The House on the Borderland

The House on the Borderland (1908) is a supernatural horror novel by British fantasist William Hope Hodgson. It tells the hallucinatory story of a recluse living in a remote house, where he encounters supernatural creatures and other dimensions.

Two men on a two-week fishing trip in remote western Ireland find a strange abyss. On a rock spur above it, they discover ruins and a buried journal, which they read. The journal’s author is an old man who has lived for years in an ancient house with only his sister (his housekeeper) and his dog, Pepper. Locals consider him mad. The circular house has a weird appearance, with decorations suggesting leaping flames, and has had an evil reputation for centuries, sitting empty for many years before he bought it. The diary records his strange experiences.

One night, while reading in his study, the light turns green, then red. Pepper hides under his chair. The red light dims, and the far side of the room becomes a vision of a vast empty plain. He floats like a bubble into space, leaving Earth and the sun behind, traveling into utter darkness. He reaches a world with a sun of red flame and is brought to an arena: an immense green jade copy of his house, at the center of a circle miles across, surrounded by mountains with hundreds of idols of beast-gods and horrors. A humanoid creature with a swine’s head tries to enter the house. The Swine-creature moves toward him, but he is borne upward and reverses his travel back to his study.

Months later, horrible pig-faced creatures with dead-white skin emerge from a nearby Pit and attack the house. The Swine-Things are strong and intelligent but cannot break in; after a night and day, during which the Recluse kills some, they disappear. He waits several days before leaving with Pepper to search the former gardens. A week later, he and Pepper explore the Pit. A tunnel leads to an immensely deep abyss. Water flows down the tunnel, and wading back out is exhausting. Two weeks later, the Pit has become a lake. He revisits a trap door in the cellar, realizing it opens to the bottomless abyss.

Asleep in his study, the Recluse awakens into a place like a mist of light and meets his lost love. She calls it the Sea of Sleep and implores him to leave the evil House, but admits they would never have met again had he been elsewhere. The journal continues, with time speeding up.