Hodgson (William Hope) The Ghost Pirates

London, Stanley Paul, 1909.

First edition. 8vo. Advertisements. Original green cloth.

A superb first edition of this key work in Hope Hodgson’s canon, here in the seemingly less common green cloth, as opposed to red (no priority being definitively established). The tale recounts a ship crew’s strange & terrifying experience as their reality comes into contact with an alternative, darker mirror world. Bleiler was a huge fan of Hope Hodgson, calling his novels “visionary accounts that have no real parallels in English literature”. Of this particular title he noted:

“One of the great sea novels. highly original in detail and well done. Although it is overshadowed as visionary horror by the more spectacular The House on the Borderland and The Night Land, as a work of art, it is finer.” (The Guide to Supernatural Fiction).

A revised version of the ending was anthologised, under the title “The Silent Ship”.