliness and otherness of the deep seas. The most atmospheric of his stories is reckoned to be The Ghost Pirates (1909) which tells of an ill-fated vessel haunted by an other dimensionally craft.
He wrote two intense works; The House on the Borderland and The Night Land: A Love Tale, which tells of a dying Earth. Hodgson remained in print for a while after his death, but gradually went out of print before being rediscovered in the thirties and was a mainstay of August Derlith's Arkham House.
His works bridge the gap between the supernatural romances of the mid eighteen hundreds and the scientific rationalisations of the early nineteen hundreds.
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