The Whisperer in Darkness
Encyclopedia
"The Whisperer in Darkness" is a short story
by H. P. Lovecraft
. Written February–September 1930
, it was first published in Weird Tales
, August 1931
. Similar to "The Colour Out of Space
" (1927
), it is a blend of horror
and science fiction
. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos
, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go
, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
hills as "merely romanticists
who insisted on trying to transfer to real life the fantastic lore of lurking "little people" made popular by the magnificent horror-fiction of Arthur Machen
." This line, Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price
argues, is an acknowledgement of the debt Lovecraft's story owes to Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal" (1895).
"I would go so far as to make essentially a rewriting, a new version of Machen's," Price writes.
Price points out parallel passages in the two stories: Where Machen asks, "What if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still survived...?" Lovecraft hints at "a hidden race of monstrous beings which lurked somewhere among the remoter hills". Where Machen mentions "strange shapes gathering fast amidst the reeds, beside the wash in the river," Lovecraft tells of "certain odd stories of things found floating in some of the swollen rivers." Price suggests that Machen's reference to accounts of people "who vanished strangely from the earth" prompted Lovecraft to imagine people being literally spirited off the Earth.
As noted by critics like Price and Lin Carter, "The Whisperer in Darkness" also makes reference to names and concepts in Robert W. Chambers
's The King in Yellow
, some of which had previously been borrowed from Ambrose Bierce
. In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith
, Lovecraft wrote that "Chambers must have been impressed with 'An Inhabitant of Carcosa' & 'Haita the Shepherd', which were first published during his youth. But he even improves on Bierce in creating a shuddering background of horror--a vague, disquieting memory which makes one reluctant to use the faculty of recollection too vigorously."
The idea of keeping a human brain
alive in a jar (with mechanical attachments allowing sight, hearing, and speech) to enable travel in areas inhospitable to the body might have been inspired by the book The World, the Flesh, and the Devil by J.D. Bernal, which describes and suggests the feasibility of a similar device. The book was published in 1929, just a year before Lovecraft wrote his story.
in Arkham
. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings, though he sides with the skeptics. Wilmarth uncovers old legends about monsters living in the uninhabited hills who abduct people who venture or settle too close to their territory.
He receives a letter from one Henry Wentworth Akeley, a man who lives in an isolated farmhouse near Townshend, Vermont
. He affirms that he has proof that will convince Wilmarth that he is wrong. From this point on, most of the story involves the exchange of letters between the two characters. Through their correspondence, we learn of the existence of an extraterrestrial race
of monstrous beings that have an outpost in the Vermont hills where they mine a rare metal. They have no interest in the human race and usually hide from people. Nonetheless, they ruthlessly defend their outpost and their secrecy, often employing human agents with whom they have made secret pacts.
The aforementioned agents intercept Akeley's messages and proceed to harass his farmhouse on a nightly basis. The two eventually exchange gunfire, killing many of Akeley's guard dogs. Although Akeley expresses more worry in his letters, he abruptly has a change of heart. He writes that he has met with the extraterrestrial beings and has learned that they are a peaceful race. Furthermore, they have taught him of marvels beyond all imagination. He urges Wilmarth to pay him a visit and to bring along the letters and photographic evidence that he had sent him. Wilmarth reluctantly consents.
Wilmarth arrives to find Akeley in a pitiful physical condition, immobilized in a chair. Akeley tells Wilmarth about the extraterrestrial race and the wonders they have revealed to him. He also says that the beings can surgically extract a human brain and place it into a canister wherein it can live indefinitely and withstand the rigors of outer space travel. Akeley says that he has agreed to undertake such a journey and points to a cylinder bearing his name.
During the night, a sleepless Wilmarth overhears a disturbing conversation. When he investigates, he makes a horrifying discovery. He then runs from the farmhouse, steals Akeley's car, and flees to Townshend. When the authorities investigate the next day, all they find is a bullet-riddled house. Akeley has disappeared, along with all the physical evidence of the extraterrestrial presence.
