Lovecraftiana: Shadow Out of Time - Revelations!

So, you think you've read Shadow Out of Time, eh? Maybe. Maybe not.

In May 1934, after a period of frustration and depression, HPL got a thought for a new story [1, p.10] "I'm ... planning a novellette of the Arkham cycle ... when somebody inherited a queer old house on the top of Frenchman's Hill ... an urge to dig in a certain ... abandoned graveyard ... [but this will be] ... scientifiction."

He got to work [1, p.10,11] and scribbled with pencil between Nov. 10, 1934 and Feb. 22, 1935. He went through two or three drafts, no one is sure.

Lovecraft circulated the scrawled story to his writer circle. Perhaps because it was virtually illegible, the gang thought it lackluster. He carried it down to R. H. Barlow who stayed up nights secretly typing it. Then he sprung the typed copy on "Grandpa" who nearly had a spell he was so overwhelmed by Barlow's firendship.

This copy - unbeknownst to anyone - had many typos and errors. HPL then carried that typed manuscript back with him, and Barlow kept the autograph.

Don Wandrei nabbed the typed copy from Lovecraft and got it into the hands of F. Orlin Tremaine of Astounding Stories and the story was published.

When HPL read the published copy he went apoplectic. Everything was wrong. Paragraphs were screwed up, words capitalized, and the list went on. He took his pencil and corrected the copy in the 'zine. However, his memory was quite faulty. He reproduced yet another version.

Later, when Wandrei and Derleth decided to publish SooT, they took HPL's corrected copy of Astounding and used it. Barlow tucked his autograph copy away never to be seen again until Jan. 17, 1995. That story will have to wait another blog entry.

If you have, like I do, the Del Rey [2] text, it is quite different. However, the imdomintable Mr. Joshi published the Barlow edition in Hippocampus Press in 2001. This text was used by Penguin [3] in their version, including many of the end notes of the Hippocampus edition.

I want to give you an example of what happened between Derleth's copy and Barlow's autograph.
_

The Del Rey edition has:

"I am the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Wingate) Peaslee, both of wholesome old Haverhill stock. I was born and reared in Haverhill - at the old homestead in Boardman Street near Golden Hill - and did not go to Arkham till I entered Miskatonic University as instructor of political economy in 1895.
"For thirteen years more my life ran smoothly and happily. I married Alice Keezar of Haverhill in 1896, and my three children, Robert, Wingate and Hannah were born in 1898, 1900, and 1903, respectively. In 1898 I became an associate professor, and in 1902 a full professor. At no time had I the least interest in either occultism or abnormal psychology."
_

HPL's autograph has this as one paragraph. Barlow's lacuna* is replaced here:

I am the son of Jonathan and Hannah (Wingate) Peaslee, both of wholesome old Haverhill stock. I was born and reared in Haverhill - at the old homestead in Boardman Street near Golden Hill - and did not go to Arkham till I entered Miskatonic University at the age of eighteen. That was in 1889, After my graduation I studied economics at Harvard, and came back to Miskatonic as instructor of political economy in 1895. For thirteen years more my life ran smoothly and happily. I married Alice Keezar of Haverhill in 1896, and my three children, Robert K. , Wingate and Hannah, were born in 1898, 1900, and 1903, respectively. In 1898 I became an associate professor, and in 1902 a full professor. At no time had I the least interest in either occultism or abnormal psychology."
_

So, there you have it! There are perhaps 5 or more drafts of this incredible story. As a writer, I understand the painful process of creating, drafting, editing, and rewriting stories. It is tedious, and the writer wants to always make it better. I find this process important. In an earlier blog, I alluded to multiple drafts of The Beast In The Cave. Soon, I will explore my redactive analysis of this early, but pivotal story.



*scribal omission usually due to identical words in the same passage. The eye sees one, and then glances away and back at the text and picks up at the next word omitting the text in between.


1. The Shadow Out of Time, ed. Joshi & Schultz, Hippocampus, 2001, isbn 0967321530.
2. The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, Del Rey, 1986, isbn 0345394688
3. H. P. Lovecraft: The Dreams in the Witchhouse and Other Weird Stories, ed. Joshi, Penguin, 2004, isbn 0142437956