Innsmouth

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Innsmouth is a fictional city ​​in the tales of HP Lovecraft and his Cthulhu myth . The city is part of an area he invented, also known as Lovecraft Country . The most detailed description of the city and its history can be found in his 1931 resulting narrative Innsmouth ( The Shadow Over Innsmouth ), which was first published in 1936.

Lovecraft Country including Innsmouth

Location of the city

Lovecraft settles Innsmouth on the coast of Essex County in Massachusetts , a little south of the Plum Peninsula , but north of Cape Ann , in the immediate vicinity of Rowley and Ipswich . So Innsmouth, invented by Lovecraft, is likely to be located in the area of Essex Bay . The Devil's Reef , feared by fishermen in the area, is said to be a few miles off the coast, and is only said to protrude out of the water at low tide , especially when there is a new or full moon.

There are other fictional locations south of Innsmouth , including a. Kingsport and the university town of Arkham on the lower reaches of the Miskatonic .

history

Innsmouth is said to have been founded in 1643 at the mouth of the Manuxet and was considered an important port for shipbuilding until the Revolution . After the war of 1812 , the city is said to have started to decline. From 1828 to 1838 only the ships of Captain Obed Marsh are said to have been successful in South Sea trade. At the beginning of the 1840s, Obed Marsh is said to have stopped the decline by massively promoting the fishing of cod and other seafood and to have enforced the construction of the secondary railway line to Rowley, which is said to have indirectly connected the city to the B&M railway line . With higher fishing quotas and better sales opportunities, the city is said to have temporarily even competed with the also fictitious neighboring town of Kingsport . However, when an epidemic is said to have swept away many residents in 1846, the city is said to have started to decline rapidly. Since then, a large part of the population is said to have suffered from a hitherto unexplained, apparently genetically determined, old age disease in which the faces of the sick take on strange "fish-like" features, which is also known as the Innsmouth look .

Except for local fishing and, to a very limited extent, gold mining, the city is said to no longer have any regional significance. In the winter of 1927/28 a local newspaper is said to have made headlines in which it was said that the Navy was operating under the sea on Devil's Reef , just off the coast of Innsmouth. In addition, some port facilities in the city are said to have been blown up during the same period.

The setting in the following stories

The name Innsmouth was first mentioned in Lovecraft's short story Celephais (1920) as a place in England . In further of his stories the place, its history and its inhabitants are developed in more detail:

  • Innsmouth ( The Shadow Over Innsmouth ) (written in 1931, published 1936)
  • Das Ding auf der Schwelle ( The Thing on the Doorstep ) (created 1933, published 1937)

Other authors

Lovecraft's Innsmouth is taken up again in stories by other authors and further details are added:

  • Basil Copper: The Secret of Innsmouth
  • Wolfgang Hohlbein: The Eater of the Soul

Other media

Computer games

  • Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth : The player slips into the role of the private detective Jack Walters, who ends up in Innsmouth in search of a missing person.
  • Shadow of the Comet : The player slips into the role of journalist John Parker, who is sent to the port city of "Illsmouth" to find out why Lord Boleskine went mad at the sight of Halley's Comet. The rest of the story of the adventure game is based on various works by Lovecraft.
  • Second Life : In the 3D online community Second Life, a "Sim" (region) is called Innsmouth. This 3D replica of the city provides an environment for role play .

filming

  • Dagon (film) : An adaptation of the short story "Shadows Over Innsmouth", in which the plot is moved to modern times.

credentials

  1. ↑ Real-life models of this fictional area can be found scattered in various locations in Essex County, Massachusetts . See: http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/sites/mass.asp
  2. ↑ A map of Innsmouth can be found at: http://cthulhufiles.com/innsmap.htm
  3. ↑ In: Die Katzen von Ulthar , Suhrkamp 1980, page 24

literature

  • Basil Copper: The Secret of Innsmouth . Festa Verlag, Almersbach 2000, (signed and numbered collector's edition, 400 copies, did not reach the official book trade).
  • HP Lovecraft : Azathoth. Mixed fonts . Selected by Kalju Kirde . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-38127-X , ( Fantastic Library 230), ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch 1627).
  • HP Lovecraft: The thing on the threshold . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher 2)
  • HP Lovecraft: The Charles Dexter Ward Case . Two horror stories . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977, ( Fantastic Library ), ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbücher 391), (Contains shadow over Innsmouth as a second story ).
  • HP Lovecraft: The Cats of Ulthar . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-37125-8 ), ( Fantastic Library 43), ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch 625).
  • Neil Gaiman : Smoke And Mirrors . Avon Books, New York NY 1998, ISBN 978-0-380-97364-4 , (German edition: Die Messerkönigin . Heyne, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-453-17798-3 , ( Heyne books 01, Heyne general series 13253 )).