As the story ends, Wilmarth recounts the horror that drove him from the Akeley farmhouse. When he went to the chair where Akeley had sat, he found only his disembodied face and hands. We are led to conclude that it was not Akeley who had sat in the chair and conversed with him but one of the extraterrestrials in disguise
, whilst all the while Akeley's brain had rested in the named cylinder.
at Miskatonic University
. He investigates the strange events that followed in the wake of the historic Vermont
floods of 1927.
Wilmarth is also mentioned in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness
, where the narrator remarks that he wishes he hadn't "talked so much with that unpleasantly erudite folklorist Wilmarth at the university." Elsewhere, the story refers to "the wild tales of cosmic hill things from outside told by a folklorist colleague in Miskatonic’s English department."
Wilmarth is the main character in Fritz Leiber
's "To Arkham and the Stars
", written and presumably set in 1966, when the now septugenarian professor is now chair of Miskatonic's Literature Department. Leiber describes him as "slender [and] silver-haired", with a "mocking sardonic note which has caused some to call him 'unpleasantly' rather than simply 'very' erudite." He acknowledges keeping "in rather closer touch with the Plutonians or Yuggothians than perhaps even old Dyer guesses." Wilmarth remarks in the story, "[A]fter you've spent an adult lifetime at Miskatonic, you discover you've developed a rather different understanding from the herd's of the distinction between the imaginary and the real."
In Brian Lumley
's novel The Burrowers Beneath and its sequels, the Wilmarth Foundation is an Arkham
-based organization dedicated to combating what Lumley refers to as the Cthulhu Cycle Deities.
Robert M. Price
describes Wilmarth as "the model Lovecraft protagonist.... Wilmarth starts out blissfully ignorant and only too late learns the terrible truth, and that only after a long battle with his initial rationalistic skepticism."
Henry Wentworth Akeley is a Vermont
folklorist
and correspondent of Albert Wilmarth. Henry Akeley became a noted academic, probably in the study of folklore. His wife died in 1901 after giving birth to his only heir, George Goodenough Akeley.
When he retired, Akeley returned to his ancestral home, a two-story farmhouse in the Vermont hills near the slopes of Dark Mountain. In September 1928, he was visited by Professor Wilmarth, who was researching bizarre legends of the region. Shortly thereafter, Akeley disappeared mysteriously from his mountaintop home—though Wilmarth believed that he fell victim to the machinations of the sinister Fungi
from Yuggoth
.
In his sequel to "The Whisperer in Darkness", "Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley" (1982
), Richard A. Lupoff
explores the overlooked possibility that perhaps Akeley did not fall prey to the Mi-go
as is generally supposed, but instead joined them willingly.
Lupoff also proposes that Akeley was the illegitimate son of Abednego Akeley, a minister for a Vermont sect of the Starry Wisdom Church, and Sarah Phillips, Abednego's maidservant.
Akeley is mentioned in "The Whisperer in Darkness" as the son of Henry Wentworth Akeley.
According to "The Whisperer in Darkness", George moved to San Diego, California
, after his father retired.
The 1976 Fritz Leiber
story "The Terror From the Depths" mentions Akeley being consulted at his San Diego home by Professor Albert Wilmarth in 1937.
"Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley", a 1982 sequel to "The Whisperer in Darkness" by Richard A. Lupoff
, describes Akeley, inspired by the evangelist
Aimee McPherson, starting a sect called the Spiritual Light Brotherhood and serving as its leader, the Radiant Father. After his death, his granddaughter Elizabeth Akeley took over the role.
In 1928, Lovecraft took a trip through rural Vermont
with a man named Arthur Goodenough. During his jaunt, he met a local farmer with a name that bears a striking resemblance to the ill-fated character of Lovecraft's tale: one Bert G. Akley.
