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The case of Charles Dexter Ward

Chapter 1: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
By H. P. Lovecraft
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About This Book

A curious heir becomes obsessed with ancestral mysteries and forbidden lore, unearthing old papers and performing occult experiments that culminate in his disappearance and a grotesque transformation. Friends and a physician piece together fragmentary records, travel, and strange witnesses to trace a chain of necromantic practices, usurpation of identity, and spectral survivals tied to an enigmatic forebear. The narrative alternates between investigative reconstruction and accounts of ritual, medical bafflement, and escalating supernatural corruption, exploring themes of hereditary legacy, the limits of rational inquiry, and the peril of reviving forgotten knowledge.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The case of Charles Dexter Ward

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Title: The case of Charles Dexter Ward

Author: H. P. Lovecraft

Illustrator: Harry Ferman

Release date: May 5, 2024 [eBook #73547]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Weird Tales, 1941

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD ***

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

By H. P. LOVECRAFT

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales May, July 1941
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Here is THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD—the last, and many think the best, the most exciting—of all H. P. Lovecraft's superb weird fantasies.

Discovered after years of difficult search—and pieced together with as much careful patience as Charles Ward puts into his terrifying researches in the story—August Derleth and Donald Wandrei at long last had all the scattered pages of Lovecraft's novel complete.

The manuscript, gathered over the course of many years from attics, forgotten strong boxes and old bureaus, is published now—in Weird Tales.

In it you are going to read again of Cthulhu and the fearful Necronomicon; in these pages you will also find a perfect wealth of new thrills. In Charles Ward you will read ... but why go on, when you're just raring to get ahead with the story?

So just turn the page—and on with the show!

The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his owne 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.

BORELLUS.

CONTENTS

1. A Result and a Prologue
2. An Antecedent and a Horror
3. A Search and an Evocation
4. A Mutation and a Madness
5. A Nightmare and a Cataclysm