Customer Reviews

The Shadow out of Time: The Corrected Text

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This is the definitive edition of "Shadow out of Time", based on the recently discovered typescript created by Robert H. Barlow in the 1930s from HPL's own manuscript copy. It's also been annotated by S. T. Joshi. However, there isn't anything substantially different from the previously available versions of "Time". There are minor changes in punctuation, spelling, and such, but that's all. This isn't like "At the Mountains of Madness", which had some 5,000 words excised from its manuscript when first published.

That said, it's still one of HPL's best (THE best, in some eyes) stories and a worthwhile volume to have if, like me, you appreciate the annotations Joshi has been making to Lovecraft's work in recent years. If you don't have "Shadow out of Time" in any other edition, this is the edition to get.

Unlike most recent Lovecraft fiction offerings, "The Shadow Out of Time" focuses on Lovecraft's final tale concerning Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a professor at the infamous Miskatonic University who undergoes an amazing personality change that leads to a mysterious expedition under the deserts of Australia. Working from Lovecraft's own handwritten manuscript along with the common versions, the result is "The Shadow Out of Time" as Lovecraft himself must have visioned the final product.
Along with the corrected text, there are the marvelous detailed notes, appendices and history that readers have come to realize as the hallmark of a Joshi/Schultz collaboration. And like other Joshi/Schultz edited volumes, "The Shadow Out of Time" is a must have item for the complete H.P. Lovecraft library. Hopefully many other volumes devoted to other Lovecraft classics will follow.

When Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee is seized by a sudden mental transformation, the psychologists diagnose it as the advent of a second personality. But, it is a strange personality, interested in dark and forbidden occult studies. And when Professor Peaslee returns to his own mind, some six years later, he must pick up the pieces of his shattered life.

However, when dark dreams begin to haunt him, dreams that take the form of impossible memories, Prof. Peaslee begins to study himself, so that he can shake off these strange pseudo-memories. However, when archaeologists discover a ruin in the Australian Outback, a ruin of impossible antiquity, Prof. Peaslee's memories begin to haunt him all the more.

This is the first Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) book that I have ever read, and I must say that I am quite impressed. The author did an excellent job of creating and sustaining in the reader the horror that the main character felt throughout his adventure. Pretty much all my life I have heard of H.P. Lovecraft and his horror stories, and I found this one to be a great book to read. I really enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it.

While this story wouldn't be the entry I'd recommend to Lovecraft, it is definitely one of his major works. And this edition is worth reading for the beginning and hardcore fan.

The editors' introduction details how long Lovecraft had been considering this story, his inspirations, and how he, as before in his great creative year of 1927, undertook a reading program to sharpen his style and improve his writing before starting it, his most science-fictional, tale. They also offer some intriguing observations about the specific dates in protagonist Peaslee's life and their significance to Lovecraft's.

As to the annotations, it's not the largely unnecessary vocabulary lessons that Joshi and Schultz offer that are valueable, but how they point out similarities in motifs and language to other Lovecraft works, specific factual sources Lovecraft used, and the many links between this and other Cthulhu Mythos stories of Lovecraft and his friends. Even fans who have read this story more than once will probably learn something new in these notes.

I can't say as I noticed any difference between the corrected text and earlier versions of the story, but then I didn't look at the appendix showing all the textual variations. But it's there for the really hardcore Lovecraft fan and scholar.

Chris is partially correct that there are not many really substantial corrections to the older texts, but I think he slightly dismisses the importance and the pleasure of this volume in his review. Chris Jarocha-Ernst is, of course, the man who brought us the finest edition of a Cthulhu Mythos bibliography yet published -- even S. T. Joshi has a copy of the book, which he oft consults. I want to type out the preface to the Textual Notes in this edition of "The Shadow Out of Time," just to give you an example of what the editors of this edition worked with in giving us a corrected text.

"Listed below are variations between the present text and the autograph manuscript (A) and the ASTOUNDING STORIES appearance of June 1936 (AS). Subsequent editions--beginning with THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS (Arkham House, 1939)--derive from Lovecraft's annotated copy of the ASTOUNDING appearance, containing some handwritten corrections (marked here as '). A one-page manuscript (here designated A2), dated Aug. 15, 1935, appears to have been a fair copy of one page of A (p. 58, as labelled on the ms.), perhaps because R. H. Barlow, who prepared the typescript for HPL, was unable to read the ms. at this point. (HPL was still with Barlow in Florida on August 15.)

