The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Charles Dexter Ward is a young man in Providence, RI who is fascinated by antiquities --- too fascinated, perhaps. He becomes obsessed with an ancestor, an alleged warlock named Joseph Curwen who escaped persecution in Salem over 200 years before and fled to Providence. A unusually long-lived ancestor, I might add. If you aren't used to reading Lovecraft, or other writers of the same time period, the language and writing style might be a little tough at first, but it is well worth getting into. Lovecraft leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader --- a device that works quite well in this story. This is one of my favorite novellas --- actually, one of my favorite stories, even. I first read when I was in high school, and I have re-read it every few years ever since. I re-read it again a couple of days ago and I still love it. This is Lovecraft at his best.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward has long been one of my favorite books. Charles Ward is an intellectual young recluse steeped in antiquarianism (much as Lovecraft himself was) who discovers horrible secrets about a distant ancestor, one consciously expunged from public records and histories at the end of his ill-begotten life. Ward engulfs himself in a genealogical and historical pursuit of knowledge of this man, a passion all the more emblazoned by each mysterious discovery he makes. This ancestor, Joseph Curwen, was reputably a dabbler in the black arts who fled from Salem in advance of the remarkable witchcraft trials in that town. Finding refuge in Providence, he lived a reclusive, mysterious life, made even more mysterious by his eternally youthful appearance. A recluse by nature, he spent most nights at a farmhouse in Pawtuxet. A continuing series of terrible cries and noises detected from that farmhouse, in conjunction with a number of missing locals and rumors of brutality against Negro slaves surreptitiously brought to that abode culminated in a raid by local citizens determined to put an end to whatever monstrous acts the strange man was committing. No member of that raiding party ever dared discuss what he saw or heard during that awful night. Ward's knowledge of Curwen is greatly advanced when he discovers an old painting of him (revealing a face virtually identical to his own) and a set of personal papers hidden behind that painting. He then launches into terrible studies of the occult at home and abroad, then returns home to put to use the arcane secrets he has learned. His doctor and father eventually grasp the nature of Ward's actions and unite themselves in a determination to block Joseph Curwen's ancient ambitions and plans to once more walk the earth with the aid of his great-great-great grandson. The horrors they encounter in the pursuit of this objective are richly described and deliciously gruesome. This story is pretty much straight horror with no deeply mythological overtones beyond those of necromancy. Lovecraft does an excellent job of always pushing the action along while providing a rich, deep, historical background of both Curwen and young Charles Ward. The ending chapter contains some of Lovecraft's most terror-inducing, menacingly evil scenes and is not to be missed by those with a gratuitous admiration for the macabre. For those readers who find the Cthulhu Mythos stories too strangely remote and otherworldly, this novella provides a more practical, more individualistic vision of horror sure to affect the reader more viscerally than do mysterious references to the Ancient Ones. Anyone considering reading Lovecraft for the first time would do well to make this book his introduction to the master of horror. This is everything a horror story should be.

This is one of THE Lovecraft stories to read alongside The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. No one writes horror like Lovecraft. His cold and analytical style somehow makes his works even more terrifying. It may be the shock of the rational scientific minds of his character's seeing something that goes beyond explanation that makes his stories so jolting, or the horrifying results of what happens to those rational, scientific, and inquisitive characters, like Charles Dexter Ward, who seek the truth and discover too much of it. But maybe the reason Lovecraft is so scary is because all positive human emotions such as love are abandoned leaving only fear. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is chock full of fear and little else as it takes you through the paranoia of the American colonial days, through the degeneration of a young man's sanity, and through the ancient catacombs of an old house where something inhuman screams from the bottom of a pit. The mystery aspect of the story isn't too hard to figure out, but that may not have been so back in the 1930's when it was first written, but the journey is absolutely terrifying. Lovecraft puts pure fear on paper and that's something no modern horror writer I can think of has been able to do since.

Lovecraft definitely proves his worth as a flat-out horror writer with this tale of necromancy, intergenerational creepiness, and New England spookery. Modern readers will find it more Blair-Witch style scary than Freddy/Jason style gruesome, but in my book that can be a good thing. (And for you purists, yeah, it's much better than BWP, I'm just trying to draw an analogy here.)The one big fault to be found is that an alert fan may be able to guess the ending before it's time, but that's not strictly old H.P.'s fault, but more to be laid at the feet of the hordes of imitators who have made some of his best ideas into cliches.

This was the very first book I read, written by Howard Philips Lovecraft. A friend had tipped me about H.P. Lovecraft, and when I was at the library looking for fact-books about old scandinavian religions for a homework in school I took the chance of looking after the author my friend had tipped me about. I had ben reading a lot of fantasy and also a bit science fiction at that time, but this was different. It was, and is still - I've read it many times over and over, an usual horror-tale elegantly mixed with the special spicy cosmic horror, which is so specific for H.P. Lovecraft. I won't tell you anything of the story because it's very hard, or even impossible to find the right words to describe something so big and elegant without makeing sound banal and patethic. Instead, I let you see for your self. Next time you're visiting the library - look for Howard Philips Lovecraft. Or why not look for it right away here and now. I bet you won't be able to put the book away till you're finished with it. And when you're finished with it you just need another one. Other great short-stories written by H.P. Lovecraft is, among others the strange "Color out of time and space" which is flooded with cosmic and strange horror. This one is also totally different compared with "The case of Charles Dexter Ward. Please have indulgence with all eventual misspellings, though I am used to talk, write and read in swedish. P.S. Everyone who likes H.P. Lovecraft, and of course everyone else, feel free to contact me.