H P Lovecraft

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward H P Lovecraft

"A good story in the New England witchcraft tradition, well seasoned with alchemy, vampirism, ancient documents and mummy-stealing ."- The New York TimesCharles 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 ..."The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" was written in early 1927, but not published, in abridged form, until the May and July issues of Weird Tales in 1941, several years after H. P. Lovecraft's death. The first complete publication was in 1943. The novel was adapted for the screen by Roger Corman in 1963. The movie, which starred Vincent Price and Lon Chaney, Jr., was called "The Haunted Palace" to fit in with Corman's series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, although it had nothing to do with Poe's poem. In 1992 Dan O'Bannon adapted the novel as a movie called "The Ressurrected," starring Chris Sarandon.