4 William Hope Hodgson first editions are documented on this shelf, from The House on the Borderland (1908) to Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder (1913) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that William Hope Hodgson title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a William Hope Hodgson copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- The House on the Borderland — 1908 · Chapman & Hall, LondonFirst edition: London, Chapman & Hall, 1908, with the long descriptive title continuing 'From the Manuscript, discovered in 1877 by Messrs. Tonnison and Berreggnog, in the Ruins that lie to the South of the Village of Kraighten, in the West of Ireland.' Octavo, pp. xii, [ii], 300, with four pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear as issued; publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering and gilt decoration…. UK-only lifetime edition. The first US appearance is the Arkham House omnibus The House on the Borderland and Other Novels (Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1946; 3,014 copies; black cloth, gilt spine; Hannes Bok jacket, Arkham's first four-color jacket; introduction by H. C. Koenig) — itself a cornerstone collectible, but a first-thus trap if offered as a first edition of the novel alone. Trap: Holden & Hardingham (London) reissued all of Hodgson's novels in cheap editions circa 1920-22; a Holden & Hardingham imprint marks a later issue, not the 1908 first.
- The Ghost Pirates — 1909 · Stanley Paul & Co., LondonLondon, Stanley Paul & Co., 1909: octavo, collating pp. [1-6] 7-276, followed by 12 pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, with an inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. Sime — the Sime frontispiece must be present. Bottom edge untrimmed. Binding priority per L.W. Currey: the PROBABLE first binding (Currey's binding 'A') is red cloth with the front panel stamped in gold within a blind-stamped…. Stanley Paul & Co., London, 1909 is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed as far as the sources reach. No American edition was traced in Hodgson's lifetime (he was killed in 1918) and none is recorded in any source consulted — but this rests on absence of evidence rather than a positive citation, so it should be stated as 'no US edition traced' rather than 'no US edition existed.' There is accordingly…. No book-club issue is documented for the 1909 Stanley Paul edition. The later-issue hazards are twentieth-century specialty-press and paperback reprints: any copy with a jacket bearing an ISBN, or lacking the Sime frontispiece and the 12 pages of Stanley Paul advertisements, is not the 1909 first. Green- and blue-cloth copies are genuine first-edition sheets in variant or later bindings, not reprints — do not….
- The Night Land — 1912 · Eveleigh Nash, LondonOctavo; pp. [i-vi] vii [viii] ix [x] 11-583 [584: printer's imprint]. No statement of printing on the copyright page — the 1912 Nash sheets are identified by title leaf and collation alone. Issued both with and without a 16-page undated publisher's catalogue bound in at the rear; no priority is established between the two states, so the absence of the catalogue does not disqualify a copy. Publisher's cloth is…. Census claim CONFIRMED. Eveleigh Nash (London, 1912) is the true first and the only edition published in Hodgson's lifetime (d. 1918); no contemporaneous American edition exists, so there is no UK/US precedence contest. The first US book appearance is posthumous and came inside the Arkham House omnibus 'The House on the Borderland and Other Novels' (Sauk City, 1946, 3,014 copies, Hannes Bok jacket, with an…. No contemporary book-club issue is documented. Reprint tells: the Arkham House 1946 omnibus carries its own title leaf and gathers four novels; the Hyperion Press 1976 reprint is bound in green boards with silver stamping and was issued without a jacket as issued. Any copy carrying the text but not the Eveleigh Nash 1912 title leaf and the 583-page collation is a reprint.
- Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder — 1913 · Eveleigh Nash, LondonLondon, Eveleigh Nash, 1913: collating [i-iv] v-vii [viii-x] 11-287 [288: advertisement], containing SIX Carnacki stories. Original red cloth, front panel stamped in gold and blind, spine panel stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind. Copies were issued both with and without a 16-page publisher's catalogue inserted at the rear, and priority, if any, is unknown — so the catalogue's presence or absence neither…. UK first and true first: Eveleigh Nash, London, 1913, six stories — census claim confirmed. The 1947 edition (Mycroft & Moran, the Arkham House imprint, Sauk City, Wisconsin; 3,050 copies; edited by August Derleth; dust jacket by Frank Utpatel; c. 241 pp.) is the first US edition and the first ENLARGED edition, adding three stories — 'The Haunted Jarvee' (published posthumously in The Premier Magazine, 1929),…. No book-club issue is documented for either the 1913 Nash or the 1947 Mycroft & Moran edition; the Arkham House printing was limited to 3,050 copies, which constituted the whole issue. A 1947 copy should retain its Frank Utpatel dust jacket. Later Hodgson revivals, Arkham reprints and paperbacks are told by ISBNs and modern typography; any copy containing nine stories is the 1947-or-later text, not the Nash first.
More Fantasy & Horror shelves: William Peter Blatty, Alexandre Dumas, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Ann Radcliffe, Anna Katharine Green.
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