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"The Shadow Out of Time" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. This article is about the author. ...
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The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
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Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...
This article is in need of attention. ...
Astounding Stories was a seminal science fiction magazine founded in 1930. ...
This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
This article is in need of attention. ...
“Horror story†redirects here. ...
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. ...
See also: 1933 in literature, other events of 1934, 1935 in literature, list of years in literature. ...
See also: 1934 in literature, other events of 1935, 1936 in literature, list of years in literature. ...
See also: 1935 in literature, other events of 1936, 1937 in literature, list of years in literature. ...
Astounding Stories was a seminal science fiction magazine founded in 1930. ...
Inspiration
S. T. Joshi points to Berkeley Square, a 1933 fantasy film, as an inspiration for "The Shadow Out of Time": "Lovecraft saw this film four times in late 1933; its portrayal of a man of the twentieth century who somehow merges his personality with that of his eighteenth-century ancestor was clearly something that fired Lovecraft's imagination, since he had written a story on this very theme himself--the then unpublished The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927)." Lovecraft called the film "the most weirdly perfect embodiment of my own moods and pseudo-memories that I have ever seen--for all my life I have felt as if I might wake up out of this dream of an idiotic Victorian age and insane jazz age into the sane reality of 1760 or 1770 or 1780." Lovecraft noted some conceptual problems in Berkeley Square's depiction of time travel, and felt that he had "eliminated these flaws in his masterful novella of mind-exchange over time."[1] Sunanda Tryambak Joshi (b. ...
Berkeley Square is the title of a 1933 film which tells the story of a young American who is transported back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meets his ancestors. ...
Categories: Stub | Cthulhu Mythos ...
Other literary models for "The Shadow Out of Time" include H. B. Drake's The Shadowy Thing (originally published as The Remedy in 1925), about a person who has the ability to transfer his personality to another body; Henri Beraud's Lazarus (1925), in which the protagonist develops an alter ego during a lengthy period of amnesia; and Walter de la Mare's The Return (1910), featuring a character who seems to be possessed by a mind from the 18th century.[2] Walter John de la Mare, OM CH (April 25, 1873 – June 22, 1956), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and The Listeners. He was born in Kent (at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton[1] - now part of the London Borough...
Plot summary "The Shadow Out of Time" indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spacial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect when seen from the outside is similar to spiritual possession. The Great Race of Yith are fictional aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. ...
A body swap is a storytelling device seen in a variety of fiction, most often in TV shows and movies, in which two people (or beings) exchange minds and end up in each others bodies. ...
Spiritual possession is a concept of supernatural and/or superstitious belief systems whereby gods, daemons, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in behaviour. ...
The Yithians' original purpose is to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (now also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert. This article is about the study of time in human terms. ...
Location of deserts in Australia This article is about the Australian desert. ...
The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American in the early 1900s who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day. // Public flight demonstration of an airplane by Alberto Santos-Dumont in Paris, November 12, 1906. ...
The narrator at first believes his episode and subsequent dreams to be the product of some kind of mental illness. His initial relief at discovering other cases like his throughout history is withered when he discovers that the other cases are too similar to his own to be without a connection. The narrator's dreams become more vivid, and he becomes obsessed with archaeology and ancient manuscripts (as was the Yithian)--but lacks any sort of proof that would demonstrate whether he was (or is) simply mad.
He discovers that the Yithians on earth died out eons ago, their civilization destroyed by a rival, utterly alien pre-human race described as "flying polyps", but the Yithian minds will inhabit new bodies on Earth after humanity is long gone. His tenuously held sanity is challenged when he discovers the proof he seeks--and that not only do remains of the Yithians' past civilization still exist on earth, but also still remaining are those who destroyed them. Flying Polyp is a fictional species which appears in H.P. Lovecrafts novel The Shadow out of Time. ...
Characters
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee The narrator of the story, a professor of political economy at Miskatonic University and from 1908 until 1913 a victim of the Great Race of Yith. He was born circa 1870. Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in the equally fictitious Arkham, set in the real-world Essex County, Massachusetts. ...
The Great Race of Yith are fictional aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. ...
There are autobiographical aspects to the character. The years of Peaslee's amnesia correspond to the timespan of Lovecraft's adolescent nervous breakdown, which forced him to drop out of high school and withdraw from society. During this period, Lovecraft suffered from facial tics, which may be reflected in the Yithian-possessed Peaslee's inability to control his facial muscles.[3] The feeling Lovecraft described upon returning to Providence after living in New York City for two years that he was "awakening from the queer dream about being away from home" has been called "the cornerstone upon which Lovecraft built his masterpiece, 'The Shadow out of Time'."[4]
But An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, which calls Peaslee perhaps "the most thoroughly developed of HPL's characters", notes that there are parallels as well to Lovecraft's father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft, who also displayed eccentric behavior during a five-year period of madness.[5]
Wingate Peaslee Son of Nathaniel Peaslee, also a Miskatonic professor. He is described by his father as "the only member of my family who stuck to me after my queer amnesia of long ago, and the man best informed on the inner facts of my case."
William Dyer A Miskatonic University geology professor who accompanies the expedition to Australia. See At the Mountains of Madness. For the Simpsons episode, see Mountain of Madness. ...
Other victims The story mentions a number of victims of the Yithians' mind-swapping whom Nathaniel Peaslee recalls talking with, including:
Titus Sempronius Blaesus A Roman "who had been a quaestor in Sulla's time". Sulla first became consul in 88 BCE, and was dictator of Rome from 82-80 BCE. A quaestor was a Roman financial official; Sulla reformed the office and raised their number from ten to twenty. Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ...
Quaestores were elected officials of the Roman Republic who supervised the treasury and financial affairs of the state, its armies and its officers. ...
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (Latin: L·CORNELIVS·L·F·P·N·SVLLA·FELIX) ¹ (ca. ...
Bartoloneo Corsi A "12th century Florentine monk". This character also appears in Phillip O. Marsh's 1994 novel The Worm Shall Ye Fight! (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ...
Florence (Italian, Firenze) is a city in the center of Tuscany, in central Italy, on the Arno River, with a population of around 400,000, plus a suburban population in excess of 200,000. ...
For other uses, see Monk (disambiguation). ...
Crom-Ya A Cimmerian chief who lived circa 15,000 BCE. This is an homage to Lovecraft's friend Robert E. Howard, whose best-known creation, Conan the Barbarian, hailed from Cimmeria and worshipped Crom. In Fred L. Pelton's 1989 short story "The Sussex Manuscript", Crom-Ya is said to be a worshipper of Tsathoggua. Cimmeria is a fictional land of barbarians in antediluvian earth (cp. ...
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936)[1] was a classic American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. ...
This article is about the fictional character. ...
Crom is a fictional deity imagined by American author Robert E. Howard and mainly mentioned in swearing by his character Conan the Barbarian, and worshipped, if that is truly the case, it is presumed, by the bulk of the Cimmerian people. ...
Tsathoggua (the Sleeper of Nkai) is a fictional supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. ...
Khephnes "An Egyptian of the 14th Dynasty, who told me the hideous secret of Nyarlathotep". The 14th dynasty was about 1700 BCE. Categories: Articles to be expanded ...
Nyarlathotep (the Crawling Chaos) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. ...
Nevil Kingston-Brown An "Australian physicist...who will die in 2,518 A.D."
Pierre-Louis Montagny "An aged Frenchman of Louis XIII's time". Louis XIII was king of France from 1610-1643. This article is about the country. ...
Louis XIII (September 27, 1601 - May 14, 1643), called the Just (French: le Juste), was King of France from 1610 to 1643. ...
Nug-Soth "A magician of the dark conquerors of 16,000 A.D."
Theodotides "A Greco-Bactrian official of 200 B.C." The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (or Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom) covered the areas of Bactria and Sogdiana, comprising todays northern Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, the easternmost area of the Hellenistic world, from 250 to 125 BCE. The expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into northern India from 180 BCE established...
James Woodville "A Suffolk gentleman of Cromwell's day". Cromwell lived from 1599-1658, and was the English head of state from 1653 until his death. Suffolk (pronounced ) is a large historic and modern non-metropolitan county in East Anglia, England. ...
For other uses, see Oliver Cromwell (disambiguation). ...
Yiang-Li "A philosopher from the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan, which is to come in 5,000 A.D." Tsan Chan is first mentioned by Lovecraft in the story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep". Beyond the Wall of Sleep is a short story by American writer H.P. Lovecraft written in 1919 and first published in the amateur publication Pine Cones in October 1919. ...
Reaction Lovecraft critic Lin Carter calls "The Shadow Out of Time" Lovecraft's "single greatest achievement in fiction", citing "its amazing scope and sense of cosmic immensitude, the gulfs of time it opens, [and] the titanic sweep of the narrative".[6] Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 - February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. ...
Popular Culture The Lovecraft-inspired rock band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets adapted The Shadow Out of Time for 2007 concept album "The Shadow Out of Tim," including songs like "Ride the Flying Polyp" and "Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know." The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are a rock band from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. ...
References - Lovecraft, Howard P. [1936] (July 2003). in S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (eds.): The Shadow Out of Time: The Corrected Text, 2nd edition, New York, NY: Hippocampus Press. ISBN 0-9673215-3-0 (softcover). Definitive version.
Lin Carter, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos. Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 - February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. ...
S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Sunanda Tryambak Joshi (b. ...
David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", Black Forbidden Things, Robert M. Price, ed. Robert McNair Price was born July 7, 1954 in Mississippi and is a Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies. ...
Footnotes - ^ S. T. Joshi, "The Horror on the Wall", The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, pp. 234-235.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, p. 235.
- ^ David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", Black Forbidden Things, p. 56.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, p. 201.
- ^ Carter, p. 106.
External links Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Shadow Out of Time - Hippocampus Press page with links to reviews
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