The Shadow over Innsmouth

The Shadow over Innsmouth

Dust jacket from the first edition
Author	H. P. Lovecraft
Illustrator	Frank Utpatel
Cover artist	Frank Utpatel
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Horror novella
Publisher	Visionary Publishing Company
Publication date	April 1936
OCLC	3920225
Text	at

The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization. It references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures and invocations.

The narrator is a student on an antiquarian tour of New England. He sees a piece of exotic jewelry in a museum, and learns that its source is the nearby decrepit seaport of Innsmouth. He travels to Innsmouth and observes disturbing events and people.

It is the only Lovecraft story which was published in book form during his lifetime.

According to L Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft distrusted his ability to narrate action, and the story is unusual in that Lovecraft includes in chapter IV a sustained and effective piece of action writing.

The story is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, the narrator begins by telling the reader of how he instigated a secret investigation of the ruined town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, by the U.S. government. He proceeds to describe in detail the events surrounding his initial interest in the town (antiquarian and architectural), which lies along the route of his tour across New England, taken when he was twenty-one. While he waits for the bus that will take him to Innsmouth, he busies himself in the neighboring town of Newburyport by gathering information on the town from local townsfolk; all of it having superstitious overtones.

The second chapter details his ride into Innsmouth, described in great detail as a crumbling, mostly deserted, seacoast fishing town full of dilapidated structures, and people who look just a bit odd and who tend to walk with a distinct shambling gait. All of this is unsettling to the narrator, who describes the citizens as having the "Innsmouth look", "queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes". Only one person in town appears normal, a young clerk at the local First National Grocery Store, who is a citizen from neighboring Arkham. The narrator gathers much information from the clerk, including a map of the town, and the name of a local who might be a good source of information: an ancient man named Zadok Allen, known to open up information about the town's history when plied with drink. The narrator hears repeatedly that non-natives are never welcomed by the native Innsmouthians, and that strangers, particularly government investigators, have disappeared when they pry too deeply into the town.