Carnacki The Ghost-Finder.

HODGSON, William Hope (1877-1918).

Sauk City: Mycroft and Moran (Arkham House), 1947. [Fantasy Short Stories] FIRST US EDITION, limited printing. One of 3500 copies. Octavo (20 x 14cm), pp.[viii]; 241; [3]. Publisher's black cloth lettered in gilt to spine, illustrated dust-jacket by Frank Utpatel priced at $3.00. Contents and edges clean, no inscriptions. Jacket gently used with minor wear to spine tips. Near fine. The first collection of Hope Hodgson's Carnacki stories to be published in the US. The 1913 Eveleigh Nash edition, apart from being very scarce and valuable, doesn't contain three additional Carnacki stories unearthed by Derleth in his research and added to the Mycroft/Moran publication. Much under-appreciated today William Hope Hodgson was, for the duration of his short life, an amazing man. He ran away to sea, travelled the world, was one of the first men to photograph stalk lightning on the open ocean, taught self defence to the police force, founded his own school of fitness, wrote a large body of weird and macabre fiction (much of which, unsurprisingly deals with the sea), tried very hard at everything he attempted and finally got killed in 1918 as part of an army of young men led to war by a Field Marshall whose contribution to history (other than to get them all killed) was to firmly believe that machine guns were overrated and that cavalry were to be the deciding factor on a battlefield which consisted of one giant, flooded pothole. Notwithstanding historical tragedy, the Carnacki stories represent some of Hodgson's most entertaining work, foremost amongst which would have to be "The Whistling Room", a tale any writer of the macabre would have been proud of. Item #72726

Price: £175.00