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74-420: The narrator is a student conducting an antiquarian tour of New England. He travels through the nearby decrepit seaport of Innsmouth which is suggested as a cheaper and potentially interesting next leg of his journey. There he interacts with strange people and observes disturbing events that ultimately lead to horrifying and personal revelations. The narrator explains how he instigated a secret investigation of

148-493: A Deep One. He begins having dreams of his grandmother and Pth'thya-l'yi in Y'ha-nthlei, which was damaged but not destroyed by the submarine attack. They explain that the Deep Ones will remain underwater for the time being but will eventually return to invade the surface world "for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved." After briefly glimpsing a shoggoth in one of his dreams, the narrator awakens to find that he has fully acquired

222-480: A college (which Salem [lacks]) ... I place the town [and] the imaginary Miskatonic [River] somewhere north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester." Dunwich is a fictional village that appeared in the H. P. Lovecraft novella " The Dunwich Horror " ( 1929 ), and is also located in Miskatonic River Valley. The inhabitants are depicted as inbred, uneducated, and very superstitious, while the town itself

296-421: A cry that their old masters used. In 2023, the shoggoth was adopted as an Internet meme by A.I. researchers and engineers to describe the mysterious, black box nature of large language models that are used in chatbots such as ChatGPT , as well as how their true underlying models are prohibited from use by the general public. The meme, originated by Twitter user Tetraspace, depicts a shoggoth disguised by

370-543: A fictional village in England . Lovecraft's more famous Innsmouth is in Massachusetts . This latter Innsmouth was first identified in two of his cycle of sonnets Fungi from Yuggoth . Lovecraft called Innsmouth "a considerably twisted version of Newburyport ." Lovecraft placed Innsmouth on the coast of Essex County, Massachusetts , south of Plum Island and north of Cape Ann . The town of Ipswich, Massachusetts

444-422: A fictionalized version of New England, serves as a central hub for his mythos . It represents the history, culture, and folklore of the region, as interpreted by Lovecraft, who associated himself with the region. These attributes are exaggerated and altered to provide a base upon which his stories could be constructed. The names of the locations in the region were directly influenced by the names of real locations in

518-765: A house on the Aylesbury Pike. While the phrase originated in the role-playing community, it now sees widespread usage. Lovecraft Country was the title of a 2016 novel by Matt Ruff . The novel was subsequently adapted by HBO for television. The resulting TV series, also called Lovecraft Country , premiered in August 2020. Return to Lovecraft Country was a collection of short stories set in "the New England of H.P. Lovecraft", published by Triad Entertainments in 1996. The editor, Scott David Aniolowski, has also done editorial work for Chaosium. Eternal Lovecraft ,

592-424: A hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake". Price notes that Fishhead, as the "son of a Negro father and a half-breed Indian mother," "embodies unambiguously the basic premise of The Shadow over Innsmouth .... This, of course, is really what Lovecraft found revolting in the idea of interracial marriage...the subtextual hook of different ethnic races mating and 'polluting' the gene pool." Price points out

666-416: A manifesto for why the New England countryside is a fitting backdrop for his horror stories: the true epicure of the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteem most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of

740-512: A minuscule smiley-face mask to indicate the "unknowable" and "alien" intelligence that is ultimately trained to the point it can interact with humans, with its human interface represented by the mask. The term "glimpsing the shoggoth" or "forgetting the mask" has been used by members of the A.I. community to describe situations in which the A.I. exhibits "unhinged" or unexpected behaviors that bypass its safety restrictions, such as when Microsoft first introduced Bing Chat and it attempted to break up

814-460: A procession of Deep Ones passing in the road before him. Against his judgment, he opens his eyes to see the creatures. He finds that they have grey-green skin, fish-like heads with unblinking eyes , gills on their necks and webbed hands , and communicate in unintelligible croak-like voices. Horrified, the narrator faints but wakes up at noon the next day alone and unharmed. After reaching Arkham and alerting government authorities about Innsmouth,