While most of these places and things are well-known figures of the mythos, a few are harder to pin down, among them:
brand of horror, in an age when the genre consisted almost entirely of ghosts, vampires, goblins, and similar traditional tales, "Whisperer" is one of the earliest literary appearances of the now-cliché
concept of an isolated brain
(although the alien brain case is not transparent as with later cinematic examples of this trope
).
The story retains some seemingly supernatural elements, such as its claim that the alien fungi, although visible to the naked eye and physically tangible, do not register on photographic plates and instead produce an image of the background absent the creature (an impossibility by any known laws of optics
, though a trait commonly attributed to vampires), although the story does mention that this is possibly due to the creatures fungoid and alien structure which works differently from any known physical organism.
with a script by Mark Ellis
and Terry Collins, with art provided by Darryl Banks
and Don Heck
.
The third segment of the portmanteau film Necronomicon
is loosely adapted from the story.
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has produced a film version made like a 1930s horror film, which premiered at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival. Sandy Petersen
, author of the Call of Cthulu
role-playing game, contributed financially to the film in order to finish its production.
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
. Written February–September 1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
, it was first published in Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
, August 1931
1931 in literature
The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!....
. Similar to "The Colour Out of Space
The Colour Out of Space
"The Colour Out of Space" is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts...
" (1927
1927 in literature
The year 1927 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Random House, book publishers, is founded in New York City by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer.-New books:*James Boyd - Marching On...
), it is a blend of horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go
Mi-go
The Mi-go are a race of extraterrestrials in the Cthulhu Mythos created by H. P. Lovecraft and others. The name was first applied to the creatures in Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" , taking up a reference to 'What fungi sprout in Yuggoth' in his sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth...
, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
Inspiration
In "The Whisperer in Darkness", narrator Albert Wilmarth initially dismisses those who believe that nonhuman creatures inhabit the VermontVermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
hills as "merely romanticists
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
who insisted on trying to transfer to real life the fantastic lore of lurking "little people" made popular by the magnificent horror-fiction of Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
." This line, Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price
Robert M. Price
Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
argues, is an acknowledgement of the debt Lovecraft's story owes to Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal" (1895).
"I would go so far as to make essentially a rewriting, a new version of Machen's," Price writes.
- In both cases we have a professor, an antiquarian, following his avocational interests in what most would dismiss as superstition on a dangerous expedition into a strange region of ominous domed hills. He is lured by a curiously engraved black stone which seems a survival from an elder prehuman race now hidden in those mysterious hills.... Lovecraft splits the role of Machen's Professor Gregg between Professor Wilmarth and the scholarly recluse Akeley.... [I]t is Akeley, not the Professor, who eventually disappears into the clutches of the elder race. Wilmarth remains behind to tell the tale, like Machen's Miss Lally.
Price points out parallel passages in the two stories: Where Machen asks, "What if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still survived...?" Lovecraft hints at "a hidden race of monstrous beings which lurked somewhere among the remoter hills". Where Machen mentions "strange shapes gathering fast amidst the reeds, beside the wash in the river," Lovecraft tells of "certain odd stories of things found floating in some of the swollen rivers." Price suggests that Machen's reference to accounts of people "who vanished strangely from the earth" prompted Lovecraft to imagine people being literally spirited off the Earth.
As noted by critics like Price and Lin Carter, "The Whisperer in Darkness" also makes reference to names and concepts in Robert W. Chambers
Robert W. Chambers
Robert William Chambers was an American artist and writer.-Biography:He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers , a famous lawyer, and Caroline Chambers , a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island...
's The King in Yellow
The King in Yellow
The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers and published in 1895. The stories could be categorized as early horror fiction or Victorian Gothic fiction, but the work also touches on mythology, fantasy, mystery, science fiction and romance...
, some of which had previously been borrowed from Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
. In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
, Lovecraft wrote that "Chambers must have been impressed with 'An Inhabitant of Carcosa' & 'Haita the Shepherd', which were first published during his youth. But he even improves on Bierce in creating a shuddering background of horror--a vague, disquieting memory which makes one reluctant to use the faculty of recollection too vigorously."
