Sent to me by a friend in the Vermont Historical Society; he’s from Brattleboro originally:
Lovecraft made adroit use of a natural disaster in the Green Mountain State - the terrible flooding of 1927 - as the backdrop of “The Whisperer in Darkness.”
Cool.
I hadn’t realized that the flood referred to in the story was an actual event until I saw a feature about it on The Whisperer in Darkness DVD.
Lovecraft often worked in real places and events into his stories. His stuff about Yuggoth came after the discovery of Pluto. Aspects of Innsmouth resemble Gloucester (where you can identify actual buildings), Salem (whose history it vresembles) and Newburyport.
There have been claims that the “Devil’s Hop-Yard” in The Dunwich Horror is based on Mystery Hill in NH. S.T, Joshi claims that Lovecraft didn’t visit the site until after the story was written, but that doesn’t prevent Lovecraft from knowing about it, and Gungywump and other megalithic sites.
I’ve long felt that tThe Blasted Heath from The Colour Out of Space is inspired by the Desert of Maine.
And there are recognizable locales and institutions in Salem, Providence, Boston, and elsewhere in his stories.
Good stuff - thanks!
I’ve played with this on Google Maps/Streetview, trying to follow the bus route to Innsmouth as described.
:::looks at the username ::: I’ll bet you have!
I don’t think that the resemblance extends to a correlation of the maps. For What it’s worth, I believe that Lovecraft drew up a map of his imaginary Innsmouth, which doesn’t reproduce well. A fan drew up ths map, based on information in the story itself:
http://baharna.com/cmythos/innsmap.htm
I think there are one or two small errors in it, but if you read the story with the map at ypour side, it follows along pretty well.