The Shadow over Innsmouth

[AdamSmith]

In case you ever need to find your way out of Innsmouth in a hurry...

Text: The Shadow over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft.

[RA1]

I would think anyone well advised would always wish to depart Innsmouth. And, in a hurry. What evil happenstance caused one to be there in the first place may well be a different story.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

One tributary off the mainstream, such as it is, of Lovecraft criticism is devoted to locating his fictional towns in the real-world settings in which he describes them. E.g.:

Tourist's Guide to Innsmouth

General Location

"You could take the old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it ain't much thought of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth--you may have heard about that--and so the people don't like it."

In their generally admirable annotated edition of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (Necronomicon Press, 1994), S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz cite Lovecraft's statements that the fictional town of Innsmouth is inspired by the atmospheric, decaying town of Newburyport, Mass. But, as they also point out, Innsmouth itself is distinguished from Newburyport in the story, and is said to be located somewhere on the route from Newburyport to Arkham.

The exact location is a matter of some doubt. Joshi and Schultz point out that Innsmouth also shares some parallels with the real town of Gloucester, which is not mentioned in the story, and they imply that Lovecraft may have intended Innsmouth to be situated where Gloucester is. However, the evidence in the story convinces me that Innsmouth could not be located on the site of Gloucester. Consider:

The narrator sets out from Newburyport in Joe Sargent's bus, which proceeds south along the coast. The road splits from the main highway to Rowley and Ipswich, and veers toward the beach instead. The narrator sees Plum Island on the left, but eventually they pass the southern tip of Plum Island and he sees the open expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Then the road begins to climb, and at the next crest, the valley of the Manuxet, with Innsmouth at its mouth, lies spread before them. Manuxet "joins the sea just north of the long line of cliffs that culminate in Kingsport Head and veer off toward Cape Ann" (315-316 in the corrected Arkham printing of The Dunwich Horror and Others). Kingsport is another of Lovecraft's creations, but Cape Ann is real enough, and it happens that Gloucester is well around the corner beyond Cape Ann. Joe Sargent's bus simply hasn't driven that far.

There are other indications of a location too far north to be Gloucester. The Ipswich road is an extension of Eliot St, which proceeds southwest from Town Square. Thus, when the narrator gazes west from his hotel room, planning his escape, he sees the Ipswich road to his left (347). The narrator also observes that the abandoned railway line to Rowley streches off to the northwest (354).

So Innsmouth is supposed to be further south than Plum island, but not so far south as Cape Ann; also roughly southeast of Rowley and roughly northeast of Ipswich. Such a place would be perhaps near the mouth of the Ipswich river; one wonders if that river could be the inspiration for the Manuxet.

It is also quite possible that Lovecraft had no precise location in mind for Innsmouth, but the clues mentioned above seem to at least indicate the correct stretch of coast.

http://cthulhufiles.com/innsmth.htm

[RA1]

Plum Island seems to also have its share of stories, horror and otherwise.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Actually extraordinarily lovely. The only horror acknowledged by Plum Island natives is the pestiferous greenhead fly that swarms in summer months.

[RA1]

I have no doubt that it is lovely.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

P.S. Lovecraft initially located his fictional town of Arkham in west-central Massachusetts. Then in 1930, to his irritation, the state decided to flood exactly that region to create the Quabbin Reservoir to provide drinking water for Boston and neighboring towns. So in subsequent stories he relocated Arkham to the Massachusetts north coast.

At a Lovecraft convention I attended in Providence, RI some years back, one HPL critic (for real -- some university prof) gave an elaborate presentation on where precisely the original Arkham must have been located, using his research among photos of the area made shortly before it was flooded to create the reservoir, descriptions of various locales from residents at the time or their descendants, etc., etc. He was really proud of himself.

It was thus delightful when, after he finished and asked for questions, a somewhat elderly lady in the audience stood up and said something to the effect of, "Well, you know in his letter number X to Frank Belnap Long, Lovecraft described the setting as [something or other]...And he added [these other details] in letter number Y...And you know he got that description directly from the local newspaper out there of [date], in an article on the flooding that the Quabbin was going to create in [such-and-such an area]. [Plus this detail and that.] So all that makes it fairly definite that Arkham was actually located there, don't you think?"

She was clearly correct. We all applauded this fan/amateur sleuth for so neatly showing up the professional, no one clapping more vigorously than the legendary Robert Bloch, the guest of honor at that year's convention, who had been in the audience. I saw him seek her out afterward and very warmly say, more or less, "It is the priceless lunatics such as you, madam, for whom many of us keep on writing year after year."

[boiworship]

Wow. Lovecraft fans here! The Aylesbury Pike and a lonely and curious country. Gambrel roofs and desolation. You're entering the Dunwich Country!

[AdamSmith]

Wow. Lovecraft fans here! The Aylesbury Pike and a lonely and curious country. Gambrel roofs and desolation. You're entering the Dunwich Country!

See also: http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/22030-sources-of-necromancy-in-charles-dexter-ward/