Shadow Out of Time - Corrected Version?

[BeerClark]

I am about to read this story from the Del Ray book "Bloodcurdling Tales..." and saw somewhere that there is now a corrected version of "Shadow..." from recently discovered notes in 1995.

My question is, is there much difference? Does the story change drastically or is the corrected version of this more a matter of some richer words than what was originally published?

 

[j d worthington]

I am about to read this story from the Del Ray book "Bloodcurdling Tales..." and saw somewhere that there is now a corrected version of "Shadow..." from recently discovered notes in 1995.

My question is, is there much difference? Does the story change drastically or is the corrected version of this more a matter of some richer words than what was originally published?

That's a difficult one to answer, really. The plot doesn't change, no. But because various phrases were cut or altered, and the paragraphing was changed, the feel of the thing changes quite a bit, as well as a lot of the implications. So it all depends on whether you want to read it as HPL intended it, or as it was handed down through editorial tampering for something like 60 years.... Either way, it's a wonderful story, but I'd say it has considerably more impact when one reads it as HPL wrote it.

You can find the corrected version in the Penguin book, The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Tales, or a wonderfully annotated and informative edition by Hippocampus Press:

HPLA - The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories

HPLA - The Shadow out of Time: The Corrected Text

(This last also includes his original notes and an early draft of the piece as well....)