The Cyprus Shell

"The Cyprus Shell" is a Cthulhu Mythos-connected short story by Brian Lumley that first appeared in the Summer 1968 issue of The Arkham Collector. It was Lumley's first published story.
==Synopsis==
A British officer explains his seafood phobia by recounting the story of a deadly encounter with a mysterious mollusc.
== Characters==
*Maj. Harry Winslow: A British military officer with an embarrassing fear of seafood; the story's narrator.
*Jobling: A corporal under Winslow's command who is an avid collector of conch shells.
*Col. George L. Glee: A retired officer whose dinner party Winslow fled, requiring an explanation.
==Setting==
The discovery of Murex hypnotica occurs in Cyprus, near "Kyrea, between Cephos and Kyrenia on the coast." Kyrenia is a good-sized town near the center of the island's north coast.
The dinner party that Winslow fled was in Redcar, Yorkshire--a real town on the North Sea coast, not to be confused with Radcar, Yorkshire, a fictional town that figures in Lumley's "Cement Surroundings."
==Mythos Connections==
Winslow recommends a set of books to Glee for further information about the secrets of the sea: "Gantley’s Hydrophinnae, Gaston Le Fe’s Dwellers in the Depths, the German Unter-Zee Kulten and the monstrous Cthaat Aquadingen by an unknown author." This is the first mention in print of the Cthaat Aquadingen, and the first of several times that Lumley refers to the library of aquatic horror introduced in Carl Jacobi's "The Aquarium."
== Publication History==
After its appearance in The Arkham Collector, "The Cyprus Shell" was reprinted in Lumley's collections The Caller of The Black (Arkham House, 1971) and Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi (Roc UK/Tor, 1993). It also appeared in Matt Shaw Presents Masters of Horror (Matt Shaw Publications, 2017). It has been translated into French (as " Le coquillage de Chypre," 1986) and German ("Die Muschel aus Zypern," 2011).Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: The Cyprus Shell."
==References==
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Brian Lumley works