The Shadow over Innsmouth
The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization, and references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures, and invocations. The Shadow over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that was published in book form during his lifetime.
Author
Frank Utpatel
Frank Utpatel
English
April 1936
United States
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.
Plot[edit]
The narrator explains how he instigated a secret investigation of 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 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. The town 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 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 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 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 the surface to live in ancient undersea cities for eternity. When hard times fell on the town, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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 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.
Shadows over Innsmouth[edit]
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.