William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author best known for The Night Land (1912) and, this, his second novel, The House on the Borderland . Noted by H. P. Lovecraft as "a classic of the first water," it is considered a literary milestone that signaled a radical departure from the typical Gothic fiction of the late 19th century, ushering in a newer more realistic and scientific cosmic horror that left a marked impression on those who would become the great writers of weird tales of the mid-twentieth century. The story within the story is a hallucinatory account of an old recluse and his very strange house in which he experiences attacks by supernatural swine-beasts, travels to otherworldly dimensions, and bears witness to the destruction of the solar system -- "it is galactic adventure, prophetic fantasy, macabre romance, and drugless trip, and brilliantly unites its many disturbing elements, easily equalling, if not surpassing, all predecessors and contemporaries."