An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

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 novel: 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),