Campus
Miskatonic University is evidently modeled on the Bradford College (defunct since 2000) in Haverhill, Massachusetts on the Merrimack river. Haverhill is a mill town with sharp class distinctions. The mill-workers resided north of the river, with the hillside homes of the owners on the other side in the town of Bradford. Bradford college was created to train young ladies to be missionaries' wives. Local lore has it that Lovecraft's girlfriend attended the school and was exposed to the diverse community in an eerie location. In Lovecraft's stories, the university's student body is implied to be all-male, much like northeastern universities of Lovecraft's time. The only female student mentioned is Asenath Waite, of Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1937).
To represent Miskatonic University their film adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness in 2009, the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society chose Mount Holyoke College.
Miskatonic University is famous for its collection of occult books. The library holds one of the very few genuine copies of the Necronomicon. Other tomes include the Unaussprechlichen Kulten by Friedrich von Junzt and the fragmentary Book of Eibon.
Miskatonic's medical school features in "Herbert West—Reanimator".
Interpretations by other authors and fans differ as to whether mystical and Mythos studies at the University are covert or overt. In the first interpretation, which follows Lovecraftian literary traditions, Miskatonic University is an apparently ordinary school whose occult undercurrent only occasionally breaks the surface. In the second, more common in comedic and RPG works (and in Miskatonic University paraphernalia), Mythos and strange elements are overtly displayed and form part of its campus identity.
Read more about this topic: Miskatonic University