The Colour Out of Space

A 2012 illustration by Ludvik Skopalik showing the well on Gardner Farm with the mysterious colour emerging, central to the story

An unnamed surveyor from Boston, telling the story in the first-person perspective, attempts to uncover the secrets behind a shunned place referred to by the locals of Arkham as the "blasted heath."[2] Unable to garner any information from the townspeople, the protagonist seeks out an old and allegedly crazy man by the name of Ammi Pierce, who relates his personal experiences with a farmer who used to live on the cursed property, Nahum Gardner. Pierce claims that the troubles began when a meteorite crashed into Gardner's lands in June 1882.[3]

The meteorite shrinks but does not cool, and local scientists cannot discern its origin. As it shrinks, it leaves behind "globules of colour" which are referred to as such only by analogy,[4] as they fall outside the range of anything known in the visible spectrum. The stone is eventually destroyed by six bolts of lightning, and the lab specimens are destroyed when placed in a glass beaker. The following season, Gardner's crops grow unnaturally large and abundant. When he discovers that, despite their appearance, they are inedible, he becomes convinced that the meteorite has poisoned the soil. Over the following year, the problem spreads to the surrounding vegetation and local animals, altering them in unusual ways; the plants around the farmhouse become "slightly luminous in the dark."[5] Gardner's wife goes mad, and he locks her in the attic. Over time, Gardner isolates his family from the neighboring farmers; Pierce becomes his only contact with the outside world.[3]

Shortly after the onset of Mrs. Gardner's madness, the vegetation erodes into a grey powder, and the water from the well becomes tainted. One of Gardner's sons, Thaddeus, also goes mad, and Gardner locks him in a different room of the attic. The livestock turns grey and dies off; like the crops, their meat is tasteless and inedible. Thaddeus dies in the attic. Merwin, another of Gardner's sons, vanishes while retrieving water from the contaminated well. After two weeks with no contact from Gardner, Pierce visits the farmstead and witnesses the tale's eponymous horror in the attic. Gardner's final son, Zenas, has disappeared, and the "colour" has infected Nahum's wife, whom Pierce puts out of her misery. Pierce flees the decaying house as the horror destroys the last surviving resident, Nahum.[3]

Pierce returns later that day to the farmstead with six men, including a doctor, who examine Nahum's remains. They discover both Merwin and Zenas' eroding skeletons at the bottom of the well, as well as bones of several other creatures. As they reflect upon their discoveries in the house, a light begins to shine from the well; this becomes the colour, which spreads over everything in the vicinity. The men flee the house and escape as the horror blights the land and then flies into the sky. Pierce alone turns back after the colour has gone; he witnesses a small part of it try to follow the rest, only to fail and return to the well. The knowledge that part of the alien still resides on Earth is sufficient to disturb his mental state. When some of the men return the following day, they find only a dead horse and acres of grey dust. The Gardners' neighbours leave their homes and flee the area.[3]

Lovecraft was inspired to write "The Colour Out of Space" in part by The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort (pictured)

Lovecraft began writing "The Colour Out of Space" in March 1927, immediately after completing The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.[6] As he wrote the tale, however, he was also typing the final draft of his essay on horror fiction, "Supernatural Horror in Literature".[7] Although the author himself claimed that his inspiration was the newly constructed Scituate Reservoir in Rhode Island, Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi believes that the planned Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts must have influenced him as well. American writer and pulp fiction enthusiast Will Murray cites paranormal investigator Charles Fort, and the "thunderstones" (lightning-drawing rocks that may have fallen from the sky) he describes in The Book of the Damned, as possible inspirations for the behavior of the meteorite.[8] Andy Troy argues that the story was an allegory for the coverage of the Radium Girls scandal in The New York Times, with the symptoms of the Gardners matching the newspaper's description of radium necrosis.[9]

Lovecraft was dismayed at the all-too human depiction of aliens in other works of fiction, and his goal for "Colour" was to create an entity that was truly alien.[10] In doing so, he drew inspiration from a number of sources describing colors outside of the visible spectrum. Most notably, Joshi points to Hugh Elliott's Modern Science and Materialism, a 1919 nonfiction book that mentions the "extremely limited" senses of humans, such that of the many "aethereal waves" striking the eyes, "The majority cannot be perceived by the retina at all."[11] Lovecraft had used this concept previously, in his 1920 short story, "From Beyond".[11] Completed by the end of March, "The Colour Out of Space" first appeared in Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories in September 1927.[12] The story was illustrated by J. M. de Aragón, an artist who produced occasional artwork for the magazine.[13]

"The Colour Out of Space" appeared in the September 1927 edition of Amazing Stories

"The Colour Out of Space" became the only work from Amazing Stories to make Edward O'Brien's anthology of The Best American Short Stories,[14] appearing in the 1928 "Roll of Honor".[7] Gernsback paid Lovecraft only $25[3] (approximately $368 in present-day terms) and was late in doing so, leading Lovecraft to refer to the publisher as "Hugo the Rat".[14] He never again submitted anything to the publication.[12] Lovecraft did not write another major short story until the following year, when he crafted "The Dunwich Horror", although he did pen "History of the Necronomicon" and "Ibid" as minor works in-between,[10] as well as an account of a Halloween night's dream that he called "The Very Old Folk".[7]

In addition to being Lovecraft's personal favourite of his short stories,[10][15] critics generally consider "The Colour Out of Space" one of his best works, and the first with his trademark blending of science fiction and horror.[12] Lovecraft scholar Donald R. Burleson referred to the tale as "one of his stylistically and conceptually finest short stories."[16] Joshi praises the work as one of Lovecraft's best and most frightening, particularly for the vagueness of the description of the story's eponymous horror. He also lauded the work as Lovecraft's most successful attempt to create something entirely outside of the human experience, as the creature's motive (if any) is unknown and it is impossible to discern whether or not the "colour" is emotional, moral, or even conscious.[10] His only criticism is that it is "just a little too long".[17] E. F. Bleiler described "The Colour Out of Space" as "an excellent story, one of Lovecraft's finest works; in my opinion the best original story to appear in Amazing Stories".[18] The text of "The Colour Out of Space", like many of Lovecraft's works, has fallen into public domain and can be accessed in several compilations of the author's work, as well as on the Internet.[3] It also had a strong influence on Brian Aldiss's The Saliva Tree, which has been seen as a rewriting of Lovecraft's tale.[19] In 1984, the novel The Color Out of Time by Michael Shea was published as a sequel to the original novelette.[20]

• 1927 in science fiction
• Impossible colours
• Weeds (short story), also known as "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Colour Out of Space

• The Colour Out of Space at Faded Page (Canada)
• The Colour Out of Space title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database