The idea of keeping a human brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
alive in a jar (with mechanical attachments allowing sight, hearing, and speech) to enable travel in areas inhospitable to the body might have been inspired by the book The World, the Flesh, and the Devil by J.D. Bernal, which describes and suggests the feasibility of a similar device. The book was published in 1929, just a year before Lovecraft wrote his story.
Plot summary
The story is told by Albert N. Wilmarth, an instructor of literature at Miskatonic UniversityMiskatonic University
Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham; a fictitious town which is said to exist in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River . After first appearing in the H. P...
in Arkham
Arkham
Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers....
. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings, though he sides with the skeptics. Wilmarth uncovers old legends about monsters living in the uninhabited hills who abduct people who venture or settle too close to their territory.
He receives a letter from one Henry Wentworth Akeley, a man who lives in an isolated farmhouse near Townshend, Vermont
Townshend, Vermont
Townshend is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The town was named for the Townshend family, powerful figures in British politics...
. He affirms that he has proof that will convince Wilmarth that he is wrong. From this point on, most of the story involves the exchange of letters between the two characters. Through their correspondence, we learn of the existence of an extraterrestrial race
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
of monstrous beings that have an outpost in the Vermont hills where they mine a rare metal. They have no interest in the human race and usually hide from people. Nonetheless, they ruthlessly defend their outpost and their secrecy, often employing human agents with whom they have made secret pacts.
The aforementioned agents intercept Akeley's messages and proceed to harass his farmhouse on a nightly basis. The two eventually exchange gunfire, killing many of Akeley's guard dogs. Although Akeley expresses more worry in his letters, he abruptly has a change of heart. He writes that he has met with the extraterrestrial beings and has learned that they are a peaceful race. Furthermore, they have taught him of marvels beyond all imagination. He urges Wilmarth to pay him a visit and to bring along the letters and photographic evidence that he had sent him. Wilmarth reluctantly consents.
Wilmarth arrives to find Akeley in a pitiful physical condition, immobilized in a chair. Akeley tells Wilmarth about the extraterrestrial race and the wonders they have revealed to him. He also says that the beings can surgically extract a human brain and place it into a canister wherein it can live indefinitely and withstand the rigors of outer space travel. Akeley says that he has agreed to undertake such a journey and points to a cylinder bearing his name.
During the night, a sleepless Wilmarth overhears a disturbing conversation. When he investigates, he makes a horrifying discovery. He then runs from the farmhouse, steals Akeley's car, and flees to Townshend. When the authorities investigate the next day, all they find is a bullet-riddled house. Akeley has disappeared, along with all the physical evidence of the extraterrestrial presence.
As the story ends, Wilmarth recounts the horror that drove him from the Akeley farmhouse. When he went to the chair where Akeley had sat, he found only his disembodied face and hands. We are led to conclude that it was not Akeley who had sat in the chair and conversed with him but one of the extraterrestrials in disguise
Human disguise
A human disguise is a concept in computer science, fantasy, folklore, mythology, religion, literary tradition, iconography and science fiction whereby non-human beings such as aliens, angels, demons, gods, monsters, robots, Satan or shapeshifters are disguised to seem human.Stories have depicted...
, whilst all the while Akeley's brain had rested in the named cylinder.
Albert Wilmarth
The narrator of the story, Albert N. Wilmarth is described as a folklorist and assistant professor of EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at Miskatonic University
Miskatonic University
Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham; a fictitious town which is said to exist in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River . After first appearing in the H. P...
. He investigates the strange events that followed in the wake of the historic Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
floods of 1927.
Wilmarth is also mentioned in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness
At the Mountains of Madness
At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. It was originally serialized in the February, March and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories...
, where the narrator remarks that he wishes he hadn't "talked so much with that unpleasantly erudite folklorist Wilmarth at the university." Elsewhere, the story refers to "the wild tales of cosmic hill things from outside told by a folklorist colleague in Miskatonic’s English department."