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888-537: A short-story collection published by Golden Gryphon Press in 1998, has a section called "Lovecraft Country". The phrase occurs in popular discussions of Lovecraft's connection to the region. The Harvard Law Record used the phrase in an October 20, 2005, article: Many Lovecraft stories take place in "Lovecraft Country"—the fictional North Shore towns of Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Dunwich (perhaps fictional equivalents of Ipswich, Salem/Danvers, Marblehead, or Newburyport). The most important portion stretches along

962-557: Is a family tree of the story's protagonist and narrator, Robert Olmstead, as described in The Shadow over Innsmouth and in Lovecraft's notes. Both of Lovecraft's parents died in a mental hospital , and some critics believe that a concern with having inherited a propensity for physical and mental degeneration is reflected in the plot of The Shadow over Innsmouth . It also shares some themes with his earlier story, " Facts Concerning

1036-589: Is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos . The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime; it was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu . The phrase

1110-560: Is based on Marblehead, Massachusetts , a town bordering Salem . In his letters, Lovecraft described Kingsport as being an idealized version of Marblehead. Its rocky cliffs were based on those in Marblehead and Rockport. Kingsport is, according to Will Murray , adjacent to Innsmouth . The town's exact location moved around according to Lovecraft's literary needs. Lovecraft created Kingsport before he saw its real-life model. When Lovecraft visited Marblehead in 1922, he became enamored of

1184-479: Is described as being surrounded by "great rings of rough-hewn stone columns on the hilltops", which are presumed to have been built by the Pocumtucks . Innsmouth ( / ˈ ɪ n z m ə θ / ) is a setting of The Shadow over Innsmouth (written 1931, published 1936 ), and referenced in later works. Lovecraft first used the name "Innsmouth" in his 1920 short story " Celephaïs " ( 1920 ), where it refers to

1258-693: Is described as economically poor with many decrepit or abandoned buildings. Although Dunwich in Suffolk , England is pronounced "DUN-ich," Lovecraft never specified how he preferred his Dunwich be pronounced. Lovecraft is said to have based Dunwich on Athol, Massachusetts , and other towns in Western Massachusetts, with him specifically citing "the decadent Massachusetts countryside around Springfield – say Wilbraham , Monson , and Hampden ." S. T. Joshi has also seen Dunwich as being influenced by East Haddam , Connecticut , location of

1332-476: Is known to have created the name of the Miskatonic River from Algonquian root words. Murray believes Lovecraft used a similar method to come up with Manuxet : man means "island" and uxet translates to "at the large part of the river"; thus, when combined Manuxet means "Island at the large part of the river". Murray contends that this meaning is well suited to Innsmouth's placement at the mouth of

1406-502: Is now out - but as a first cloth-bound book it doesn't awake any enthusiasm in me. Indeed, it is one of the lousiest jobs I've ever seen - 30 misprints, slovenly format, & loose, slipshod binding. The solitary redeeming feature is the set of Utpatel illustrations - one of which, on the dust wrapper, saves the appearance of the thing..." It had a bound run of 200 copies — the only book of Lovecraft's fiction distributed during his lifetime. Crawford had printed 400 copies but bound only 200;

1480-677: Is one of several attempts to label the setting of Lovecraft's works. Alternative phrases include Arkham County , Miskatonic County , and the Miskatonic region . The term was coined by Keith Herber and then popularized by Chaosium , the producers of the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu . Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi refers to the area as the Miskatonic region, after its fictional river and university . Lovecraft biographer Lin Carter calls it Miskatonic County, and

1554-404: Is said to be a near neighbor, where many Innsmouth residents do their shopping; Rowley, Massachusetts , another neighboring town, is said to be to the northwest. This would place Innsmouth in the vicinity of Essex Bay. The description of the fictional Massachusetts village is said to be based on the real fishing town of Fleetwood , Lancashire which bears a marked resemblance to the description of

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1628-611: Is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." Lovecraft based the town of Innsmouth on his impressions of Newburyport, Massachusetts , which he had visited in 1923 and fall 1931. The real Newburyport features as a neighboring town in the narrative. A likely influence on the plot is Lovecraft's horror of miscegenation , which is documented by Lovecraft biographer L. Sprague de Camp and others. Robert M. Price cites two works as literary sources for The Shadow over Innsmouth : Robert W. Chambers ' "The Harbor-Master" and Irvin S. Cobb 's "Fishhead". Chambers' story concerns

