The Shadow Out of Time
novella of H.P. Lovecraft
The Shadow Out of Time is a novella 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. The story describes time and space travel by mind transfer, where a person in a given place and time can switch bodies with someone who is elsewhere or elsewhen. As with other Lovecraftian works, this story features otherworldly alien beings that are not simply variations on humans or other familiar terrestrial animals.
Plot
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, professor of economics at Miskatonic University, recounts in flashbacks the events that occurred between May 14, 1908 and July 17–18, 1935. During a lesson on May 14, 1908 at around 10:20 a.m., he falls into a coma that lasts several days. After he wakes up, he no longer seems to be himself. His family turns away from him, and only his youngest son Wingate Peaslee is convinced that his real father will return one day. In the years that follow, the professor's secondary personality embarks on extensive expeditions to known and unknown places all over the world. He also seems to want to acquire as much knowledge as possible.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Shadow Out of Time” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.