 |
| Arkham House 1946, Art: Hannes Bok |
"Few can equal him in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities through casual hints and insignificant details, or in conveying feelings of the spectral and the abnormal in connection with regions or buildings... The House on the Borderland (is) perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson's works -- it tells of a lonely and evilly regarded house in Ireland which forms a focus for hideous otherworld forces and sustains a siege by blasphemous hybrid anomalies from a hidden abyss below. The wanderings of the Narrator's spirit through limitless light-years of cosmic space and Kalpas of eternity, and its witnessing of the solar system's final destruction, constitute something almost unique in standard literature. And everywhere there is manifest the author's power to suggest vague, ambushed horrors in natural scenery. But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality this book would be a classic of the first water."
 |
| Panther Books 1972, Art: Ian Miller |
- Chapters 1-13: The narrator defends his house from an invasion of "swine-things" which emerge from underground.
- Chapters 14-23: The narrator experiences the acceleration of time, and eventually has an "out of body experience" where he travels to the core of the galaxy and sees the solar system's destruction.
- Chapters 24-27: An invisible (and seemingly radioactive) monster attacks, and the narrator's body and mind are slowly taken over by its "corruption".
 |
| Holden & Hardingham 1921, Art: W. Otway Cannell |
One of the fascinating devices Hodgson employs here is the "damaged transcription" concept, in which part of the story is missing due to missing pages or illegibility of the handwriting (Chapter 14). Even by the end of this book these missing blanks are never filled, thereby giving the entire affair a greater sense of "authenticity". However, tantalizing hints are later mentioned in order to keep the reader's imagination going.
Many of these ideas would reverberate in the works of "weird fiction" writers to come, and its influence can be conceivably be detected even in modern sf/fantasy works such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and David Lynch's Twin Peaks (in particular the "cosmic" sequences in Twin Peaks: The Return).
Néo 1988, Jean-Michel Nicollet / Grafton 1990, Louis Rey
A detailed synopsis follows:
- Foreword & Introduction and to the Manuscript: The Foreword notes that the manuscript was found in 1877 in some ruins located in western Ireland. Hodgson then puts down some of his feelings about the author's report and the "reality" of the manuscript he relates. He also suspects that the "celestial globes" described in Chapter 20 may lend credence to his theory that "thoughts and emotions" can manifest in physical phenomena.
The Finding of the Manuscript: While on a fishing trip in the Irish countryside with his friend Tonnison, the author (a man named Berreggnog) follows a river which leads to a giant pit. Hanging above the pit (suspended on a jutting rock structure) are the ruins of a house (its remaining walls). While digging around, they discover a manuscript buried in some debris. However, they also begin to hear some faint wailing. Frightened, they quickly return to their fishing camp, after which they begin reading the manuscript (which follows).
Chapman & Hall 1908 - The Plain of Silence: The narrator (referred to by Hodgson as "the Recluse") and his sister move into a strange, circular-walled house, purchased at a low price due to its bad reputation (as being "built by the devil"). Several years pass with nothing remarkable happening, but one night a reddish glow fills his room and the narrator finds himself being carried out into space. Eventually, he arrives on a planet lit by a black-red sun and dominated by a great red plain. He floats across this landscape towards a chain of mountains.
- The House in the Arena: After passing through a chasm, the narrator emerges into a vast arena. In the center is an enlarged, jade-green duplicate of his own house. Surrounding the arena are gigantic living statues of beast-like figures out of mythology and nightmare. A pig-headed creature is seen attacking the house, but the creature soon begins chasing after the narrator - fortunately the visitor is somehow borne back out into space, and the red plain fades away.
- The Earth: The narrator is borne back towards Earth and after a brief moment of unconsciousness wakes up in his study. When he looks at the time he realizes that a day and a half has passed.
The Thing in the Pit: A few days later, he and his dog Pepper hear a strange sound in the great pit near his house. When they descend into the pit to investigate, a mysterious swine-like creature injures his dog and then escapes. That night, the narrator spots the swine-creature from his earlier "vision" outside his window. He goes outside and hunts around for it with his rifle, but it is nowhere to be found.
Swan River 2018, Art: John Coulthart - The Swine-Things: The next day a small explosion of some sort occurs in the pit, after which a few of the swine-things emerge. The narrator flees back to his house and secures all of the locks. A few of the swine-creatures try to get in, but they fail to break down the locked door. They then wait for reinforcements to arrive from the pit.
- The Attack: That night, the Things begin another attack. While perched in one of his wall towers the narrator kills a few with his shotgun. When a few manage to break through the barred windows he shoots them as well. A couple others are killed when the narrator pushes one off his drainpipe and crushes another with the collapse of a porch roof. Eventually the Things cease their attack.
- After The Attack: The next day, the narrator futilely tries to comfort his traumatized sister and searches for any signs of the Things outside. Although he hears nothing, he decides it may be a trap and stays indoors.
- In The Cellars: While surveying the cellar, the narrator discovers a trap door with an iron rung. With great difficulty he manages to open the door and sees a bottomless well. When he seems to hear some faint cackling from below he reseals the trap door and weighs it down with some rocks.
- The Time Of Waiting: For the next six days, the narrator stays inside his house, caring for his sister and his dog Pepper.Flame Tree 2021 / Gollancz 2002
- The Searching Of The Gardens: Eventually deciding to go outside, the narrator confirms that the Swine-things have departed his garden area. When he visits the pit from which they came from, he notices that a cave has appeared at the apex of a new chasm. Wary of this mysterious hole in the ground, the narrator returns home.
