William Hope Hodgson

William Hope Hodgson (1877 to 1918) was an English author best remembered for horror, fantastic and science fiction, but he also made his name as a physical culturist and bodybuilder. His own account of his body development was that it was driven less by health than by self-defence: slight in height and fine featured, he was a target for bullying seamen during his years at sea, and he trained until he was reckoned among the strongest men for his size in England. In 1899 he opened a School of Physical Culture in Ainsworth Street, Blackburn, offering tailored exercise regimes to clients that included members of the local police force, and in 1902 he took part in a publicity stage stunt in which he restrained the escape artist Harry Houdini. When the seasonal business could not support him he turned to writing about exercise, then to fiction, and he died in the First World War at the age of 40. The article cited here is a literary biography that treats his strength training as one part of his life.