William Hope Hodgson wrote essays, and fiction. His fiction consisted of fantasy fiction, horror stories, and science fiction. His hobbies included bodybuilding and photography. Carnacki is considered to be one of Hodgson's best horror novels and was a great influence on Stephen King. Carnacki was a quiet man living in an apartment by the river or was he in actuality a ghost hunter armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of supernatural manifestations and the arcane arts. In this novel Carnacki confronts demons, hauntings and invisible forces.

William Hope Hodgson (1877 - 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction and science fiction. Hodgson used his experiences at sea to lend authentic detail to his short horror stories, many of which are set on the ocean, including his series of linked tales forming the "Sargasso Sea Stories". His novels, such as The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912), feature more cosmic themes, but several of his novels also focus on horrors associated with the sea. Early in his writing career Hodgson dedicated his efforts to poetry, although few of his poems were published during his lifetime. He died in World War I at age 40.