The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a short novel (51,500 words) by H. P. Lovecraft, written in early 1927, but not published during the author's lifetime. Set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, it was first published (in abridged form) in the May and July issues of Weird Tales in 1941; the first complete publication was in Arkham House's Beyond the Wall of Sleep collection (1943). It is included in the Library of America volume of Lovecraft's work.
The novel, set in 1928, describes how Charles Dexter Ward becomes obsessed with his distant ancestor, Joseph Curwen, an alleged wizard with unsavory habits. Ward physically resembles Curwen, and attempts to duplicate his ancestor's Qabalistic and alchemical feats. He eventually uses this knowledge to physically resurrect Curwen. Ward's doctor, Marinus Bicknell Willett, investigates Ward's activities and is horrified by what he finds.
==Inspiration==
In August 1925, Lovecraft's Aunt Lillian sent him an anecdote about the house at 140 Prospect Street in Providence. Lovecraft wrote back, "So the Halsey house is haunted! Ugh! That's where Wild Tom Halsey kept live terrapins in the cellar--maybe it's their ghosts. Anyway, it's a magnificent old mansion, & a credit to a magnificent old town!" (: letter to Lillian D. Clark, August 24, 1925; : An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​ Lovecraft would make this house—renumbered as 100 Prospect—the basis for the Ward house.
The following month, September 1925, Lovecraft read Providence in Colonial Times, by Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, a 1912 history that provided him the anecdotes about John Merritt and Dr. Checkley that he incorporated into his novel. (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​
A possible literary model is Walter de la Mare's novel The Return (1910), which Lovecraft read in mid-1926. He describes it in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" as a tale in which "We see the soul of a dead man reach out of its grave of two centuries and fasten itself on the flesh of the living." (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​
The theme of a descendant who closely resembles a distant ancestor may come from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, which Lovecraft called "New England's greatest contribution to weird literature" in "Supernatural Horror in Literature". (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​
Another proposed literary source is M. R. James' short story "Count Magnus", also praised in "Supernatural Horror in Literature", which suggests the resurrection of a sinister 17th century figure.Richard Ward, "In Search of the Dread Ancestor", Lovecraft Studies No. 36 (Spring 1997); cited in Joshi and Schultz, p. 131.
The germ of inspiration came from Lovecraft reading Cotton Mather and running across a quote from Borellus. Borellus is Petrus Borellus aka Dr Pierre Borel, a well-known French doctor and alchemist. The quote refers to old experiments of the alchemists in creating life/rebirth from death using essential salts. The entire quote is as follows: "The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated."Mather, Cotton. Scanned page on archive.org, Magnalia Christi Americana, retrieved 2014-07-12.
==Plot summary==
Charles Dexter Ward is a young man from a prominent Rhode Island family who has disappeared from a mental asylum. He had been incarcerated during a prolonged period of insanity, during which he exhibited minor and inexplicable physiological changes. His empty cell is found to be very dusty.
The bulk of the story concerns the investigation conducted by the Wards' family doctor, Marinus Bicknell Willett, in an attempt to discover the reason for Ward's madness and physiological changes. Willett learns that Ward had spent the past several years attempting to discover the grave of his ill-reputed ancestor, Joseph Curwen. The doctor slowly begins to reveal the truth behind the legends surrounding Curwen, an eighteenth-century shipping entrepreneur and alleged alchemist, who was in reality a necromancer and mass-murderer. A raid on Curwen's farm is remarkable for the shouted incantations, lights, explosions, and some not-quite-human figures shot down by the raiders. The raiders soon swear any witnesses to strict secrecy about what they may have seen or heard.
As Willett's investigations proceed, he finds that Charles had recovered Curwen's ashes, and through the use of magical formulae contained in documents found hidden in Curwen's home in Providence, Rhode Island, was able to call forth Curwen from his "essential saltes" and resurrect him. Willett also finds that Curwen, who resembles Charles enough to pass for him, has murdered and replaced his modern descendant and resumed his evil activities. Although Curwen convinces onlookers that he is Charles, his anachronistic mindset and behaviour lead authorities to certify him insane and imprison him in an asylum.
