5 h 45 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can walls and weapons protect when the danger reaches beyond time and space?
On a fishing holiday in western Ireland, Tonnison and his friend Berreggnog discover a manuscript among the ruins of a house. Its writer is an unnamed elderly recluse. His record draws them into a remote home where he lives with his sister and his old dog, Pepper—and where something terrible presses close.
In William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland, a deep pit holds strange sights, and swinelike creatures gather outside the walls. The old man tries to defend his home and keep his sanity. This short horror novel brings a haunted house, a siege, and the terrifying scale of an aging universe into one frightened witness's account.
What you’ll discover
- A record among ruins Follow Tonnison and Berreggnog into a discovery that challenges a practical man's doubt.
- A home under siege Feel the pressure mount as creatures return night after night and press against the walls.
- A faithful companion Meet Pepper, the old dog whose senses warn of danger before his master notices.
- Dread beyond the house Encounter horror that stretches beyond earthly threats toward the vastness of time and space.
- The limits of control Share a frightened man's struggle to protect his home against forces he cannot understand.
Who will love it
For you if you love ghost stories, weird tales and cosmic wonder, or enjoy a diary where strange events grow day by day. Readers of Lovecraft and early fantasy will feel at home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two friends find a ruin and a book
- An old recluse keeps a house of bad repute
- A vision carries him across the Plain of Silence
- Something white and swinelike lives in the Pit
- A landslide lets loose an army of swine-things
- Every door and window must hold through the night
- After the siege the Pit keeps its secret
- A lost love waits beside the Sea of Sleep
- Fear, grief and the borderland between worlds
Who’s who
- PepperThe recluse's loyal dog, his one friend, who senses danger early and helps him through the dangers of the Pit.
- MaryThe recluse's elderly sister, who keeps house, notices little, and is shaken badly when the creatures attack.
- TonnisonAn artist and keen angler who finds the manuscript in the ruins and feels at once that the place is unholy.
- The narratorTonnison's friend, who reads the diary aloud and wonders whether its writer was mad.
- The swine-creaturesPale, pig-faced beings that climb out of the Pit and seek a way into the house, speaking in thick grunts.
- The lost loveThe woman the recluse loved and lost, who comes to him by the Sea of Sleep and warns him to leave.
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- Audiobook
- 5 h 45 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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La Maison aux confins
by William Hope Hodgson · 1908
Two anglers find a fairly dry notebook in Irish ruins, and it tells of a house besieged by pig-faced creatures.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you do if creatures with pig faces climbed out of the earth and tried to break down your door? In The House on the Borderland, William Hope Hodgson gives us a manuscript found in the ruins of a house in the west of Ireland.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two friends find a ruin and a book
The story opens with a frame. A narrator and his friend Tonnison go fishing in the west of Ireland, near the tiny village of Kraighten. The villagers speak only Irish and watch the two men with quiet curiosity. The river they fish has no name on any map.
One Sunday the river simply vanishes into the ground. The friends follow its course and find a wooded hollow, an old overgrown garden and a roaring waterfall that drops into a huge round chasm. Out over the edge, on a spur of rock, hangs a broken piece of wall. In the rubble Tonnison digs up a fairly dry, crumpled book filled with small, neat handwriting. Strange wailing drifts from the trees, and both men feel watched.
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What is The House on the Borderland about?
It follows a recluse in a strange house in Ireland, written as a diary. He faces pig-faced creatures from a pit beneath his home and takes strange journeys through space, while longing for a lost love.
Who wrote The House on the Borderland and when?
William Hope Hodgson wrote it. He died in 1918, and the book comes from the early years of the twentieth century. It is a work of fiction, presented as a found manuscript.
What does the title The House on the Borderland mean?
The house stands on the border between the ordinary world and other realms. Creatures from below and visions from beyond cross over there, so the building acts as a gateway between worlds.
The author
William Hope Hodgson
1877–1918 · English horror and fantasy writer
William Hope Hodgson (1877–1918) was a British writer born in Essex, England. He worked as a sailor before becoming a writer. His novels include The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912). He served in the British Army and was killed in France during the First World War.
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