The House on the Borderland

William Hope Hodgson

1908

Review Whilst on a fishing trip in the darkest depths of Ireland, a couple of young men found an underground waterfall set amidst the ruins of extensive gardens. Looking round, they find the ruins of a house and in these a solidly locked heavy chest. Taking it back with them to their campsite, they open it to find a manuscript.

The chest contains a great number of pages that purport to tell the story of the last owner of the house, and a strange story it is too!

After having bought the pile as a place to hide away from the world, the elderly man and his sister have a life style they like. Falling asleep in his study one evening, the man has a strange dream of a giant house that is the spitting image of his own, except on a much more massive scale, and it's under attack by Swine like creatures. The Owner finds that the creatures can sense his disembodied presence and he has to make a hasty retreat.

One day, while out walking with his dog, the Owner finds the dog interested in a nearby ravine and following it down to the bottom the pair are attacked by a strange swine like creature. The Owner is startled to find that the creature looks like those that he had dreamt about so recently. Fearing the worst, he retreats to his home, which he hastily fortifies.

The siege of the house is touch and go for a while, but the creatures finally retreat. After ascertaining that they had really gone, the Owner returns to the scene of the initial confrontation to find that the ravine was flooding. After a close escape, he returns shaken to his house with his trusty hound.

Once there, he is caught up in a strange event that he first thought was another dream, but finally realises is as real as you can consider these things as years, centuries, millennia and finally aeons flood past his entranced gaze. Forward to to the far future where he espies the original house of which his own residence was a minuscule scale model.

But was his experience real, or 'just' a vision brought on by the strain of the attacks?

As well as The House on the Borderland, this edition includes The Night Land: A Love Tale and The Ghost Ship.

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This is part of the Fantasy Masterworks series.

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