EnCrypted Episode 8: 'The Voice in the Night' by William Hope Hodgson
Some writers live vicariously through their stories, others lead lives every bit as adventurous as the ones they write about. William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) definitely falls into the latter camp. Having run away from boarding school aged thirteen to become a sailor, he later took on an apprenticeship as a cabin boy. This son of an Anglican priest trained with weights and learned self-defence to hold his own against rough seamen who thought him fair game. He would go on to open a School of Physical Culture that offered regimes for personal training and, among other endeavours, made the local newspapers with a precarious bicycle stunt and national news for handcuffing Harry Houdini so securely he had trouble escaping. It is for his prolific literary output, of course, that he is chiefly remembered. The creator of the occult detective Thomas Carnaki and pre-Lovecraftian "cosmic" stories like The House on the Borderland , much of Hodgson's work drew on his experiences at...