We cannot see the past; Perception of the Past and Archaeology in Hodgson’s The Night Land
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2023-01-24

Rebecca Davies (Cultural Heritage Institute, The Royal Agricultural University)

William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land (1912) is one of the great early sf epics. It is the tale 
of a young man and his quest to find his beloved in a sunless world inimical to man. Though 
rambling and difficult of language, this obscure book has been read and reread over the 110 
years since it was written, has been an inspiration to other works, and recently (2011) was 
rewritten in more digestible form by James Stoddard. The sun is long dead, in this tale of an 
extreme future and Earth is slowly dying. Mankind is confined to a massive pyamidical 
autarky, the eight miles tall Great Redoubt. Only the most adventurous explore beyond its 
confines, to the peril of both body and soul. How do the people of this society perceive both 
the millennia long past of their home, and their previous life in the sun? The main scientific 
element of the Great Redoubt are the Monstruwacans; who are they and what do they do? Why 
are such perilous expeditions conducted into the Night Land? Do they have genuine scholarly 
intent or are they merely a rite of passage? What archaeological remains of pre-Redoubtian 
civilisations does our Hero encounter on his journey? How does he interpret them given that 
he is not an archaeologist? Who are the abhumans? What does there material culture consist 
of? And lastly, is X, the nameless Hero, Hodgson himself?