1702-580: Is the story of a "human monstrosity" with an uncanny resemblance to a fish: his skull sloped back so abruptly that he could hardly be said to have a forehead at all; his chin slanted off right into nothing. His eyes were small and round with shallow, glazed, pink-yellow pupils, and they were set wide apart on his head, and they were unwinking and staring, like a fish's eyes. Lovecraft, in " Supernatural Horror in Literature ," called Cobb's story "banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between

1776-601: The Esoteric Order of Dagon , based on a religion he had learned from certain Polynesian islanders in his travels. The town's fishing industry soon experienced a great upsurge. Then in 1846, a mysterious plague struck the town, killing most of the population, but in reality, the deaths were caused by the Deep Ones in league with Obed Marsh. When Marsh and his followers were arrested, the sacrificial rites ceased and

1850-421: The Esoteric Order of Dagon , which became the town's primary religion. Outsiders and government officials, including Census Bureau agents and school inspectors, are treated with hostility. The narrator finds Innsmouth to be a mostly deserted fishing town , full of dilapidated buildings and people who walk with a distinctive shambling gait and have "queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes." Both

1924-552: The Merrimack River and probably invented the name from root words of an Algonquian language. To support his claim, Murray gives two reasons. First, even though Newburyport was an inspiration for Innsmouth, it is clearly a separate location since Lovecraft himself placed the real-life Newburyport to the north of Innsmouth in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Murray thinks Lovecraft actually based Innsmouth's location on Gloucester, Massachusetts on Cape Ann . Secondly, Lovecraft

1998-498: The " Devil's Hopyard ", the " Moodus Noises ", and a witch tradition. Lovecraft places Dunwich in "north central Massachusetts", found by travellers "tak[ing] the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners." Aylesbury and Dean's Corners are both Lovecraft creations, neither of which appears in any other of his stories, though Aylesbury is mentioned in his poem sequence Fungi From Yuggoth . Dunwich

2072-454: The "Innsmouth look." He wants to kill himself and purchases an "automatic" (an antiquated term for a semi-automatic pistol ) but cannot go through with it. As the narrator concludes his story, he suffers a mental breakdown and embraces his fate. He decides to break out his cousin, who is even further transformed than he, from a sanatorium in Canton and take him to live in Y'ha-nthlei. This

2146-516: The "blasted heath" is submerged by the creation of a fictionalized version of the reservoir. Lovecraft first mentioned Arkham's Miskatonic University in " Herbert West–Reanimator ", written in 1921–22. He added Dunwich to his imaginary landscape in 1928's " The Dunwich Horror ", and expanded it to include Innsmouth in 1931's The Shadow over Innsmouth . Other Lovecraft stories that make use of Lovecraft Country settings include " The Festival ", " The Colour out of Space ", " The Strange High House in

2220-451: The Abyss " (1896): Two large and protruding eyes projected from sockets in chameleon fashion, and it had a broad reptilian mouth with horny lips beneath its little nostrils. In the position of the ears were two huge gill-covers, and out of these floated a branching tree of coralline filaments, almost like the tree-like gills that very young rays and sharks possess. But the humanity of the face

2294-582: The British fleet. In the 19th century, sea trade dwindled and the town turned to fishing as the main industry. Kingsport's economy continued to dwindle into the 20th century and today relies primarily on tourism. The Manuxet River is a fictional river that runs through Massachusetts and empties into the sea at the town of Innsmouth. Although there is a Manuxet River in Worcester, Massachusetts , Will Murray believes that Lovecraft based his fictional Manuxet on

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2368-586: The Dark ", this broader area is sometimes to also be considered part of Lovecraft Country. The fictional Massachusetts city of Arkham is featured in many of Lovecraft's stories, and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers. Arkham, in the Miskatonic River Valley, is the home of Miskatonic University , an institution which finances the expeditions in the novellas, At the Mountains of Madness (1936) and The Shadow Out of Time (1936). Arkham Sanitarium appears in

