William Hope Hodgson, an acknowledged master of horror, science fiction, and the supernatural, is also the author of a classic work of occult detection, Carnacki, The Ghost-finder (1913). The fundamental theory expounded by Hodgson on the writing of ghost stories is adhered to in the Carnacki series as firmly as in his purely supernatural fiction: "A ghost story that is worth anything ... must cling to reality by some sort of explanation, however fantastic the story be, to be truly effective."

Hodgson was born in Essex. England, 15 November 1877, the son of Samuel Hodgson, an Anglican clergyman, and Lissie Sarah Brown Hodgson. His father's lively opinions eloquently expressed, caused him to be shifted from parish to parish and kept the family on the brink of poverty. At the age of thirteen William ran away from boarding school hoping to go to sea, and in 1891 he won his father's permission to undertake...