While Curwen is locked up, Willett's investigation leads him to a bungalow in Pawtuxet Village, which Ward had purchased while under the influence of Curwen. The house is on the site of the old farm which was Curwen's headquarters for his nefarious doings; beneath is a vast catacomb that the wizard had built as a lair during his previous lifetime. During a horrific journey through this labyrinth in which Willett sees a deformed monster in a pit, Willett discovers the truth about Curwen's crimes and also the means of returning him to the grave. It is also revealed that Curwen has been engaged in a long-term conspiracy with certain other necromancers, associates from his previous life who have somehow escaped death, to resurrect and torture the world's wisest people to gain knowledge that will make them powerful and threaten the future of mankind. While in Curwen's laboratory, Willett accidentally summons an ancient entity who is an enemy of Curwen and his fellow necromancers. The doctor faints, awakening much later in the bungalow. The entrance to the vaults has been sealed as if it had never existed, but Willett finds a note from the being written in Latin instructing him to kill Curwen and destroy his body.
Willett confronts Curwen at the asylum and succeeds in reversing the resurrection spell, returning the sorcerer to dust. News reports reveal that Curwen's prime co-conspirators and their households have met brutal deaths, and their lairs have been destroyed.
==Characters==
===Charles Dexter Ward===
Ward is born in 1902; he is 26 in 1928, at the time the story takes place.
Though considered one of Lovecraft's autobiographical characters, some details of the character seem to be based on William Lippitt Mauran, who lived in the Halsey house and, like Ward, was "wheeled...in a carriage" in front of it. Like the Wards, the Maurans also owned a farmhouse in Pawtuxet, Rhode Island. (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​
===Joseph Curwen===
Ward's ancestor and dead ringer, a successful merchant, shipping magnate, slave trader, and highly accomplished sorcerer, born in present-day Danvers, Massachusetts, seven miles from Salem, on February 18, 1662.
===Marinus Bicknell Willett===
Charles Dexter Ward's family physician. An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia compares Willett's character to other "valiant counterweight[s]" in Lovecraft such as Thomas Malone in "The Horror at Red Hook" (1925) (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​ and Henry Armitage in "The Dunwich Horror"; like Willett, Armitage "defeats the 'villains' by incantations, and he is susceptible to the same flaws--pomposity, arrogance, self-importance--that can be seen in Willett." (: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia)​
=== Simon Orne ===
An associate of Joseph Curwen who uses similar alchemical means to unnaturally prolong his life. He lives in Salem until 1720, "when his failure to grow visibly old began to excite attention." He returns 30 years later using the name Jedediah Orne, pretending to be his own son; he lives under that name until 1771, "when certain letters from Providence citizens...brought about his quiet removal to parts unknown." He later lives in Prague under the name Josef Nadek.​
=== Edward Hutchinson ===
Curwen's other friend, another alchemist with life-prolonging powers, who lives in Salem-Village (latter-day Danvers), where he had "a house well out toward the woods, and it was not altogether liked by sensitive people because of the sounds heard there at night." Hutchinson relocates to Transylvania, where he adopts the name Baron Ferenczy.​
==Critical reception==
Lovecraft himself was displeased with the novel, calling it a "cumbrous, creaking bit of self-conscious antiquarianism". (: Selected Letters 4.692) He made little effort to publish the work, leaving it to be published posthumously in Weird Tales by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei.