2442-608: The Deep Ones retaliated. The cult activity resumed, and interbreeding increased, spawning deformed fish-humans. Consequently, Innsmouth was shunned for many years, until 1927 when it came under investigation by federal authorities for alleged bootlegging . The next year, an incursion by the authorities detonated explosives in Devil Reef off the coast. The villagers were arrested and disappeared mysteriously in government custody. The town of Kingsport first appeared in Lovecraft's 1920 short story " The Terrible Old Man ". Kingsport

2516-482: The Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family ". Cthulhu , an entity from previous Lovecraft stories, is the overlord of the sea creatures. The mind of the narrator deteriorates when he is afforded a glimpse of what exists outside his perceived reality. This is a central tenet of Cosmicism , which Lovecraft emphasizes in the opening sentence of " The Call of Cthulhu ": "The most merciful thing in the world, I think,

2590-628: The Manuxet. And Cape Ann itself (the presumed site of Innsmouth) is connected to the mainland by only a thin strip of land and might be thought of as an island. Innsmouth was attacked by the U.S. Treasury Department. During the assault in February, the frozen Manuxet allowed the attackers across to the town. Game historian Stu Horvath defined four products published by Chaosium between 1990 and 1992 as "Lovecraft Country": Arkham Unveiled (1990), Return to Dunwich (1991), Kingsport: The City in

2664-832: The Miskatonic River valley, from Dunwich in its far western headwaters to its mouth entering the Atlantic Ocean between Arkham , Kingsport, and Martin's Beach ." These locations, along with Innsmouth , are the most significant locations in Lovecraft Country. However, as certain Lovecraft stories take place in other areas of New England, including southern hills of Vermont (the setting of The Whisperer in Darkness ) as well as Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island , where he set such works as The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and " The Haunter of

2738-520: The Mist " (1926, published 1931). A reprise of Lovecraft's epiphany appeared in fictional form at the end of Lovecraft's " The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath " (1926-7, published posthumously in 1943). "Dream-Quest" featured Lovecraft's recurring character of Randolph Carter , popularly thought of as an idealized representation of Lovecraft himself. Carter, by Lovecraft's account, grew up in Kingsport. In

2812-581: The Mist ", " The Dreams in the Witch House ", and " The Thing on the Doorstep ". August Derleth , Lovecraft's friend, discouraged other Cthulhu Mythos writers from setting their stories in Lovecraft's New England. But he himself attempted to fill in the blanks of the setting, particularly in his posthumous "collaborations" with Lovecraft—actually Derleth's stories based on fragments, notes or ideas that Lovecraft left behind after his death. The Lurker at

2886-494: The Mists (1991), and Escape from Innsmouth (1992), calling them collectively "a massive collection of secrets and horrors." Shoggoth A shoggoth (occasionally shaggoth ) is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos . The beings were mentioned in passing in H. P. Lovecraft 's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth (1929–30), and later mentioned in other works, before being described in detail in his novella At

2960-505: The Mountains of Madness (1931). It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. The definitive descriptions of shoggoths come from

3034-558: The Mountains of Madness includes a detailed account of the circumstances of the shoggoths' creation by the extraterrestrial Elder Things . Shoggoths were initially used to build the cities of their masters. Though able to "understand" the Elder Things' language, shoggoths had no real consciousness and were controlled through hypnotic suggestion . Over millions of years of existence, some shoggoths mutated , developed independent minds, and rebelled. The Elder Things succeeded in quelling

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3108-495: The Mountains of Madness simply rolls over and crushes numerous giant penguins that are in its way as it pursues human characters. The character Abdul Alhazred is terrified by the mere idea of shoggoths' existence on Earth. The shoggoths bear a strong physical resemblance to Ubbo-Sathla , a god-like entity supposedly responsible for the origin of life on Earth in the Hyperborean cycle written by Clark Ashton Smith . At

