The Shadow Out of Time
"
The Shadow Out of Time" (
1936) is a
short story by
H.P. Lovecraft. It 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
demonic possession. 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) live in a vast city in what would later become
Australia's
Great Sandy Desert.
The story is told through the eyes of
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American in the early
1900s who is "possessed" by a Yithian — a member of a race that can cast its consciousness across time and space. 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.
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. 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 pre-human race - but also that they will return 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.
Peaslee, Nathaniel Wingate
(ca. 1870–?)
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.
Peaslee, Wingate
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."
Other victims
The story mentions a number of victims of the Yithians' mind-swapping whom Nathaniel Peaslee recalls talking with, including:
Blaesus, Titus Sempronius
A Roman "who had been a quaestor in
Sulla's time".
Corsi, Bartoloneo
A "
12th century Florentine monk". This character also appears in Phillip O. Marsh's 1994 novel
The Worm Shall Ye Fight!Crom-Ya
Cimmerian chief who lived circa 15,000 BCE. In Fred L. Pelton's 1989 short story "The Sussex Manuscript", he is said to be a worshipper of
Tsathoggua.
Khephnes
"An Egyptian of the 14th Dynasty, who told me the hideous secret of
Nyarlathotep".
Nevil Kingston-Brown
An "Australian physicist...who will die in 2,518 A.D."
Montagny, Pierre-Louis
"An aged Frenchman of
Louis XIII's time"
Nug-Soth
"A magician of the dark conquerors of 16,000 A.D."
Theodotides
"A
Greco-Bactrian official of 200 B.C."
Woodville, James
"A Suffolk gentleman of
Cromwell's day".
Yiang-Li
"A philosopher from the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan, which is to come in 5,000 A.D."
* Definitive version.
*
"The Shadow Out of Time" by H. P. Lovecraft*
Hippocampus Press page with links to reviews
