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The precise location of Arkham is unspecified, although it is probably near both [[Innsmouth]] and [[Dunwich (Lovecraft)|Dunwich]]. However, it may be surmised from Lovecraft's stories that it is some distance to the north of [[Boston]], probably in [[Essex County, Massachusetts]]. A more recent mapping of [[Lovecraft Country]] reinforces this suggestion,{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} with Arkham being situated close to the location of [[Gordon College (Massachusetts)|Gordon College]]; in Lovecraft's work this would presumably be replaced by [[Miskatonic University]] itself.
The precise location of Arkham is unspecified, although it is probably near both [[Innsmouth]] and [[Dunwich (Lovecraft)|Dunwich]]. However, it may be surmised from Lovecraft's stories that it is some distance to the north of [[Boston]], probably in [[Essex County, Massachusetts]]. A more recent mapping of [[Lovecraft Country]] reinforces this suggestion,{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} with Arkham being situated close to the location of [[Gordon College (Massachusetts)|Gordon College]]; in Lovecraft's work this would presumably be replaced by [[Miskatonic University]] itself.


The actual location of Arkham is a subject of debate. [[Will Murray (writer)|Will Murray]] places Arkham in central Massachusetts and suggests it is based on the village of Oakham. Robert D. Marten rejects this and equates Arkham with Salem, with its name coming from Arkwright, Rhode Island (now part of Fiskville).
[[Will Murray (writer)|Will Murray]] instead places Arkham in central Massachusetts and suggests it is based on the village of [[Oakham, Massachusetts|Oakham]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} Robert D. Marten rejects this and equates Arkham with [[Salem, Massachusetts|Salem]], with its name coming from Arkwright, Rhode Island (now part of Fiskville).{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}


[[August Derleth]] describes Arkham as "Lovecraft's own well-known, widely used place-name for legend-haunted Salem, Massachusetts",<ref>"About Arkham House" web site.</ref> and Lovecraft himself, in a letter to F. Lee Baldwin dated April 29, 1934, wrote that "[my] mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere [and] style of houses, but more hilly [and] with a college (which Salem [lacks]) ... I place the town [and] the imaginary Miskatonic [River] somewhere north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester."<ref>Joshi & Schultz, pp. 6–7.</ref>
[[August Derleth]] describes Arkham as "Lovecraft's own well-known, widely used place-name for legend-haunted Salem, Massachusetts",<ref>"About Arkham House" web site.</ref> and Lovecraft himself, in a letter to F. Lee Baldwin dated April 29, 1934, wrote that "[my] mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere [and] style of houses, but more hilly [and] with a college (which Salem [lacks]) ... I place the town [and] the imaginary Miskatonic [River] somewhere north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester."<ref>Joshi & Schultz, pp. 6–7.</ref>

Revision as of 12:28, 21 September 2023

This article is about the city in fiction. For the hospital in DC Comics, see Arkham Asylum. For the video game series, see Batman: Arkham. For other uses, see Arkham (disambiguation).

Arkham
H. P. Lovecraft's hand-drawn map of Arkham, Massachusetts
Location of Arkham in Lovecraft Country, Massachusetts
Created byH. P. Lovecraft
GenreHorror fiction
In-universe information
TypeCity
LocationMassachusetts
LocationsMiskatonic University

Arkham (/ˈɑːrkəm/) is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.[1]

Arkham House, a publishing company started by two of Lovecraft's correspondents, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, takes its name from this city as a tribute.[2] Arkham Asylum, a fictional mental hospital in DC Comics' Batman mythos, is also named after Lovecraft's Arkham.[3]

In Lovecraft's stories

Arkham is the home of Miskatonic University, which features prominently in many of Lovecraft's works. The institution finances the expeditions in the novellas, At the Mountains of Madness (1936) and The Shadow Out of Time (1936). Walter Gilman, of "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933), attends classes at the university. Other notable institutions in Arkham are the Arkham Historical Society and the Arkham Sanitarium. It is said in "Herbert West—Reanimator" that the town was devastated by a typhoid outbreak in 1905.