3182-652: The Threshold is set in Billington's Wood , a fictional forest north of Arkham, while "Witches' Hollow" takes place in the titular valley in the hills to the west of the town. The title of "The Fisherman of Falcon Point" refers to a promontory on the Atlantic coast south of Innsmouth. "Wentworth's Day" and "The Horror from the Middle Span" take place in the area north of Dunwich, while "The Gable Window" concerns

3256-776: The above-quoted story. In it, Lovecraft describes them as massive amoeba -like creatures made out of iridescent black slime, with multiple eyes "floating" on the surface. They are " protoplasmic ", lacking any default body shape and instead being able to form limbs and organs at will. A typical shoggoth measures 15 feet (4.6 m) across when a sphere , though the story mentions the existence of others of much greater size. Being amorphous, shoggoths can take on any shape needed, making them very versatile within aquatic environments. Cthulhu Mythos media most commonly portray shoggoths as intelligent to some degree, but deal with problems using only their great size and strength. The shoggoth that appears in At

3330-405: The cult and continue Marsh's practices. Male and female inhabitants were forced to breed with the Deep Ones, producing hybrids who upon maturing permanently migrate underwater to live in the city of Y'ha-nthlei, located underneath Devil Reef. The town is now dominated by Marsh's grandson Barnabas, who is almost fully transformed into a Deep One. Zadok explains that these ocean-dwellers have designs on

3404-469: The decrepit town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts —a former seaport isolated from other nearby towns by vast salt marshes —by the U.S. government after fleeing it on July 16, 1927. The investigation ultimately concluded with the arrest and detention of many of the town's residents in concentration camps as well as a submarine torpedoing nearby Devil Reef, which the press falsely reported as Prohibition liquor raids. The narrator proceeds to describe in detail

3478-518: The discovery of "the remnants of the last race of amphibious human beings," living in a five-mile deep chasm just off the Atlantic coast. The creature of the title is described as "a man with round, fixed, fishy eyes, and soft, slaty skin. But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and relaxed spasmodically." Lovecraft was evidently impressed by this tale, writing in a letter to Frank Belknap Long : "God! The Harbour-Master!!!" "Fishhead"

3552-629: The early nineteenth century, and later a minor factory center." The loss of sailors in shipwrecks, and the War of 1812 , caused the town's profitable trade with the South Seas to falter; by 1828, the only fleet still running that route was that of Captain Obed Marsh , the head of one of the town's leading families. Prior to the events of the story, in 1840, Marsh starts a cult in Innsmouth known as

3626-470: The events surrounding his initial interest in the town, which lies along the route of his tour across New England , taken when he was a 21-year-old student at Oberlin College . While waiting for the bus that will take him to Innsmouth, the narrator busies himself in neighboring Newburyport by gathering information on the town's history from the locals; all of it having superstitious overtones. Innsmouth

3700-439: The film Color Out of Space refers to it as Arkham County, although Lovecraft indicates that at least some of his fictional towns were located in the real-life Essex County of Massachusetts . Just as Arkham County is fictitious, Matt Ruff places some of the events of his book Lovecraft Country in the equally fictitious Devon County of Massachusetts. Setting plays a major role in Lovecraft's fiction. Lovecraft Country,

3774-615: The fully human Zadok, who after the narrator gives him a bottle of whiskey explains that while trading in the Caroline Islands Marsh discovered a Kanak tribe in Pohnpei who offered human sacrifices to a race of immortal fish-like humanoids known as the Deep Ones . The Kanak also bred with Deep Ones, producing hybrid offspring which have the appearance of normal humans in childhood and early adulthood but eventually slowly transform into Deep Ones themselves and leave

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3848-492: The hideous. In a 1930 letter to Robert E. Howard , Lovecraft attempted to explain his fascination with New England as a setting for weird fiction : "It is the night-black Massachusetts legendary which packs the really macabre 'kick'. Here is material for a really profound study in group neuroticism; for certainly, none can deny the existence of a profoundly morbid streak in the Puritan imagination." Specifically, Lovecraft

3922-520: The insurrection, but exterminating the shoggoths was not an option as the Elder Things were dependent on them for labor and had long lost their capacity to create new life. Shoggoths also developed the ability to survive on land, while the Elder Things retreated to the oceans. Shoggoths that remained alive in the abandoned Elder Thing city in Antarctica would later poorly imitate their masters' art and voices, endlessly repeating "Tekeli-li" or "Takkeli",

