History Literature / TheColourOutOfSpace

* RealitySubtext: Lovecraft's grandfather, [[InherentlyFunnyWords Whipple Van Buren Phillips]], had lost the family fortune, and eventually his life as a result of the stress, investing in a failed dam project. This no doubt had something to do with the inclusion of the FramingDevice about the reservoir surveyor.

* TheCorruption

* EpilepticTrees: [[{{Invoked}} Literally]]: the trees around the Gardner farmhouse are described as swaying epileptically:
-->''And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness.''

* PillarOfLight: A huge stream of light was comming out of the well just before the Colour departs

A story by Creator/HPLovecraft inspired by Creator/ArthurMachen's "The Novel of the White Powder" (from the novel ''The Three Imposters''). The story is first told from the perspective of a property investigator visiting the town of [[LovecraftCountry Arkham]] who is citing for a new reservoir to be built. Eventually he starts asking about the mysterious "blasted heath" which the people had been trying to avoid talking about for the entire time. Eventually he finds Ammi, an old man living near the heath, who is willing to explain what happened there and why absolutely nothing can live on that burgeoning plot of land...

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: The titular "colour" is unlike any color in the normal spectrum, which under conventional logic would suggest it simply being invisible. Maybe it isn't even a colour, as it's only said a colour is the closest thing it can becompared to.

* PromotedToLoveInterest: A romantic subplot is introduced in the radio version between Ammi Pearce and Mrs. Gardner. According to this version they were briefly involved before she got married and she later tries to seduce him again so he'll take her away from Nahum Gardner's irradiated lands before she succumbs to the effects of The Colour.

And yes, it was an inspiration for ''ManiacMansion''.

* DrivenToSuicide: The Gardner children both kill themselves rather than suffer the fate that befell their mother.
** One of them anyway; the other one's bones were found in the well where the Colour dwells, so he may have become a victim to it, as well.
* EldritchAbomination: The titular Colour is a particularly creepy example because its nature is never discerned - only its effects, vis-a-vis Ammi's tale and the nature of the heath itself.
* EldritchLocation: The Blasted Heath is a slowly, inexorably expanding area that is completely and totally dead. Nothing lives there - ''nothing'', not even germs or mold. It is a place of rock, dust, and ash.
* EpilepticTrees: [[{{Invoked}} Literally]]: the trees were described as swaying epileptically.
-->And yet amid that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness.
* FisherKingdom: A meteorite containing a substance of a color and an element unknown to man has landed in the well of a farmhouse. The soil around the well begins to change and a malaise radiates outward, in which all animal, plant, and human life begins to deform and mutate, taking on the color of the meteorite and eventually turning gray and crumbling into dust.
** And Nahum's story implies that people can't bring themselves to leave the area, even after they grasp that something horrible is happening.
* LovecraftCountry: The story was written by the TropeNamer.
* MadwomanInTheAttic: Nahum's wife suffers this fate when she goes mad.
** As does one of his sons.

** EnergyBeing: The Colour is either a living cloud of gas, or this.

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: In a variation of this trope, the titular "colour" is unlike any color in the normal spectrum, which under conventional (but obviously non-applicable here) logic would suggest it simply being invisible.
** It was stated that a "colour" is the closest thing that it can be compared to.

* AssholeVictim: Very much averted. The Gardners are nothing but upstanding normal people, making their horrible fate that much worse.
** Played somewhat straight in the Atlanta Radio Theater Company's audio drama version, where Nahum is a rather cantankerous, unpleasant man whose first response to most problems is to reach for his shotgun.

* FisherKingdom: A meteorite containing a substance of a color and an element unknown to man has landed in the well of a farmhouse. The soil around the well begins to change and a malaise radiates outward, in which all animal, plant, and human life begins to deform and mutate, taking on the color of the meteorite and eventually turning gray and crumbling into dust.

The story then shifts perspective to Ammi who tells about how they a meteor had crashed to earth one night and the horrific things that arose because of that.

A story by Creator/HPLovecraft inspired by Creator/ArthurMachen's "The Novel of the White Powder" (from the novel ''The Three Imposters''). The story is first told from the perspective of a property investigator visiting the town of [[LovecraftCountry Arkham]] who is citing for a new reservoir to be built. Eventually he starts asking about the mysterious "blasted heath" which the people had been trying to avoid talking about for the entire time. Eventually he finds Ammi, an old man living near the heath, who is willing to explain what happened there and why absolutely nothing can live on that plot of land.

* EldritchAbomination: The titular Colour is a particularly creepy example because the story deliberately leaves vague the nature of what it is, or if it is even aware of what it was doing.
* EldritchLocation: The Blasted Heath is a slowly expanding area that is completely and totally dead, no grass, no animals, not even germs or mold live there - just ash.

* FisherKingdom: A meteorite containing a substance of a color and an element unknown to man has landed in the well of a farmhouse. The soil around the well begins to change and a malaise radiates outward, in which all animal, plant, and human life begins to deform, takes on the color of the object from the meteorite, and eventually turns gray and crumbles. The illness is both physical and mental, and is not a simple case of poisoning, as the meteorite object is in some way sentient.

A story by HPLovecraft inspired by ArthurMachen's "The Novel of the White Powder" (from the novel ''The Three Imposters''). The story is first told from the perspective of a property investigator visiting the town of [[LovecraftCountry Arkham]] who is citing for a new reservoir to be built. Eventually he starts asking about the mysterious "blasted heath" which the people had been trying to avoid talking about for the entire time. Eventually he finds Ammi, an old man living near the heath, who is willing to explain what happened there and why absolutely nothing can live on that plot of land.

can be read [[http://dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecolouroutofspace.htm here.]]

* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: In a variation of this trope, the titular "colour" is unlike any color in the normal spectrum.

* StarfishAliens: The Colour.

** How in the hell did Lovecraft beat out {{Lost}} to the Trope Namer? I theorize time travel.

The story is one of several of Lovecraft's that received an audio drama adaptation from the Atlanta Radio Theater Company.