Wilmarth is the main character in Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
's "To Arkham and the Stars
To Arkham and the Stars
"To Arkham and the Stars" is a short story written by Fritz Leiber in the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction. It was written for the 1966 Arkham House anthology The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces. Set in H. P. Lovecraft's Arkham and Miskatonic University, it includes characters from and...
", written and presumably set in 1966, when the now septugenarian professor is now chair of Miskatonic's Literature Department. Leiber describes him as "slender [and] silver-haired", with a "mocking sardonic note which has caused some to call him 'unpleasantly' rather than simply 'very' erudite." He acknowledges keeping "in rather closer touch with the Plutonians or Yuggothians than perhaps even old Dyer guesses." Wilmarth remarks in the story, "[A]fter you've spent an adult lifetime at Miskatonic, you discover you've developed a rather different understanding from the herd's of the distinction between the imaginary and the real."
In Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley is an English horror fiction writer.Born in County Durham, he joined the British Army's Royal Military Police and wrote stories in his spare time before retiring with the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1980 and becoming a professional writer.He added to H. P...
's novel The Burrowers Beneath and its sequels, the Wilmarth Foundation is an Arkham
Arkham
Arkham is a fictional city in Massachusetts, part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft and is featured in many of his stories, as well as those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers....
-based organization dedicated to combating what Lumley refers to as the Cthulhu Cycle Deities.
Robert M. Price
Robert M. Price
Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
describes Wilmarth as "the model Lovecraft protagonist.... Wilmarth starts out blissfully ignorant and only too late learns the terrible truth, and that only after a long battle with his initial rationalistic skepticism."
Noyes
A largely unknown man who is allied with the Mi-Go, or the Outer Ones and is connected with both the disappearance of a local farmer, a man named Brown, and the security of the Mi-Go camp. He aided Wilmarth upon his arrival in Brattleboro and took him to Akeley's home. After which, and being heard late at night, Noyes is seen sleeping on the sofa during Wilmarth's escape.Henry Akeley
(1871–1928?)Henry Wentworth Akeley is a Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
folklorist
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and correspondent of Albert Wilmarth. Henry Akeley became a noted academic, probably in the study of folklore. His wife died in 1901 after giving birth to his only heir, George Goodenough Akeley.
When he retired, Akeley returned to his ancestral home, a two-story farmhouse in the Vermont hills near the slopes of Dark Mountain. In September 1928, he was visited by Professor Wilmarth, who was researching bizarre legends of the region. Shortly thereafter, Akeley disappeared mysteriously from his mountaintop home—though Wilmarth believed that he fell victim to the machinations of the sinister Fungi
Mi-go
The Mi-go are a race of extraterrestrials in the Cthulhu Mythos created by H. P. Lovecraft and others. The name was first applied to the creatures in Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" , taking up a reference to 'What fungi sprout in Yuggoth' in his sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth...
from Yuggoth
Yuggoth
Yuggoth is a fictional planet in the Cthulhu Mythos. H. P. Lovecraft himself said that Yuggoth is the then newly-discovered planet Pluto. However, other writers claim that it is actually an enormous, trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicular to the ecliptic of the solar system.-In the...
.
In his sequel to "The Whisperer in Darkness", "Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley" (1982
1982 in literature
The year 1982 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*La Bicyclette Bleue by Régine Deforges becomes France's best selling novel ever.-New books:...
), Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
explores the overlooked possibility that perhaps Akeley did not fall prey to the Mi-go
Mi-go
The Mi-go are a race of extraterrestrials in the Cthulhu Mythos created by H. P. Lovecraft and others. The name was first applied to the creatures in Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" , taking up a reference to 'What fungi sprout in Yuggoth' in his sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth...
as is generally supposed, but instead joined them willingly.
Lupoff also proposes that Akeley was the illegitimate son of Abednego Akeley, a minister for a Vermont sect of the Starry Wisdom Church, and Sarah Phillips, Abednego's maidservant.
George Goodenough Akeley
(1901–?)Akeley is mentioned in "The Whisperer in Darkness" as the son of Henry Wentworth Akeley.