Writing in the New York Times reviewer William Poster described Ward as "a good story in the New England witchcraft tradition, well seasoned with alchemy, vampirism, ancient documents and mummy-stealing"."Nightmare in Cthulu" (sic), New York Times Book Review, January 16, 1944, p.19 Horror historian Les Daniels called The Case of Charles Dexter Ward Lovecraft's "finest novel".Les Daniels (1975). Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media. Da Capo Press, P. 121. ISBN 0306801930 . E. F. Bleiler noted that the short novel, "despite its being strangely tired and routine, has interesting concepts and good moments".E. F. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, Kent State University Press, 1983 (p.322-23) Baird Searles found that "HPL's great knowledge of New England history provides a convincing background" for the story."On Books", Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1982, p.20. Douglas Robillard stated Lovecraft's negative assessment of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was "too harsh; this is one of his finest works".Douglas Robillard, in Lovecraft, H(oward) P(hilips), in Jack Sullivan, (ed.) The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1986. ISBN 0670809020 (p. 273).
==Cthulhu Mythos==
Charles Dexter Ward contains the first mention of the Cthulhu Mythos entity Yog-Sothoth, who appears repeatedly as an element in an incantation. Joseph Curwen is the owner of a copy of the Necronomicon (disguised as a book labelled Qanoon-e-Islam) and there are hints of cult activities in a fishing village that refer obliquely to the events narrated in "The Festival". The story also contains references to the Dream Cycle: Dr. Willett notices the "Sign of Koth" chiselled above a doorway, and remembers his friend Randolph Carter drawing the sign and explaining its powers and meaning.
First appearance of the Dragon's Head and Dragon's Tail signs.
Brian Lumley expanded on the character of Baron Ferenczy, mentioned but never met in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, in his Necroscope series, specifically Book IV: Deadspeak, where Janos Ferenczy uses the Yog-Sothoth formula to call forth whole bodies from ash remains, and to return them to that state.
When Dexter's mother hears chanting ("per adonai eloim, adonai jehova, adonai sabaoth, metraton on agla mathon, verbum pythonicum, mysterium salamandrae, conventus sylvorum, antra gnomorum, daemonia coeli gad, almousin, gibor, jehosua, evam, zariatnatmik, veni, veni, veni." translated to if it was Latin "by Adonai, Eloi, Adonai Jehovah, Adonai hosts metraton on Egla was appointed, divining the mystery of the salamander, a meeting of the forests, caves, gnomes, devils, heaven Gad almousin, gibor Oshea, Eve, zariatnatmik, come, come, come.") this chanting is referencing the "mystery of the salamander" which is also mentioned in other short stories. Gnomes and Salamanders in the sense used here are both types of Elemental, those of Earth and Fire respectively.
==Adaptations ==
*In 1963, Roger Corman filmed a loose adaptation of the story titled The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price and Lon Chaney, Jr. The film was advertised as "Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Palace," but it was not based on Poe's poem of the same title.
*In 1992, Dan O'Bannon filmed a more faithful adaptation, The Resurrected, starring John Terry and Chris Sarandon.
*In 2001, DreamCatcher Interactive Inc. published a videogame adaptation for the PC (developed by Wanadoo Edition) under the name Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness. All the characters' names from the book were changed, as was the ending.
*In 2012 comics artist I. N. J. Culbard adapted the story for Akileos.
*In 2013, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society produced a Dark Adventure Radio Theatre radio drama interpretation.
* In the Tiger Lillies album, Mountains of Madness, there is a song titled "Charles Dexter Ward" that refers to the story.
* In 2018, the BBC produced an updated 10 part radio podcast version, titled The Case of Charles Dexter Ward as part of their series The Whisperer in Darkness. The entire series can also be found on PlayerFM.
==References==
==External links==
*The Case of Charles Dexter Ward at the H. P. Lovecraft Archive; complete text, along with additional information and photographs
*The Case of Charles Dexter Ward at Wikipedia
*"Sources of Necromancy in Charles Dexter Ward", The Cthulhu Mythos: A Guide
==Gallery==
HalseyHouse-Providence, RI-Aug14 2000.JPG|thumb|Halsey House at 140 Prospect Street, built in 1801 by Colonel Thomas Lloyd Halsey. This served as the Ward house in the story.
Category:Novels
Category:H. P. Lovecraft works
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works