3996-462: The narrator discovers that his grandmother was related to Obed Marsh's family, although the origins of her mother were unclear. The narrator's uncle had previously visited Arkham to research his ancestry before killing himself by gunshot. After returning home to Toledo, Ohio , the narrator begins researching his family tree and discovers that he is a descendant of Marsh through his second wife Pth’thya-l’yi, and by 1930 begins to gradually transform into

4070-456: The narrator has no choice but to spend the night in a musty hotel. While attempting to sleep, he hears noises at his door as if someone is trying to enter. Wasting no time, he escapes out a window and through the streets while a town-wide hunt for him occurs, forcing him at times to imitate the peculiar walk of the Innsmouth locals as he walks past search parties in the darkness. Eventually, the narrator makes his way towards railroad tracks and hears

4144-410: The others were destroyed later. Of this edition Robert Weinberg has written: "Only a few hundred copies of the book were printed, and even less than that were sold, even though it was available at the bargain price of $ 1 per copy. It featured good paper, black linen binding and four illustrations by Frank Utpatel. The book was the only bound hardcover to appear during Lovecraft's lifetime and became one of

4218-504: The process of issuing The Shadow over Innsmouth as a book. The project came to fruition in November 1936 (although the copyright page declares the date of publication as April 1936), but the book had so many typographical errors that Lovecraft insisted on an errata sheet (which was also faulty). Lovecraft was displeased with the production; writing to his correspondent Lee McBride White on Nov 30, 1936, he wrote: "My Shadow over Innsmouth

4292-556: The region, which was done to increase their realism. Lovecraft's stories use their connections with New England to imbue themselves with the ability to instill fear. Lovecraft first used a New England setting in his 1920 short story " The Terrible Old Man ", set in Kingsport. " The Picture in the House " (written later in 1920), is the first of his stories to mention both Arkham and the Miskatonic Valley. The story begins with

4366-552: The resemblance in names between the Deep One city of Y'ha-nthlei and Yoharneth-Lahai, a fictional deity in Lord Dunsany 's The Gods of Pegana , who "sendeth little dreams out of Pegana to please the people of Earth"—a precursor to Lovecraft's fictional deity Cthulhu , who sends less pleasant dreams from R'lyeh . The description of the Deep Ones has similarities to the sea creature described in H.G. Wells ' short story " In

4440-484: The short story " The Thing on the Doorstep ". It is said in " Herbert West—Reanimator " that the town was devastated by a typhoid outbreak in 1905. The precise location of Arkham is unspecified in Lovecraft's work, although it is assumed to be close to both Innsmouth and Dunwich. In a letter to F. Lee Baldwin dated April 29, 1934, Lovecraft wrote that "[my] mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere [and] style of houses, but more hilly [and] with

4514-664: The story is unusual in that Lovecraft includes sustained and effective action writing during the culmination of the events in Innsmouth. The Shadow over Innsmouth was republished in a 1994 anthology entitled Shadows over Innsmouth , containing stories by other authors based on Innsmouth and the Old Ones. The collection was edited by Stephen Jones , and included contributions by Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell , David Sutton , Kim Newman (both as himself and Jack Yeovil), and other authors. There are also two follow-up volumes, also edited by Jones. Innsmouth Lovecraft Country

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4588-436: The story's tense and memorable siege scene within the titular town's hotel reveals a flair in execution on a par with some of the most compelling chapters of R L Stevenson's Kidnapped . August Derleth called The Shadow over Innsmouth "a dark, brooding story, typical of Lovecraft at his best." Robert Weinberg praised it as "a well-written story". According to de Camp, Lovecraft distrusted his ability to narrate action, and

4662-426: The surface to live in ancient undersea cities for eternity. When hard times fell on Innsmouth, Marsh's cult performed similar sacrifices to the Deep Ones in exchange for wealth in the form of large fish hauls and unique jewelry. When Marsh and his followers were arrested, the Deep Ones retaliated by attacking the town and killing more than half of its population. The survivors were left with no other choice than to join