According to "The Whisperer in Darkness", George moved to San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
, after his father retired.
The 1976 Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
story "The Terror From the Depths" mentions Akeley being consulted at his San Diego home by Professor Albert Wilmarth in 1937.
"Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley", a 1982 sequel to "The Whisperer in Darkness" by Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
, describes Akeley, inspired by the evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
Aimee McPherson, starting a sect called the Spiritual Light Brotherhood and serving as its leader, the Radiant Father. After his death, his granddaughter Elizabeth Akeley took over the role.
In 1928, Lovecraft took a trip through rural Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
with a man named Arthur Goodenough. During his jaunt, he met a local farmer with a name that bears a striking resemblance to the ill-fated character of Lovecraft's tale: one Bert G. Akley.
Minor Mythos names
A passage from "The Whisperer in Darkness" contains a series of Mythos names, some of which are briefly mentioned but are never explained (italics added for emphasis):
I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections — YuggothYuggothYuggoth is a fictional planet in the Cthulhu Mythos. H. P. Lovecraft himself said that Yuggoth is the then newly-discovered planet Pluto. However, other writers claim that it is actually an enormous, trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicular to the ecliptic of the solar system.-In the...
, Great CthulhuCthulhuCthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...
, TsathogguaTsathogguaTsathoggua is a fictional supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. He is the creation of Clark Ashton Smith and is part of his Hyperborean cycle....
, Yog-SothothYog-SothothYog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity of the fictional Cthulhu Mythos and the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. Yog-Sothoth's name was first mentioned in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward...
, R'lyehR'lyehR'lyeh is a fictional lost city that first appeared in the H. P. Lovecraft short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in Weird Tales in 1928. According to Lovecraft's short story, R'lyeh is a sunken city in the South Pacific and the prison of the malevolent entity called Cthulhu.R'lyeh is...
, NyarlathotepNyarlathotepNyarlathotep, also known as the Crawling Chaos, is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos fictional universe created by H. P. Lovecraft. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem of the same name, he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers and in the tabletop...
, AzathothAzathothAzathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. Its epithets include Nuclear Chaos, the Daemon Sultan and the Blind Idiot God.-Inspiration:...
, HasturHasturHastur is a fictional entity of the Cthulhu Mythos. Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" as a benign god of shepherds. Robert W...
, Yian, LengLengLeng is a fictional cold arid plateau in the Cthulhu Mythos, whose location seems to vary entirely from story to story. The Plateau of Tsang, referenced by H. P...
, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow SignYellow SignThe Yellow Sign is a fictional symbol or glyph, first described in Robert Chambers' book of horror short stories The King in Yellow .-The King in Yellow:The King in Yellow never fully describes the shape and purpose of the Yellow Sign...
, L’mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum . . .
While most of these places and things are well-known figures of the mythos, a few are harder to pin down, among them:
- Bethmoora
- Bethmoora was a fabled city in the eponymous story by Lord Dunsany, a favorite author of Lovecraft.
- Bran
- Bran is an ancient British paganPaganismPaganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
deity. However, in this context, Lovecraft was referring to Bran Mak MornBran Mak MornBran Mak Morn is a hero of several pulp fiction short stories by Robert E. Howard. In the stories, most of which were first published in Weird Tales, Bran is the last king of Howard's romanticized version of the tribal race of Picts....
, last king of the PictsPictsThe Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
in Robert E. HowardRobert E. HowardRobert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
's swords-and-sorcery fiction. The reference is an homage to Howard, one of his correspondents.- L'mur-Kathulos
- L'mur may refer to LemuriaLemuria (continent)Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics...
, a fabled land bridgeLand bridgeA land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands...
but a sunken continent in the mythos. Kathulos is an Atlantean sorcerer, the titular character of Robert E. HowardRobert E. HowardRobert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
's story Skull-Face. A fan had written to Howard asking if Kathulos was derived from Cthulhu, and Howard mentioned this in a letter to Lovecraft. Lovecraft liked the thought, and replied that he might adopt the name into the mythos in the future.- Magnum Innominandum
- Magnum Innominandum means "the great not-to-be-named" in Latin.
