The Shadow Out of Time

The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. He wrote it from November 1934 to February 1935, and it first appeared in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. The story involves traveling through time and space by swapping minds: a person in one place and time can exchange bodies with someone in a different location or era. Like other Lovecraft works, it features alien beings that are not just human-like or based on familiar Earth animals.

The narrator, Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, a professor of economics at Miskatonic University, tells the story in flashbacks covering events from May 14, 1908, to July 17–18, 1935. While teaching on May 14, 1908, around 10:20 a.m., he collapses into a coma lasting several days. When he wakes, he seems like a different person. His family rejects him, except for his youngest son, Wingate Peaslee, who believes his real father will return. Over the next years, the professor’s secondary personality travels widely, exploring known and unknown places worldwide and seeking as much knowledge as possible. His original personality returns in September 1913. Afterward, he and his son try to understand what happened. At first, Peaslee thinks the nightmares and “quasi-memories” he experiences are from mental illness. But his mental state worsens when World War I begins.

His relief that it might all be a delusion fades when he finds other similar cases in history. He gradually recovers more memories until he fully recalls what occurred. He was the victim of a mind swap by aliens called the Great Race of Yith. They came to Earth 200 million years ago and could exchange minds with beings from the past or future.

They use this ability to build vast libraries containing all knowledge ever known or to be known on Earth. To do this, they transfer their spirit into a suitable person’s body in the desired era. Meanwhile, the captured spirit inhabits the Yith’s body. The captives are treated well, can move freely, and are encouraged to write down their knowledge, with access to the Yith’s libraries.

After learning what they need, the Yith reverse the process, sending the captured spirit back to its own body with no memory of the experience. This protects the timeline and the person, as the Yith learned that sending a spirit back with full knowledge caused negative consequences. More details emerge: the Great Race died out long ago because their civilization was destroyed by a hostile race called the “flying polyps.” The Yith transferred only their brightest minds into the bodies of a beetle race that will colonize Earth after humanity.

Peaslee gets a letter about excavations in the Australian desert matching what he wrote in articles. He and his son go to Australia. During a night walk, he finds the ruins of an abandoned city. He spots an underground entrance to a half-preserved part and descends, recognizing the corridors and rooms from his memories.

Torn between wanting to escape and a mix of burning curiosity and surrender to fate, he goes deeper. He notices the trapdoors where the flying polyps were imprisoned are open. He heads to the central archive for proof of his memories. He finds a metal case and is horrified by what is inside, convinced it is certain proof.

But on his way out, he accidentally makes a loud noise that wakes something. In panic, he flees and loses the case. Reaching the surface at dawn, he returns to camp. With no evidence left, he cannot be sure if it was real or a dream.

Relieved that nothing is found at the site, he goes home with his son. The story ends with Peaslee revealing that the lost case contained a book, and the book was written in his own handwriting.

Characters include Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, the narrator, a political economy professor at Miskatonic University, born around 1870, and victim of the Yith from 1908 to 1913. Wingate Peaslee is his son, also a Miskatonic professor. William Dyer is a geology professor at Miskatonic who joins the Australian expedition. Others encountered include Titus Sempronius Blaesus, a Roman quaestor from Sulla’s time; Bartolomeo Corsi, a 12th-century Florentine monk; Crom-Ya, a Cimmerian chief from about 15,000 B.C.; Khephnes, an Egyptian of the 14th Dynasty who told Peaslee the secret of Nyarlathotep; Nevil Kingston-Brown, an Australian physicist who will die in 2518 A.D.; Pierre-Louis Montagny, an aged Frenchman from Louis XIII’s time; Nug-Soth, a magician from the dark conquerors of 16,000 A.D.; S’gg’ha, a being from the star-headed vegetable carnivores of Antarctica; Theodotides, a Greco-Bactrian official from 200 B.C.; and James Woodville, a Suffolk man.