between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake". Price notes that Fishhead, as the "son of a Negro father and a half-breed Indian mother," "embodies unambiguously the basic premise of The Shadow over Innsmouth.... This, of course, is really what Lovecraft found revolting in the idea of interracial marriage...the subtextual hook of different ethnic races mating and 'polluting' the gene pool." Price points out the resemblance in names between the Deep One city of Y'ha-nthlei and Yoharneth-Lahai, a fictional deity in Lord Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana, who "sendeth little dreams out of Pegana to please the people of Earth"—a precursor to Lovecraft's fictional deity Cthulhu, who sends less pleasant dreams from R'lyeh. The description of the Deep Ones has similarities to the sea creature described in H.G. Wells' short story "In the Abyss" (1896): Cthulhu Mythos Cthulhu and R'lyeh are mentioned, the former in passing by Zadok Allen, and both toward the end of the narrative. The creature known as Dagon is first introduced in Lovecraft's 1917 tale of the same name. As related in "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1937), Asenath Waite, the possessed victim of her father Ephraim Waite, is by implication one of the human/Deep One hybrids, and was a resident of Innsmouth before attending Miskatonic University. The servants she brings into her marriage to Edward Derby are likewise Innsmouth natives. This occurs after The Shadow over Innsmouth and Asenath's father and she escaped the government raid mentioned in the original story. The Waites, Gilmans, Eliots and Marshes are the "gently bred" families of Innsmouth. Despite his name, the protagonist of "The Dreams in the Witch House", Walter Gilman, is not established as having any links to Innsmouth or the Deep Ones. August Derleth also used the Deep Ones in the short story "Innsmouth Clay", which was inspired by an entry in Lovecraft's Commonplace Book. "The Shuttered Room" is another short story by Derleth, inspired by a note by Lovecraft, which also involves the Deep Ones. It mentions a connection between the Marsh family of Innsmouth and the Whateley family of Dunwich from "The Dunwich Horror". Publication Lovecraft was quite critical of The Shadow over Innsmouth, writing to August Derleth that the story "has all the defects I deplore—especially in point of style, where hackneyed phrases & rhythms have crept in despite all precautions.... No—I don't intend to offer 'The Shadow over