Guy before lovecraft [Pre-Lovecraft Works]

spittingimage , 2 days ago

That sounds like William Hope Hodgson. He was in an artillery company rather than an ambulance driver. He wrote The Night Land and The House on the Borderland, two of my favourite novels.

ekZepp Mod , 1 day ago

William Hope Hodgson was a prolific British author. H.P. Lovecraft lists Hodgson works to be among his greatest influences. His works are also known to have inspired Clark Ashton Smith and Henry S. Whitehead. Among all his most influential works you can find:

The House on the Borderland (1908)

While en route to a week of fishing in the quaint Irish village of Kraighten, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog stumble upon a hidden gem - a remote house perched precariously close to a yawning abyss. This secluded dwelling, once owned by a reclusive soul, holds a dark secret. Uncovering a weathered diary, the gentlemen delve into the chilling experiences of the previous occupant. The diary chronicles a descent into madness fueled by terrifying supernatural encounters and haunting visions of otherworldly dimensions, hinting at an evil far more insidious than anything Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog could have ever imagined.

Another author worth mentioning is Algernon Blackwood and his short story The Willows was praised by H.P. Lovecraft as the finest supernatural tale in English literature

Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible."