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Acolyte, v. 2, issue 2, whole no. 6, Spring 1944
31858063101376_007
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DISCARDED DRAUGHT The Shadow Over Inssmouth by H. P. Lovecraft -o0o- (Note: The following version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth is the original draft as first written by Lovecraft, and was discarded by H. P. L. when he decided to expand the story into a novel. While portions of this present version also appear in the final draught of Innsmouth, there are enough new scenes to make it well worth publishing. This item appears in The Acolyte through the courtesy of R. H. Barlow. FTL) -o0o- It was in the summer of 1927 that I suddenly cut short my sightseeing tour of New England and returned to Cleveland under a nervous strain. I have seldom mentioned the particulars of this trip, and hardly know why I do now except that a recent newspaper cutting has somehow relieved the tension which formerly existed. A sweeping fire, it appears, has wiped out most of the empty ancient houses along the deserted Innsmouth waterfront as well as a certain number of buildings farther inland; while a singularly simultaneous explosion, heard for many miles around, has destroyed to a vast depth the great black reef a mile and a half out from shore where the sea-bottom abruptly falls to form an incalculable abyss. For certain reasons, I take great satisfaction in these occurences, even the first of which seems to me a blessing rather than a disaster. Especially am I glad that the old brick jewellry factory and the pillared Order of Dagon Hall have gone along with the rest. There is talk of incendiarism, and I suppose old Father Iwanich could tell much much if he chose, but what I know gives a very unusual angle to my opinion. I never head of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first and last time. It does not seem to be mentioned on any modern map, and I was planning to go directly from Newburyport to Arkham, and thence to Gloucester--if I could find transportation. I had no car, but was travelling by motor coach, train and trolley, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport they told me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticket office, when I demurred at the high fare, that I heard about Innsmouth. The agent, whose speech showed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic toward my efforts at economy, and made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered. "You could take that old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it isn't thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth--you may have heard about that--and so the people don't like it. Run by an Innsmouth man--Joe Sargent--but never gets any custom from here, or from Arkham either, I guess. Wonder it keeps running at all. I supposed its cheap enough, but I never see more than two or three people in it--nobody but those Innsmouth folks. Leaves the square, front of Hammond's Drug Store, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. unless they've changed lately. Looks like a terrible rattletrap; I've never been on it." That was the first I ever heard of Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not listed in the guidebooks would have interested me, and the agent's odd manner of allusion provoked something like real curiousity. A town able to inspire such dislike in its neighbors, I thought, must be at least rather unusual, and worthy of a sightseer's attention. If it came before Arkham I would stop off there--and so I asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate, and spoke with an air of feeling somewhat superior to what he said. "Innsmouth? Well, it's a queer kind of town, down at the mouth of the Mawtuxet. It used to be almost a city--quite a seaport before the war of 1812-- but the place has all gone to pieces in the last hundred years or so. There's no railroad--the B&M never went through there, and the branch line from Rowley was given up years ago. More empty houses than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of. Everybody trades either here or in Arkham or Ipswich. At one time they -- 3 --
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DISCARDED DRAUGHT The Shadow Over Inssmouth by H. P. Lovecraft -o0o- (Note: The following version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth is the original draft as first written by Lovecraft, and was discarded by H. P. L. when he decided to expand the story into a novel. While portions of this present version also appear in the final draught of Innsmouth, there are enough new scenes to make it well worth publishing. This item appears in The Acolyte through the courtesy of R. H. Barlow. FTL) -o0o- It was in the summer of 1927 that I suddenly cut short my sightseeing tour of New England and returned to Cleveland under a nervous strain. I have seldom mentioned the particulars of this trip, and hardly know why I do now except that a recent newspaper cutting has somehow relieved the tension which formerly existed. A sweeping fire, it appears, has wiped out most of the empty ancient houses along the deserted Innsmouth waterfront as well as a certain number of buildings farther inland; while a singularly simultaneous explosion, heard for many miles around, has destroyed to a vast depth the great black reef a mile and a half out from shore where the sea-bottom abruptly falls to form an incalculable abyss. For certain reasons, I take great satisfaction in these occurences, even the first of which seems to me a blessing rather than a disaster. Especially am I glad that the old brick jewellry factory and the pillared Order of Dagon Hall have gone along with the rest. There is talk of incendiarism, and I suppose old Father Iwanich could tell much much if he chose, but what I know gives a very unusual angle to my opinion. I never head of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first and last time. It does not seem to be mentioned on any modern map, and I was planning to go directly from Newburyport to Arkham, and thence to Gloucester--if I could find transportation. I had no car, but was travelling by motor coach, train and trolley, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport they told me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticket office, when I demurred at the high fare, that I heard about Innsmouth. The agent, whose speech showed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic toward my efforts at economy, and made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered. "You could take that old bus, I suppose," he said with a certain hesitation, "but it isn't thought much of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth--you may have heard about that--and so the people don't like it. Run by an Innsmouth man--Joe Sargent--but never gets any custom from here, or from Arkham either, I guess. Wonder it keeps running at all. I supposed its cheap enough, but I never see more than two or three people in it--nobody but those Innsmouth folks. Leaves the square, front of Hammond's Drug Store, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. unless they've changed lately. Looks like a terrible rattletrap; I've never been on it." That was the first I ever heard of Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not listed in the guidebooks would have interested me, and the agent's odd manner of allusion provoked something like real curiousity. A town able to inspire such dislike in its neighbors, I thought, must be at least rather unusual, and worthy of a sightseer's attention. If it came before Arkham I would stop off there--and so I asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate, and spoke with an air of feeling somewhat superior to what he said. "Innsmouth? Well, it's a queer kind of town, down at the mouth of the Mawtuxet. It used to be almost a city--quite a seaport before the war of 1812-- but the place has all gone to pieces in the last hundred years or so. There's no railroad--the B&M never went through there, and the branch line from Rowley was given up years ago. More empty houses than there are people, I guess, and no business to speak of. Everybody trades either here or in Arkham or Ipswich. At one time they -- 3 --
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