Lovecraft's Crowninshield House in The Thing on the Doorstep was modeled on the real Crowninshield-Bentley House in Salem, Massachusetts.

Arkham's main newspaper is the Arkham Advertiser, which has a circulation that reaches as far as Dunwich. In the 1880s, its newspaper is called the Arkham Gazette.

Arkham's most notable characteristics are its gambrel roofs and the dark legends that have surrounded the city for centuries.

Location

The precise location of Arkham is unspecified, although it is probably near both Innsmouth and Dunwich. However, it may be surmised from Lovecraft's stories that it is some distance to the north of Boston, probably in Essex County, Massachusetts. A more recent mapping of Lovecraft Country reinforces this suggestion,[citation needed] with Arkham being situated close to the location of Gordon College; in Lovecraft's work this would presumably be replaced by Miskatonic University itself.

Will Murray instead places Arkham in central Massachusetts and suggests it is based on the village of Oakham.[citation needed] Robert D. Marten rejects this and equates Arkham with Salem, with its name coming from Arkwright, Rhode Island (now part of Fiskville).[citation needed]

August Derleth describes Arkham as "Lovecraft's own well-known, widely used place-name for legend-haunted Salem, Massachusetts",[4] and Lovecraft himself, in a letter to F. Lee Baldwin dated April 29, 1934, wrote that "[my] mental picture of Arkham is of a town something like Salem in atmosphere [and] style of houses, but more hilly [and] with a college (which Salem [lacks]) ... I place the town [and] the imaginary Miskatonic [River] somewhere north of Salem—perhaps near Manchester."[5]

Arkham Sanitarium appears in the short story "The Thing on the Doorstep" and may have been inspired by the Danvers State Insane Asylum, aka Danvers State Hospital, located in Danvers, Massachusetts.[6] (Danvers State Hospital itself appears in Lovecraft's stories "Pickman's Model" and The Shadow over Innsmouth.)

Appearances

Lovecraft's fiction

Note: dates are the year written.

Arkham first appeared in Lovecraft's short story "The Picture in the House"[7] (1920)—the story is also the first to mention "Miskatonic".[7]

It appears in other stories by Lovecraft, including:

Other appearances

  • In the DC Universe, Arkham Asylum is a high-security asylum for dangerous psychopaths where many Gotham City supervillains, including the Joker, are kept under guard. The name was picked by editor Jack C. Harris and writer Dennis O'Neil in homage to Lovecraft.[3] In the fictional universe, it was run by the Arkham family, namely Amadeus Arkham, giving it its name.[19]
  • Arkham Horror is a cooperative adventure board-game themed around H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The game has players exploring the town of Arkham as they attempt to stop unmentionable horrors from spilling into the world.[20]
  • Splatterhouse takes place in the setting of Arkham, Massachusetts.[21]
  • Arkham is the setting for the 1963 film The Haunted Palace directed by Roger Corman, based on the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
  • Arkham appears in "The Collect Call of Cthulhu", episode 32 from season 2 of The Real Ghostbusters (October 27, 1987), when members of the Ghostbusters go to Miskatonic University to get information on how to stop Cthulhu.[22]
  • "An Arkham Halloween", a short story by Thomas Wm. Hamilton, appearing in Bewildering Stories, in which The Wandering Jew volunteers to aid Miskatonic University in preparing a modern translation of the Necronomicon, meets a descendant of Edgar Allan Poe's protagonist in The "Tell Tale Heart", and battles Dracula. Reprinted in author's collection, 'Weird Thoughts'.

Novels

  • Arkham is the primary setting of Lovecraftian: The Shipwright Circle by Steven Philip Jones. The Lovecraftian series reimagines the weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft into one single universal modern epic.
  • Arkham is the setting for all of the stories in the 2006 anthology Arkham Tales published by Chaosium.[23]
  • In the 2005 novel The Arcanum, Lovecraft himself is said to have been involved in solving a case involving a witch cult in Arkham.[citation needed]
  • Arkham is mentioned in two novels by author Charles Stross. In The Atrocity Archives, a philosopher is attracted to Arkham due to the "unique library" there.[24] In The Jennifer Morgue, the occult branch of the American intelligence community, code-named "Black Chamber", is headquartered in Arkham.[25]

Notes

  1. ^ Manguel, Alberto; Guadalupi, Gianni (1987). The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp. 20–21. ISBN 0-15-626054-9.
  2. ^ Cf. "About Arkham House" web site.
  3. ^ a b Voger, Mark; Voglesong, Kathy (2006). The Dark Age: Grim, Great & Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 5. ISBN 1-893905-53-5.
  4. ^ "About Arkham House" web site.
  5. ^ Joshi & Schultz, pp. 6–7.
  6. ^ Joseph Morales notes in his "A Short Tour of Lovecraftian New England" (web site) that Danvers "is mentioned in passing in some of Lovecraft's stories, and may also be the inspiration for HPL's fictional Arkham Sanitarium".
  7. ^ a b Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 117. ISBN 0870540378.
  8. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1987). Dagon and other macabre tales. selected by August Derleth, text edited by S. T. Joshi, introduction by T. E. D. Klein (Corr. 5th print. ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House Publishers. p. 133. ISBN 0870540394.
  9. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1987). Dagon and other macabre tales. selected by August Derleth, text edited by S. T. Joshi, introduction by T. E. D. Klein (Corr. 5th print. ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House Publishers. p. 200. ISBN 0870540394.
  10. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1985). S. T. Joshi (ed.). At the mountains of madness, and other novels. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (Corr. 7. print. ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 413. ISBN 0870540386.
  11. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 53. ISBN 0870540378.
  12. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 165. ISBN 0870540378.
  13. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1985). S. T. Joshi (ed.). At the mountains of madness, and other novels. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (Corr. 7. print. ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 6. ISBN 0870540386.
  14. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 305. ISBN 0870540378.
  15. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1985). S. T. Joshi (ed.). At the mountains of madness, and other novels. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (Corr. 7. print. ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 262. ISBN 0870540386.
  16. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1985). S. T. Joshi (ed.). At the mountains of madness, and other novels. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (Corr. 7. print. ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 422. ISBN 0870540386.
  17. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 276. ISBN 0870540378.
  18. ^ Lovecraft, H. P. (1963). S.T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich horror and others. selected by August Derleth, introduction by Robert Bloch (corrected 7. printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. p. 370. ISBN 0870540378.
  19. ^ O'Neil, Dennis (2008). Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City. BenBella Books. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-933771-30-4.
  20. ^ "Arkham Horror". Board Game Geek. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  21. ^ McAllister, Jeff (December 7, 2010). "Splatterhouse easter eggs and references guide". gamesradar.
  22. ^ "The Real Ghostbusters (a Titles & Air Dates Guide)". Episode Guides. Archived from the original on November 19, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
  23. ^ "Arkham Tales". Chaosium. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  24. ^ Stross, Charles (January 3, 2006). The Atrocity Archives. Penguin. ISBN 9781101208847. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  25. ^ Stross, Charles (November 4, 2010). The Jennifer Morgue. Little, Brown Book. ISBN 9780748124145. Retrieved December 20, 2015.

References

Primary sources

  • Lovecraft, Howard P.
    • At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Novels (7th corrected printing), S. T. Joshi (ed.), Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1985. ISBN 0-87054-038-6. Definitive version.
    • Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, S. T. Joshi (ed.), Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1987. ISBN 0-87054-039-4. Definitive version.
    • The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing), S. T. Joshi (ed.), Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1984. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.

Secondary sources

Books

Web sites

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