The Ghost Pirates

The novel is presented as the transcribed testimony of Jessop, who we ultimately discover is the only survivor of the final voyage of the Mortzestus, having been rescued from drowning by the crew of the passing Sangier.

The combination of these literary devices allows Hodgson to amplify the feeling of impending doom until the moment of the novel's unavoidable climax, when the "sea-devils", as Lovecraft describes them, pull the Mortzestus beneath the waves.

[citation needed] The economic style of writing has led horror writer Robert Weinberg to describe The Ghost Pirates as "one of the finest examples of the tightly written novel ever published.

is a powerful account of a doomed and haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-devils (of quasi-human aspect, and perhaps the spirits of bygone buccaneers) that besiege it and finally drag it down to an unknown fate.

With its command of maritime knowledge, and its clever selection of hints and incidents suggestive of latent horrors in nature, this book at times reaches enviable peaks of power.