The story proves to be a cautionary tale on the ill effects of miscegenation, or the sexual union of different races, and as such can be considered a vast expansion and subtilization of the plot of “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” (1920).
The name Innsmouth had been coined for “Celephaïs” (1920), then clearly located in England. HPL revived the name for two sonnets (“The Port” and “The Bells”) of Fungi from Yuggoth(1929–30), where the setting is not entirely clear, although a New England locale is likely.
There seem to be three dominant literary influences on the tale. The use of hybrid fishlike entities derives from at least two works for which HPL always retained a fondness: Irvin S.Cobb’s “Fishhead” (which HPL read in the Cavalierin 1913 and praised in a letter to the editor, and which was also reprinted in Harré’s Beware After Dark![1929], where HPL surely reread it) and Robert W. Chambers’s “The Harbor-Master,” a short story later included as the first five chapters of the episodic novel In Search of the Unknown(1904). (August Derleth had given HPL a copy of the book in the fall of 1930 [ SL3.187].) But in both stories there is only a singlecase of hybridism, not that of an entire community or civilization. This latter feature may have been partially derived from Algernon Blackwood’s “Ancient Sorceries” (in John Silence—Physician Extraordinary[1908]), in which the inhabitants of an entire small town in France all appear to practice sorcery and turn into cats at night. The character Zadok Allen seems loosely based upon the figure of Humphrey Lathrop, an elderly doctor in Herbert Gorman’s The Place Called Dagon(1927), which HPL read in March 1928 (HPL to August Derleth, March 2, [1928]; ms., SHSW). Like Zadok, Lathrop is the repository for the secret history of the Massachusetts town in which he resides (Leominster, in the north-central part of Massachusetts) and, like Zadok, he is partial to spirits. Zadok, however, has exactly the life-span (1831–1927) of HPL’s aged amateur colleague Jonathan E.Hoag.
Olmstead’s character and mannerisms reveal several autobiographical touches, especially in regard to HPL’s habits as a frugal antiquarian traveler. Olmstead always “seek[s] the cheapest possible route,” and this is usually—for Olmstead as for HPL—by bus. His reading up on Innsmouth in the library, and his systematic exploration of the town by way of the map and instructions given
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to him by the grocery youth, parallel HPL’s own thorough researches into the history and topography of the places he wished to visit and his frequent trips to libraries, chambers of commerce, and elsewhere for maps, guidebooks, and historical background. Even the ascetic meal Olmstead eats at a restaurant—“A bowl of vegetable soup with crackers was enough for me”—echoes HPL’s parsimonious diet both at home and on his travels.
Olmstead’s spectacular conversion at the end—where he not only becomes reconciled to his fate as a nameless hybrid but actually welcomes it—is the most controversial point of the tale. Does this mean that HPL, as in At the Mountains of Madness,wishes to transform the Deep Ones from objects of horror to objects of sympathy or identification? Or are we to imagine Olmstead’s change of heart as an augmentation of the horror? It would appear that the latter is intended. There is no gradual “reformation” of the Deep Ones as there is of the Old Ones in the earlier noveclass="underline" our revulsion at their physical hideousness is not mollified or tempered by any subsequent appreciation of their intelligence, courage, or nobility. Olmstead’s transformation is the climax of the story and the pinnacle of its horrific scenario: it shows that not merely his physical body but his mind has been ineluctably corrupted. In a way, the ending parallels the conclusion of “The Temple,” where the narrator confidently vows with a tone of triumph to enter the sunken city. Olmstead’s final utterance, incidentally, seems to be a parody of the 23rd Psalm (“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever”).
See William L.Crawford, “Lovecraft’s First Book,” in The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces(Arkham House, 1959); Dirk W.Mosig, “Innsmouth and the Lovecraft Oeuvre: A Holistic Approach,” Nyctalops 2, No. 7 (March 1978): 3, 5; T.G.L.Cockcroft, “Some Notes on ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth,’” LSNo. 3 (Fall 1980): 3–4; Bert Atsma, “The Scales of Horror,” CryptNo. 18 (Yuletide 1983): 16–18; Will Murray, “Lovecraft and Strange Tales,” CryptNo. 74 (Lammas 1990): 3–11; Sam Gafford, “‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’: Lovecraft’s Melting Pot,” LSNo. 24 (Spring 1991): 6–13; Bennett LovettGraff, “Shadows over Lovecraft: Reactionary Fantasy and Immigrant Eugenics,” Extrapolation38, No. 3 (Fall 1997): 175–92.
Shea, J[oseph] Vernon (1912–1981),
correspondent of HPL (1931–37). Shea, residing in Pittsburgh, engaged HPL in numerous involved (and at times heated) discussions on politics (especially concerning Hitler and the Nazis) and society. Shea’s lifelong interest in films also seemed to rub off a bit on HPL, who discussed with Shea numerous films he saw in the 1930s, including Berkeley Square. Shea wrote some fiction at this time (HPL was much impressed with a short story called “The Tin Roof; see SL4.93–94), but it was not published. Shea published a few weird and science fiction stories in magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, and still later wrote some tales imitating HPL: “The Haunter of the Graveyard” (in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos,ed. August Derleth [1969]) and “Dead Giveaway” ( Outré,1976). Shea compiled two nonweird anthologies, Strange Desires(1954) and Strange Barriers(1955). He wrote a poignant memoir, “H.P.Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows” ( Fantasy & Science Fiction,
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May 1966; rpt. Necronomicon Press, 1982). See his collection, In Search of Lovecraft(Necronomicon Press, 1991).
Shepherd, Wilson (b. 1917),
weird fiction editor and publisher in Oakman, Alabama, and associate of HPL (1932–37). HPL first heard of Shepherd indirectly from R.H.Barlow, who protested that Shepherd was trying to bamboozle him in regard to the exchange of some pulp magazines. HPL’s (unintentionally comical) piece, “Correspondence between R.H.Barlow and Wilson Shepherd” (1932; first published in LSNo. 13 [Fall 1986]: 68–71), attempts to unsnarl the misunderstanding. In 1936 HPL heard directly from Shepherd, who was now assisting Donald A.Wollheim in editing the Phantagraph . The two editors also conceived of a semi-professional magazine, Fanciful Tales,which was issued in Fall 1936 and contained a severely misprinted version of HPL’s “The Nameless City.” Shepherd was also attempting to write poetry. HPL slightly touched up an apparently unpublished poem called “Death” (see HPL to Shepherd, August 11, 1936; ms., JHL) and more exhaustively revised a poem called “Wanderer’s Return” (see HPL to Shepherd, September 5, 1936), published in the Literary Quarterly(Winter 1937). In acknowledgment, Wollheim and Shepherd printed HPL’s sonnet “Background” ( Fungi from Yuggoth30) as a broadside for his forty-sixth birthday (it purports to be Volume 47, No. 1 of The Lovecrafter). After HPL’s death Shepherd printed A History of the Necronomiconunder the imprint of the Rebel Press (1938).