The Shadow over Innsmouth - H. P. Lovecraft - This novella was inspired by a journey to Newburyport, Massachusetts, which in 1931was much faded from its glory years as a shipbuilding, fishing, and trading center.At the time, Lovecraft was trying to find his way forward as a literary man. The rejections he'd been hit with earlier in the year had convinced him that what he was doing was not going to take him to where he wanted to be — that his efforts to serve two masters had doomed him to rejection by both, and that a repudiation of the pulp market and a thoroughgoing purification and possibly transformation of his literary style was the only solution. Accordingly, he spent November and December of 1931 preparing experimental drafts of this story in different styles. He rejected each in turn; none survives today. Eventually Lovecraft gave up and wrote the story in his regular style. The decaying town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts has an unhealthy reputation. Nearby citizens shun it. You won't find it on any maps. And the denizens just don't look right. They just don't. Maybe it's something in the water? Robert Loveless is trying to escape the lurking fear of insanity cursing his bloodline when his quest lures him to the town of Innsmouth.As Loveless wanders the tumbledown streets past homes and buildings of departed grandeur, he uncovers the town's awful past from a half-crazed old drunk named Zadok Allen.Howard Phillips Lovecraft August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England. After his father's institutionalization in 1893, he lived affluently until his family's wealth dissipated after the death of his grandfather. Lovecraft then lived with his mother, in reduced financial security, until her institutionalization in 1919. He began to write essays for the United Amateur Press Association and, in 1913, Lovecraft wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction.He became active in the speculative fiction community and was published in several pulp magazines. Lovecraft moved to New York, marrying Sonia Greene in 1924, and later became the center of a wider group of authors known as the "Lovecraft Circle". They introduced him to Weird Tales, which would become his most prominent publisher. Lovecraft's time in New York took a toll on his mental state and financial conditions. He returned to Providence in 1926 and produced some of his most popular works, including "The Call of Cthulhu", At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time. He would remain active as a writer until his death from intestinal cancer at the age of 46.