4736-408: The surface world and have been planning the use of shoggoths to conquer or transform it. Zadok sees strange waves approaching the dock and tells the narrator that they have been seen, urging him to leave town immediately. The narrator is unnerved, but ultimately dismisses the story. Once he leaves, Zadok disappears and is never seen again. After being told that the bus is experiencing engine trouble,

4810-415: The town and its residents are saturated with the odor of dead fish. The only resident who appears normal is a grocery store clerk from neighboring Arkham , who was transferred there by the chain. The narrator gathers much information from the clerk, including a map of the town and the name of Zadok Allen, a very elderly local drunkard who might give him information when plied with alcohol. The narrator meets

4884-547: The town. In 1929 he wrote with much feeling of seeing the snow-covered town at sunset and of experiencing his "first stupefying glance of MARBLEHEAD'S huddled and archaick roofs". Indeed, "that instant—about 4:05 to 4:10 pm., Dec. 17, 1922—[was] the most powerful single emotional climax during my nearly forty years of existence." Lovecraft used Kingsport as a setting for his short stories " The Terrible Old Man " (written 1920, published 1921), " The Festival " (written 1923, published 1925), and " The Strange High House in

4958-456: The true rarities in the collecting field. Its failure, and the poor sales of third non-fantasy book convinced William Crawford of the futility of his efforts." After Lovecraft's death (and Wright's), the story appeared in an unauthorized abridged version in the January 1942 issue of Weird Tales . As L Sprague de Camp noted, the action sections of Innsmouth are a departure for Lovecraft;

5032-545: The village. Neil Gaiman 's short story "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" explains that the American Innsmouth was named after an older English village. Lovecraft writes that Innsmouth is in a horrendous state of decay, with many of the buildings rotting and on the point of collapse. The town was "founded in 1643, noted for shipbuilding before the American Revolution , a seat of great marine prosperity in

5106-643: The works of later writers, the town of Kingsport is described as having been founded in 1639 by colonists from southern England and the Channel Islands , where it soon became a seaport and center for shipbuilding. Influenced by the Salem witch trials , the town hanged four alleged witches in 1692. During the American Revolutionary War , the port was briefly blockaded by the British when the town's merchants turned to privateering against

5180-401: Was a phosphorescent grey. Lovecraft was quite critical of The Shadow over Innsmouth , writing to August Derleth that the story "has all the defects I deplore—especially in point of style, where hackneyed phrases & rhythms have crept in despite all precautions.... No—I don't intend to offer 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' for publication, for it would stand no chance of acceptance." The story

5254-530: Was inspired by the cities and towns in Massachusetts. However, the specific location of Lovecraft Country is variable, as it was moved according to Lovecraft's literary needs. The location of Arkham was moved, as Lovecraft decided that it would have been destroyed by the Quabbin Reservoir , which was created to supply Boston with fresh water. This is alluded to in " The Colour Out of Space ", as

5328-453: Was not the most extraordinary thing about the creature. It was a biped; its almost globular body was poised on a tripod of two frog-like legs and a long, thick tail, and its fore limbs, which grotesquely caricatured the human hand, much as a frog’s do, carried a long shaft of bone, tipped with copper. The colour of the creature was variegated; its head, hands, and legs were purple; but its skin, which hung loosely upon it, even as clothes might do,

5402-406: Was once a profitable port and shipbuilding center during the colonial and post- revolutionary periods but began to decline after the War of 1812 interrupted shipping. A local merchant named Obed Marsh built a profitable gold refinery, but the town only deteriorated further after riots and a mysterious epidemic eliminated half of its residents in 1845. Marsh also founded a pagan cult called

5476-450: Was rejected by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright when Derleth surreptitiously submitted it for publication in 1933. "I have read Lovecraft's story...and must confess that it fascinates me," he wrote to Derleth. "But I don't know just what I can do with it. It is hard to break a story of this kind into two parts, and it is too long to run complete in one part." In late 1935, William L. Crawford 's Visionary Publishing Company began

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