- Yian
- Yian probably refers to Yian-Ho. In the short story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (19341934 in literatureThe year 1934 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published.*Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky are among those present at the first Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers....
), a collaboration between Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, Yian-Ho is a "dreadful and forbidden city" on the Plateau of LengLengLeng is a fictional cold arid plateau in the Cthulhu Mythos, whose location seems to vary entirely from story to story. The Plateau of Tsang, referenced by H. P...
, but it also may refer to the fictional city of Yian, in the "weird" short story "The Maker of Moons", published in 1896 in the collection of the same nameThe Maker of MoonsThe Maker of Moons is an 1896 short story collection by Robert W. Chambers. It followed the publication of Chambers most famous work, The King in Yellow .It consists of several new stories, including the title story "The Maker of Moons"...
, by one of Lovecraft's most favourite authors, Robert W. ChambersRobert W. ChambersRobert William Chambers was an American artist and writer.-Biography:He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers , a famous lawyer, and Caroline Chambers , a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island...
Significance
In addition to being a textbook example of Lovecraft's characteristically non-occultOccult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
brand of horror, in an age when the genre consisted almost entirely of ghosts, vampires, goblins, and similar traditional tales, "Whisperer" is one of the earliest literary appearances of the now-cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
concept of an isolated brain
Isolated brain
Isolated brain refers to keeping a brain alive in-vitro. This is done either by perfusion by a blood substitute, often an oxygenated solution of various salts, or by submerging the brain in oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid . It is the biological counterpart of brain in a vat...
(although the alien brain case is not transparent as with later cinematic examples of this trope
Trope (literature)
A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...
).
The story retains some seemingly supernatural elements, such as its claim that the alien fungi, although visible to the naked eye and physically tangible, do not register on photographic plates and instead produce an image of the background absent the creature (an impossibility by any known laws of optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
, though a trait commonly attributed to vampires), although the story does mention that this is possibly due to the creatures fungoid and alien structure which works differently from any known physical organism.
Adaptations
The story was adapted into comics and expanded upon in the first three issues of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in DarknessH. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness was a three-part comic book mini-series published by Millennium Publications that followed a group of investigators, the Miskatonic Project, as they confronted the Mi-go, the cunning Fungi from Yuggoth....
with a script by Mark Ellis
Mark Ellis (writer)
Mark Ellis is an American novelist and comic-book writer who under the pen name James Axler has written scores of books for the Outlanders paperback novel series and other books, as well as numerous independent comics series....
and Terry Collins, with art provided by Darryl Banks
Darryl Banks
Darryl Banks is a comic book artist. He worked on one of the first painted comic books, Cyberpunk, and teamed with the writer Mark Ellis to revamp the long-running The Justice Machine series for two publishers, Innovation and Millennium....
and Don Heck
Don Heck
Don Heck was an American comic book artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series The Avengers during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books.-Early life and career:Born in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New...
.
The third segment of the portmanteau film Necronomicon
Necronomicon (film)
H.P. Lovecraft's: Necronomicon, original title Necronomicon, also called Necronomicon: Book of the Dead or Necronomicon: To Hell and Back is an American anthology horror film released in 1993. It was directed by Brian Yuzna, Christophe Gans and Shusuke Kaneko and was written by Brent V...
is loosely adapted from the story.
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has produced a film version made like a 1930s horror film, which premiered at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival. Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
, author of the Call of Cthulu
Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)
Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos.The game, often abbreviated as CoC, is published by Chaosium.-Setting:...
role-playing game, contributed financially to the film in order to finish its production.
External links
- The Whisperer in Darkness, by H. P. Lovecraft.
- "The Novel of the Black Seal", by Arthur Machen (Project Gutenberg)
- Film adaptation trailer