The Great White Space (1974)
Basil Copper
With a new introduction by Stephen Jones
Book Description
Frederick Plowright, a well-known scientific photographer, is recruited by Professor Clark Ashton Scarsdale to accompany his research team in search of “The Great White Space,” described in ancient and arcane texts as a portal leading to the extremities of the universe. Plowright, Scarsdale, and the rest of their crew embark on the Great Northern Expedition, traversing a terrifying and desolate landscape to the Black Mountains, where a passageway hundreds of feet high leads to a lost city miles below the surface of the earth. But the unsettling discoveries they make there are only a precursor of the true horror to follow. For the doorway of the Great White Space opens both ways, and something unspeakably evil has crossed over—a horrifying abomination that does not intend to let any of them return to the surface alive . . .
One of the great British horror writers of the 20th century, Basil Copper (1924-2013) was best known for his macabre short fiction, which earned him the World Horror Convention’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. The Great White Space (1974) is a tale in the mode of H. P. Lovecraft and is recognized as one of the best Lovecraftian horror novels ever written. This edition, the first in more than 30 years, includes a new introduction by Stephen Jones.
Basil Copper
With a new introduction by Stephen Jones
Book Description
Frederick Plowright, a well-known scientific photographer, is recruited by Professor Clark Ashton Scarsdale to accompany his research team in search of “The Great White Space,” described in ancient and arcane texts as a portal leading to the extremities of the universe. Plowright, Scarsdale, and the rest of their crew embark on the Great Northern Expedition, traversing a terrifying and desolate landscape to the Black Mountains, where a passageway hundreds of feet high leads to a lost city miles below the surface of the earth. But the unsettling discoveries they make there are only a precursor of the true horror to follow. For the doorway of the Great White Space opens both ways, and something unspeakably evil has crossed over—a horrifying abomination that does not intend to let any of them return to the surface alive . . .
One of the great British horror writers of the 20th century, Basil Copper (1924-2013) was best known for his macabre short fiction, which earned him the World Horror Convention’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. The Great White Space (1974) is a tale in the mode of H. P. Lovecraft and is recognized as one of the best Lovecraftian horror novels ever written. This edition, the first in more than 30 years, includes a new introduction by Stephen Jones.
reviews
“The best writer in the genre since H. P. Lovecraft.” - Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
“Outstanding in the genre.” - August Derleth
“In the same class as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood.” - Michael and Mollie Hardwick
“One of the last great traditionalists of English fiction.” - Colin Wilson
“Outstanding in the genre.” - August Derleth
“In the same class as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood.” - Michael and Mollie Hardwick
“One of the last great traditionalists of English fiction.” - Colin Wilson
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1939140382 ISBN-13: 978-1939140388 $16.99 US, 174 pp. Trade paper Published 2013 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Basil Copper was born in London in 1924. As a boy, Copper moved with his family to Kent, where he attended the local grammar school and developed an early taste for the works of M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe. In his teens he began training as an apprentice journalist, but with the outbreak of the Second World War, he found himself put in charge of a local newspaper office while also serving in the Home Guard. He then joined the Royal Navy and served as a radio operator with a gunboat flotilla off the Normandy beaches during the D-Day operations.
After the war, Copper resumed his career in journalism. He made his fiction debut in The Fifth Book of Pan Horror Stories (1964) with “The Spider,” for which he was paid £10. His first novel, a tongue-in-cheek crime story in the Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler mode, The Dark Mirror, was turned down by 32 publishers because it was too long, before Robert Hale eventually published a cut-down version. Four years later, in 1970, Copper gave up journalism to write full-time.
Copper published some fifty novels featuring the Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday and also wrote several horror and supernatural novels and a number of collections of macabre short stories. His horror fiction in particular has been receiving renewed attention recently with new editions from PS Publishing and Valancourt Books. Basil Copper died at age 89 in 2013 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
After the war, Copper resumed his career in journalism. He made his fiction debut in The Fifth Book of Pan Horror Stories (1964) with “The Spider,” for which he was paid £10. His first novel, a tongue-in-cheek crime story in the Dashiell Hammett/Raymond Chandler mode, The Dark Mirror, was turned down by 32 publishers because it was too long, before Robert Hale eventually published a cut-down version. Four years later, in 1970, Copper gave up journalism to write full-time.
Copper published some fifty novels featuring the Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday and also wrote several horror and supernatural novels and a number of collections of macabre short stories. His horror fiction in particular has been receiving renewed attention recently with new editions from PS Publishing and Valancourt Books. Basil Copper died at age 89 in 2013 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.