Book: The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
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.
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft - The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward
