The House on the Borderland
$25,000 · Offered by Biblio
First edition · Signed
London: Chapman and Hall, 1908. First Edition. Very Good. First edition, first printing. Signed by William Hope Hodgson on the front free endpaper and inscribed at the time of publication, "Jim, from Hope. May 5th -/08." The book was released in May of 1908, the earliest mention of it we could locate in a newspaper appears on May 6th. Bound in publisher's original ribbed maroon cloth ruled in blind and stamped in gilt. Very Good with fading to spine, light wear to cloth at extremities. Offsetting to endsheets, small chip to margin of front free endpaper and two clippings of a pre-publication review mounted to verso there. Tanning and sporadic foxing to contents. A hallucinatory account of a recluse's stay at a remote house, and his experiences of supernatural creatures and otherworldly dimensions. While relatively obscure today, The House on the Borderland was immensely influential. On encountering Hodgson's novels in 1934, horror author H. P. Lovecraft praised The House on the Borderland and other works by Hodgson at length. Terry Pratchett has called this novel "the Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer." Signed copies are very scarce.
- Publisher: Chapman and Hall
- Year: 1908
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: unknown
Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.