- The Subterranean Pit: Despite his fears, the narrator is unable to resist investigating the cave. The cave reveals a passageway which ends in another pit (which happens to lie directly below the narrator's house). When a torrential rain causes the outer chasm to begin flooding, a wave of water flows into the passageway. The narrator barely makes it out of the cave with his life.
- The Trap In The Great Cellar: A little while later, the narrator discovers that the pit has been filled with water (it is now more like a lake), and assumes that the danger of more Swine-things appearing has gone. Later, he decides to open the trap door in his cellar again and, to his dismay, realizes that it leads directly to the pit underneath his house (which is now a drain for the lake waters). Nonetheless, the narrator is unwilling to abandon his house for some reason.
- The Sea of Sleep: One day, the narrator finds himself somehow transported to a shore bordering a silent sea with black cliffs in the background. A vision of a woman appears above the waters. The woman enraptures the narrator, but an invisible barrier prevents his approach. Suddenly, he finds himself approaching the Solar System from interstellar space, and can somehow see the planets revolving around the sun in "sped-up" time (this section of the manuscript and its following pages are partially damaged beyond legibility).
- The Noise In the Night: The manuscript picks up several months later. One night, the narrator hears a whirring noise in the sky. Afterwards time speeds up, with hours flying by in seconds, then days in minutes, then years in seconds. During this experience Pepper turns to dust (from age) and the narrator himself feels himself growing feeble. Eventually he loses consciousness.
The Awakening: The narrator awakes and discovers that time's passage has only increased. Not only that but he can see his own moldering corpse lying in the dust. Outside, he sees the sun's color grow dull and realizes that he is now a million years into the future.
Ace 1962, Art: Ed Emshwiller - The Slowing Rotation: The area around his house soon becomes surrounded by a plain of snow, and the sun grows increasingly dark. The narrator then detects a decrease in the speed of the rotation of the Earth around its pole, and eventually the darkened sun hangs still in the sky.
- The Green Star: The sun soon burns out and the world is covered in darkness. However, in time the Solar System begins to approach a massive green star, whose eerie light illuminates both the flat plains of Earth as well as the dead surface of the sun.
- The End of the Solar System: At one point the now-dead sun obscures the green star and the Earth is covered in darkness once again. The narrator then hears the Swine-things coming from somewhere in the ruins of his house and he flees across the plain. From a distance, he sees his old house swarmed by the Swine-things. Next, a gigantic flame bursts out of its center, and the entire structure soon falls into the pit underneath. The narrator then floats into the sky as the Earth falls into the dead sun. Eventually the dead sun in turn falls into the green star. The narrator wonders if the green star is actually the central core of the universe, into which all dead stars eventually fall.
- The Celestial Globes: A river of infinite "celestial globes" appears, with each seeming to have the shadow of a face inside. The narrator floats into one of these globes and then suddenly finds himself back at the Sea of Sleep. Although wary of the "Formless Thing" on the shore (apparently described earlier in one of the "indecipherable" parts of the manuscript), he reunites with the woman who had enraptured him before.
- The Dark Sun: In short order, he is whisked away from the Sea of Sleep and again faces the green star. He theorizes that the glowing orb illuminating the Sea of Sleep is actually the green star as seen from another dimension. He then notices that sparkles of light are shooting out from the central core and wonders if these might be messengers of "the Eternal". Another dark, gigantic object begins to eclipse the green star, and he realizes that the green star and another black star make up a binary star system ("two Central Suns").
The Dark Nebula: A black nebula floats in between the narrator and the Central Suns, filled with red celestial globes. Each of the globes contains a sad, blind face. The narrator finds himself floating into one of these globes and is then suddenly transported to the plain he had seen in his first "excursion", where a ring of mountains comprised of monstrous gods forms an arena around a giant green duplicate of his old house. He eventually floats into the house.
Necropolis Press 2011 Monica Veraguth - Pepper: The narrator suddenly finds himself waking up in his study, with the morning sun rising outside the window. He looks for Pepper, but only finds a pile of dust (the ancient remains of the dog).
- The Footsteps In the Garden: Weeks pass and the narrator adopts a new dog (although he misses Pepper). One night he and the new dog are spooked by an invisible entity which has entered the house from the garden. After a glowing hand reaches out and sets his sister's cat aflame, the entity then departs.
- The Thing From the Arena: The next day the narrator's dog is still alive, but has some kind of hand-shaped burn mark on his body. The dog licks his hand but will not eat. In the evening, the narrator sees a swine-face peering through the window, this one adorned with a green flame above its head. Seemingly mesmerized, the narrator begins to unlatch the bolts securing his front door. After a great mental struggle, he passes out, but the door remains locked. In preparation for the next evening, he drives nails into his door to prevent its unlocking.
- The Luminous Speck: That night he notices a glowing patch on his hand where his dog had licked him. In the ensuing days, the area around the hand becomes infected with some kind of bizarre growth ("corruption") which eventually consumes the entire right side of his body. He considers taking his own life. That night, he hears the trap door in the cellar open by itself. After noting the sound of approaching footsteps the manuscript breaks off in mid-sentence.
Panther 1969, Alan Aldridge / Freeway Press, 1974 - Conclusion: The author (Berreggnog) and his friend Tonnison wonder if there is any truth to the manuscript. The next day they make inquiries in the nearby village and confirm that an elderly man and woman had once lived in a great house in the forest many generations past, but the house had one day simply disappeared, leaving the great chasm and its remaining ruins.
- "Grief": A poem stuck inside the manuscript's flyleaf expresses the author's grief at being separated by his loved one (apparently the woman of the "Sea of Sleep").
Online at Project Gutenberg
2007 BBC Radio Adaptation
Board Game
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" By H. P. Lovecraft
Music by Jon Muller for Swan River 2018 edition