"Barlow evidently made numerous errors in preparing the typescript of A (eg., the omission of the passage at 34.26-27, where his eye skipped over several lines of text), so that several of the variants from A found in AS are a result of Barlow's mistranscription rather than editing on the part of As. However, the reparagraphing of the story is manifestly the responsibility of AS, as the same procedure was performed in the other ASTOUNDING serial, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS (Feb.-Mar.-Apr. 1936). HPL also complains (HPL to R. H. Barlow, 4 June 1936, ms., John Hay Library) of the 'crazy style sheet' of AS, resulting in such anomalies as the capitalization of 'moon,' 'dinosaur,' and even 'moonlight.' Most of the supernumerary commas in the text are also likely the result of AS's editors.

"In correcting his copy of AS, it is clear that HPL did not have access to A, as he had given it to Barlow as a present. As a result, on a few occasions (e.g., 67.7) HPL was apparently unable to recall the reading of A, and has either failed to restore a passage to the reading of A or inserted omitted words different from those found in A, In these cases, the A reading has been followed, as presumably representing HPL's definitive wishes. In at least one instance (85.18) it is possible that HPL had written in a change on the typescript; but as the matter is uncertain, the A reading has been followed here."

The attractions of this single volume edition from Hippocampus Press are multiple. There is a lengthy and fascinating introduction in which the editors tell the history of the story and relate the recent discovery of the A manuscript, which was given by HPL to Barlow. There is an Appendix of Lovecraft's "Notes to 'The Shadow out of Time'" and one fragment of an early draft, pages and pages of annotations by the editors, and pages and pages of Textual Notes. The wonderful colour cover is from the ASTOUNDING STORIES publication. I love these wee editions of Lovecraft. I am always returning, again and again, to his fiction, and I enjoy having different editions to choose from. Hippocampus also did a lovely wee edition of the tales that HPL wrote while in New York, FROM THE PEST ZONE. One wishes that they would do an annotated edition of the tales from Lovecraft's "Decadent" phase, or some such. A small edition containing "The Hound," "The Unnamable," "The Outsider," "The Music of Erich Zann" and "Pickman's Model," for example, would be cool -- although perhaps useless, now that we have the superb and handy Penguin Classics editions, so easily held and dipped into.

This is one of Lovecraft's best and most fascinating (and longest) stories. It tells the story of a scientist who faints in class one day, only to wake up without any memories of who he is. As the story goes on, the incredible, awful and mindboggling truth is revealed. It begins on a small scale (an individual with memory loss) and ends on a cosmic scale. Less horror story and more some kind of cosmic SF/Fantasy I think... Well, this shouldn't be discussed in advance, just read it. The Shadow out of Time is included in other Lovecraft collections. This edition, though, is not only beautiful (with original cover art) but also includes the corrected text with many commentaries made by Lovecraft-scholar Joshi.

"The Shadow Out of Time" is one of Lovecraft's finest tales, and this version is a collector-quality edition. The story itself is found in many Lovecraft anthologies, including an excellent presentation in Arkham House's "The Dunwich Horror and Others." However, there are many features that mark this volume as the definitive edition of "The Shadow Out of Time."

The corrected text from a recently discovered manuscript is the highlight. This is the tale as Lovecraft envisioned it. Anyone familiar with "The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft" will appreciate S.T. Joshi's meticulous notes and annotations. He adds another layer of insight to these familiar stories.

My favorite feature, however, is the restoration of the pulp cover from Astounding Stories 6-36 where the story first appeared. It is nice to see the pulp roots of H.P. Lovecraft being honored.

Professor N. W. Peaslee, from 1908 to 1913, suffered a form of amnesia or did he? After waking up he stuffers from dreams of an other time, in a city built before history and a race of creatures long gone. Is he going mad or is it real? The answer can be found in Australia, where in one of the deserts explorers have found ruins over 150,000,000 years old. The question is, does he WANT to find the answer or not?

If you liked 'At The Mountains of Madness' you should enjoy this book AND already know what the answers are!