Editing William Hope Hodgson (section)

===Career in fiction, and marriage===
[[File:William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918).jpg|thumb|left|Hodgson at an unknown date|alt=Hodgson facing right, resting his head on his closed hand]]
Hodgson's first short story was "The Goddess of Death" (1904), in which he utilised a statue of Flora which stood in [[Corporation Park, Blackburn]], as the focus of a tale in which a Hindu statue, seized from an Indian temple, stood in a small English town. The statue comes alive to take its revenge on the people who stole it. ''The Royal Magazine'' published the story in April 1904.

In 1906, the American magazine ''The Monthly Story Magazine'' published [[William Hope Hodgson's Sargasso Sea Stories#"From the Tideless Sea Part One"|"From the Tideless Sea"]], the first of Hodgson's [[Sargasso Sea]] stories. Hodgson continued to sell stories to American magazines as well as British magazines for the remainder of his career, carefully managing the rights to his work in order to maximize his remuneration.<ref name="bs" />

While he still lived with his mother in relative poverty, his first published novel, ''[[The Boats of the "Glen Carrig"]]'', appeared in 1907, to positive reviews. Hodgson also published "[[The Voice in the Night (short story)|The Voice in the Night]]" the same year, as well as [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"Through the Vortex of a Cyclone"|"Through the Vortex of a Cyclone"]], a realistic story inspired by Hodgson's experiences at sea and illustrated with tinted slides made from his own photographs; Hodgson had previously used these slides to illustrate a "lantern lecture" entitled "Through the Heart of a Cyclone", which he had given at the Trinity Wesleyan School in Montague Street, Blackburn, on 16 November 1906. Hodgson also explored the subject of ships and cyclones in his story [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder"|"The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder"]] (1908). Also in 1908, Hodgson published his second novel, ''[[The House on the Borderland]]'', again to positive reviews, as well as an unusual satirical science fiction story, [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"Date 1965: Modern Warfare"|"Date 1965: Modern Warfare"]], a [[Jonathan Swift|Swiftian]] satire in which it is suggested that war should be carried out by men fighting in pens with knives, and the corpses carefully salvaged for food, although in letters to the editor published at the time, Hodgson expressed strong patriotic sentiments.

In 1909, he published [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"Out of the Storm"|"Out of the Storm"]], a short horror story about "the death-side of the sea", in which the protagonist drowning in a storm rants about the horrors of a storm at sea.<ref name="bs" /> According to Moskowitz,

<blockquote>This story proved an emotional testament beyond all other evidence. Hodgson, whose literary success would be in a large measure based on the impressions he received at sea, actually hated and feared the waters with an intensity that was the passion of his life.<ref name="Moskowitz_Storm"/></blockquote>

Also in 1909, Hodgson published another novel, ''[[The Ghost Pirates]]''. In the foreword, he wrote that it

<blockquote>... completes what, perhaps, may be termed a trilogy; for, though very different in scope, each of the three books deals with certain conceptions that have an elemental kinship. With this book, the author believes that he closes the door, so far as he is concerned, on a particular phase of constructive thought.</blockquote>

''[[The Bookman (London)|The Bookman]]'' magazine in its review of the novel in 1909 concluded with the comment:

<blockquote>We can only hope that Mr. Hodgson may be induced to reconsider his decision, for we know of nothing like the author's previous work in the whole of present-day literature.</blockquote>

Despite the critical success of his novels, Hodgson remained relatively poor. To try to bolster his income from short story sales, he began working on the first of his recurring characters, Thomas [[Carnacki]], featured in several of his most famous stories and partly inspired by [[Algernon Blackwood]]'s occult detective [[John Silence]].<ref name="wisker"/> The first of these, [[Carnacki#"The Gateway of the Monster"|"The Gateway of the Monster"]], was published in ''[[The Idler (1892–1911)|The Idler]]'' (1910). In 1910, Hodgson also published [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"The Captain of the Onion Boat"|"The Captain of the Onion Boat"]], an unusual story that combines a nautical tale and a romance. He continued to publish many stories and non-fiction pieces, occasionally resorting to the use of recycled plot elements and situations, sometimes to the annoyance of his publishers.

His last novel to see publication, ''[[The Night Land]]'', was published in 1912, although it likely had its genesis a number of years earlier.<ref name="bs" /> Hodgson also worked on a 10,000-word novelette version of the novel, now known as ''[[The Dream of X]]'' (1912). He continued to branch out into related genres, publishing [[List of stories by William Hope Hodgson#"Judge Barclay's Wife"|"Judge Barclay's Wife"]], a [[Western (genre)|Western]] adventure, in the United States, as well as several non-supernatural mystery stories and the science fiction story "[[The Derelict (Hodgson)|The Derelict]]" (1912), and even war stories (several of the [[Captain Gault]] tales feature wartime themes).

In 1912, Hodgson married Betty Farnworth, known also as Bessie, a girl from [[Cheadle Hulme]] and a staff member who wrote the "agony" column for the women's magazine ''Home Notes''. Both were 35. She gave up her job after they married on 26 February 1913, in the London borough of Kensington. They moved to the south of France and took up residence there, owing in part to the low cost of living. Hodgson began a work entitled "Captain Dang (An account of certain peculiar and somewhat memorable adventures)" and continued to publish stories in multiple genres, although financial security continued to elude him. When war broke out in Europe, the Hodgsons returned to England.