The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward | |
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Periodical | |
Media type | Print (magazine) |
Publication date | May–July 1941 |
Text | The Case of Charles Dexter Ward at Wikisource |
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a short
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.
Plot summary
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Weird_Tales_May_1941.jpg/220px-Weird_Tales_May_1941.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/Weird_Tales_July_1941.jpg/220px-Weird_Tales_July_1941.jpg)
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
As Willett's investigations proceed, he finds that Charles had recovered Curwen's ashes, and through the use of
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, he 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.[1]
Joseph Curwen
Ward's ancestor (great-great-great-grandfather)
He is able to summon entities such as
Prior to his first death, Curwen finds a way to create a spell that would transcend time and inspire a descendant to become interested in him and his work and attempt to bring him back should he ever be slain. When later resurrected by Ward, Curwen initially goes in disguise as a bearded, spectacled "Dr. Allen" to avoid suspicion due to his close resemblance to Ward. The undead Curwen showed vampiristic tendencies as a side effect of his resurrection, thereby attacking local travelers and breaking into houses to drink the blood of the inhabitants. Curwen immediately made contact with Orne and Hutchinson, who have been alive and active all the while, and starts up his old plots once again. He soon murders Ward when he starts having doubts about what they are doing and assumes his identity. Curwen never hesitates to stoop to murder, torture or blackmail to achieve his ends; he also uses – and kills – vast numbers of living slaves as subjects for his experiments. He also feigns some degree of civic spirit and decency, both to his fellow citizens and to his wife, as part of a clever ruse—a social gambit aimed at producing an heir, as well as improving his public image to avoid forced displacement.
Marinus Bicknell Willett
Inspiration
In August 1925, Lovecraft's Aunt Lillian sent him an anecdote about the house at 140 Prospect Street, built in 1801 by Colonel Thomas Lloyd Halsey in Providence, Rhode Island. 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!"[6] 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.[4]
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."[1]
The theme of a descendant who closely resembles a distant ancestor may come from
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.[8]
The germ of inspiration came from Lovecraft reading
"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."[9]
Reception
Lovecraft himself was displeased with the novel, calling it a "cumbrous, creaking bit of self-conscious antiquarianism".[10] 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
Cthulhu Mythos
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward contains the first mention of the
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, antra gnomorum, daemonia coeli gad, almousin, gibor, jehosua, evam, zariatnatmik, veni, veni, veni."), the chanting is quoted (along with many other incantations in the story) from Eliphas Levi's Transcendental Magic,[16] which translates the passage as “By Adonaï Eloïm, Adonaï Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Adonaï Mathon, the pythonic word, the mystery of the salamander, the assembly of sylphs, the grotto of gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evam, Zariatnatmik, Come, Come, Come!" The incantation invokes several divine names, such as Adonai, Eloim, and Jehova, and references the Salamander, Sylphs, and Gnomes, which are the alchemical representatives of Fire, Air, and Earth respectively, as described by Paracelsus. The "mystery of the salamander" is also referenced in other short stories.
Adaptations
Film
- 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.
Games
- In 2001, Wanadoo Edition. All the characters' names from the book were changed, as was the ending.
- Specialbit Studio produced a hidden object game titled Haunted Hotel: Charles Dexter Ward. It follows the broad strokes of the story, with the player controlling Charles Ward's sister, who attempts to investigate his pending transformation into Joseph Curwen.[17]
Stage
- In 1980 Ken Campbell's Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool staged an opera based on the novel, with music by Camilla Saunders.[18]
Audio and music
- In 2013, The interpretation.
- In 2017, the Mechanisms released The Bifrost Incident, a concept album mixing elements of Lovecraft's work with Norse mythology. Yog-Sothoth appears at the climax, after the full incantation from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is recited.[19][20]
- In December 2018, BBC Radio broadcast an adaptation of the story as the first series in The Lovecraft Investigations, a modern-day true crime podcast set in Britain and the US. It was released in 10 episodes, and later aired on BBC Radio 4 as regular radio-broadcast episodes. The story was adapted and directed by Julian Simpson, and the cast included Samuel Barnett as Ward, with Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter as true crime podcasters investigating his story. The supporting cast included Alun Armstrong, Adam Godley, Nicola Walker, Steven Mackintosh, Mark Bazeley, Richard Cordery, Harry Kay, Penny Downie, Madeleine Potter, Phoebe Fox, Ben Crowe, Nathan Osgood, Susan Jameson, Samantha Dakin, Alex Lanipekun and Cherrelle Skeete.[21] In 2019, a sequel was made adapting The Whisperer in Darkness followed in 2020 by an adaption of The Shadow over Innsmouth.
Comics
The novel was adapted by artist
References
- ^ a b Cited in Joshi and Schultz, p. 33.
- ^ In the story, Joseph Curwen is identified as a "hitherto unknown great-great-great-grandfather" who married Eliza Tillinghast, who had changed back to her maiden name in 1772 to avoid association with Curwen after his death. Their daughter, Ann Tillinghast Potter and her husband Welcome Potter are identified as Charles Dexter Ward's great-great grandparents.
- ^ S. T. Joshi, "The Weird Tale", p. 199
- ^ a b Joshi and Schultz, p. 33.
- ^ S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, "Dunwich Horror, The", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 81.
- ^ H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Lillian D. Clark, August 24, 1925; cited in S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, "Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 33.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, p. 107.
- ^ Richard Ward, "In Search of the Dread Ancestor", Lovecraft Studies No. 36 (Spring 1997); cited in Joshi and Schultz, p. 131.
- ^ Mather, Cotton. Scanned page on archive.org, Magnalia Christi Americana, retrieved 2014-07-12.
- ^ H. P. Lovecraft, letter to R. H. Barlow, March 19, 1934; cited in Joshi and Schultz, p. 34.
- New York Times Book Review, January 16, 1944, p. 19
- ISBN 0306801930.
- ^ E. F. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, Kent State University Press, 1983 (pp. 322–23)
- Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1982, p. 20.
- ISBN 0670809020(p. 273).
- ^ "Transcendental magic, its doctrine and ritual". 1896.
- ^ "Haunted Hotel: Charles Dexter Ward Collector's Edition for iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac & PC! Big Fish is the #1 place for the best FREE games". Big Fish Games :: Safe & Secure Game Downloads. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
- ^ "History of the Everyman". Archived from the original on 2018-02-08. Retrieved 2018-02-03.
- ^ "Red Signal | the Mechanisms Lyrics, Song Meanings, Videos, Full Albums & Bios".
- ^ "The Bifrost Incident, by the Mechanisms".
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – the Lovecraft Investigations".
- ^ Stewart, D.G (October 17, 2023). "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (revisited)". World Comic Book Review. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- The Case of Charles Dexter Ward title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Scan of Lovecraft's handwritten manuscript for The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, from Brown University's collection
- The H. P. Lovecraft Archive includes additional information and photographs
- "Sources of Necromancy in Charles Dexter Ward", The Cthulhu Mythos: A Guide
- The Haunted Palace (1963) at Internet Movie Database
- The Resurrected (1992) at Internet Movie Database
- Electronic version at the Dagon Bytes library Archived 2009-03-02 at the Wayback Machine