Arkham

This article is about the city in fiction. For the Arkham Asylum, see Arkham Asylum. For the video game, see Batman: Arkham Asylum. For the the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, see Batman: Arkham City. For the founder of Arkham Asylum, see Amadeus Arkham. For other uses, see Arkham (disambiguation).

A map of Arkham, Massachusetts

File:Lovecraft Country.svg

Arkham (/ˈɑːrkəm/) is a fictional town situated in Massachusetts. It is an integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, and it is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.

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.

In Lovecraft's stories

The Thing on the Doorstep

What lay behind our joint love of shadows and marvels was, no doubt, the ancient,
mouldering, and subtly fearsome town in which we live - witch-cursed, legend-haunted
Arkham, whose huddled, sagging gambrel roofs and crumbling Georgian balustrades
brood out the centuries beside the darkly muttering Miskatonic.

—HP Lovecraft

Arkham is the home of Miskatonic University, which figures prominently in many of Lovecraft's works. The institution finances the expeditions in both 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 modelled 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. The disappearance of children (presumably murdered in ritual sacrifices) at May Eve and other "bad doings" are accepted as a part of life for the poorer citizens of the city.

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, with Arkham being situated close to the location of Gordon College; in Lovecraft's work this would presumably be replaced by Miskatonic University itself. The real-life model for Arkham seems to be, in fact, Salem, its reputation for the occult appealing to one who dabbles in the weird tale.

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. (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" (1920)—the story is also the first to mention "Miskatonic".

It also appears in other stories by Lovecraft, including:

• "Herbert West–Reanimator" (1921–22); first story to mention "Miskatonic University"
• "The Unnamable" (1923)
• "The Silver Key" (1926)
• "The Colour out of Space" (1927)
• "The Dunwich Horror" (1928)
• "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930); Albert N. Wilmarth is described as a folklorist and assistant professor of English at Miskatonic University.
• At the Mountains of Madness (1931); one of the ships is named Arkham
• The Shadow over Innsmouth (1931)
• "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932)
• "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1932–1933)
• "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1933); first to mention "Arkham Sanitarium"
• "The Shadow out of Time" (1934–1935)

Other authors

Arkham also appears in the Cthulhu Mythos tales of other writers since Lovecraft's death. Among them:

• Bloch, Robert. "The Creeper in the Crypt" (1937)
• Brennen, Joseph Payne. "Forringer's Fortune" (1975)
• Brunner, John. "Concerning the Forthcoming Inexpensive Paperback Translation of the Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred" (1992)
• Campbell, Ramsey
  • "The Tomb Herd" (1986)
  • "The Tower from Yuggoth" (1986)
• Jens, Tina L. "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb" (1997), mentions "Arkham Industries"
• López Aroca, Alberto. Necronomicón Z (Spanish novel published by Ediciones Dolmen, 2012)
• Lumley, Brian. The Transition of Titus Crow (1975)
• Price, Robert M. "Wilbur Whateley Waiting" (1987)
• Shea, Michael. The Color out of Time (1984)
• Smith, Clark Ashton. "I Am a Witch" (19??)
• Thompson, C. Hall. "The Will of Claude Ashur" (1947)
• Wilson, F. Paul. "The Barrens" (1990)
• Howard, L. Jonathan. "Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute" (2011)

Other appearances

Literature

• Arkham is the setting for all of the stories in the 2006 anthology Arkham Tales published by Chaosium.
• In the novel The Arcanum, Lovecraft himself is said to have been involved in solving a case involving a witch cult in Arkham.
• In the novel The Atrocity Archives, a philosopher is attracted to Arkham due to the "unique library" there.
• In the novel The Jennifer Morgue, the occult branch of the American intelligence community, code-named "Black Chamber", is headquartered in Arkham.
• Arkham appears in several scenes in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It is mentioned that the Arkham Police Department often has to deal with local cults and disappearing professors from Miskatonic.

Film and television

• Arkham also appeared in the movie The Haunted Palace (1963), starring Vincent Price, which is based on Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
• Arkham also appears as the town in the movie Die, Monster, Die! starring Boris Karloff and Nick Adams, though in this film the town is located in England. (This film is based upon Lovecraft's "The Colour out of Space".)
• Arkham appears in "The Collect Call of Cathulhu", episode 32 from season 2 of The Real Ghostbusters (10/27/1987), when members of the Ghostbusters go to Miskatonic University to get information on how to stop Cthulhu.
• Arkham Sanitarium is both the name and the setting of a film currently in post-production by UK production company Survivor Films Ltd.
• Arkham was also seen in the 2003 film Beyond Re-Animator starring Jeffrey Combs, the third installment of the Re-Animator series.
• Arkham is used as the hometown of NXT professional wrestler Simon Gotch who has a man-out-of-time 1930s gimmick.
• Arkham was to be the setting for the Season 28 episode of Doctor Who called Avatar. Because Doctor Who was cancelled, this episode was never produced.

Comics

• 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 an homage to Lovecraft. There is also a graphic novel titled Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. In the fictional universe, it was run by the Arkham family, namely Amadeus Arkham, giving it its name.
• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Arkham is mentioned in Allan and the Sundered Veil, The New Traveller's Almanac and The Black Dossier.

Games

• Arkham is a setting for roleplaying games based on the Mythos, such as Call of Cthulhu.
• The third Shadow Hearts video game (Shadow Hearts: From the New World) features a visit to the fictional Arkham University, based in Boston, Massachusetts. H. P. Lovecraft himself appears as a professor at the university, conjuring up demons for the heroes to fight at their request.
• In the web-based roleplaying game Urban Dead, there are two suburbs, named Old Arkham and New Arkham. Some players have even started to refer to a specific area as Miskatonic University.
• 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.
• The city of New Arcadia from Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a spoof of Arkham.
• In the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, the main character, private detective Jack Walters, is admitted to the Arkham Mental Institution after seeing Yithian creatures and hence becoming seemingly insane during a raid of a Boston home.
• The Batman: Arkham series of stealth action game has the Arkham Asylum Mental Health Care Facility as its main setting.

• Splatterhouse takes place in the setting of Arkham, Massachusetts.

Music

• Grindcore band Discordance Axis have a song entitled Radiant Arkham.
• Avant-garde rock artist Bob Drake's song, "Kaziah's Pet," is set in Arkham.
• Deathrock band Rudimentary Peni not only makes a reference to Arkham in their song "Arkham Hearse", but also numerous other H. P. Lovecraft references throughout their musical catalogue.
• Alt-country musician Ryan Adams wrote a song called "Arkham Asylum," which he and The Cardinals have performed live since September 18, 2006.
• Heavy-metal band High on Fire mentions Arkham in a song entitled "The Face of Oblivion" on the album "Blessed Black Wings".
• Hip Hop group Common Market (band) wrote a song called "Escaping Arkham" one of five songs on the album "The Winter's End EP".

See also

• Arkham Asylum, an institution in the DC Comics universe, named in honor of Lovecraft's Arkham
• Arkham Horror, a board game set in Arkham, where the players war against the Cthulhu Mythos
• Lovecraft Country

Other fictional settings from the stories of H. P. Lovecraft:

• Dunwich, Massachusetts
• Innsmouth, Massachusetts
• Kingsport, Massachusetts

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.

External links

• "Lovecraft's Map of Arkham", from The Cthulhu Mythos: A Guide