The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. Ii. An Antecedent
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Book Index
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 6 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 6 On Wednesday I started as agreed,. taking with me a valise full of simple necessities and scientific data, including the hideous phonograph record, the Kodak prints, and the entire file of Akeleys correspondence. As requested, I had told no one where I w...
Untitled : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, II. AN ANTECEDENT AND A HORROR 1 Joseph Curwen, as revealed by the rambling legends embodied in what Ward heard and unearthed, was a very astonishing, enigmatic, and obscurely horrible individual. He had fled from Salem to Providence - that universal haven of the odd...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 1 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME (ASTONISHING STORIES, 1936) CHAPTER 1 After twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by a desperate conviction of the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that which I think I found...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 8 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 8 That my strange sense of compulsion was deep and overwhelming is shewn by its conquest of my fear. No rational motive could have drawn me on after that hideous suspicion of prints and the creeping dream-memories it excited. Yet my right hand, even as it...
The Shunned House : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE SHUNNED HOUSE (WEIRD TALES, 1937) I From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. Some times it enters directly into the composition of the events, while sometimes it relates only to their fortuitous position among persons and places. The latter sort...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 5 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 5 That is the world of which my dreams brought me dim, scattered echoes every night. I cannot hope to give any true idea of the horror and dread contained in such echoes, for it was upon a wholly intangible quality - the sharp sense of pseudo-memory - th...
The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Part V : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, The slant-eyed man had set the curious lamp upon one of the high and wickedly stained altar-stones by the pit, and had moved forward somewhat to talk to the High-Priest with his hands. Carter, hitherto wholly passive, now gave that man a terrific push with all...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 2 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 2 As was only natural under the circumstances, this piquant debating finally got into print in the form of letters to the Arkham Advertiser; some of which were copied in the press of those Vermont regions whence the flood-stories came. The Rutland Herald gave...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 3 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 3 Toward the end of June the phonograph record came - shipped from Brattleboro, since Akeley was unwilling to trust conditions on the branch line north of there. He had begun to feel an increased sense of espionage, aggravated by the loss of some of our...
The Thing On The Doorstep : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP (WEIRD TALES, 1937) I It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer. At first I shall be called a madman - madder than the man I shot in his...
The Descendant : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE DESCENDANT (1938) Writing on what my doctor tells me is my deathbed, my most hideous fear is that the man is wrong. I suppose I shall seem to be buried next week, but... In London there is a man who screams when the church bells ring. He lives all alone with his...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 7 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 7 Refusing to let these cloudy qualms overmaster me, I recalled Noyess instructions and pushed open the six-panelled, brass-latched white door on my left. The room beyond was darkened as I had known before; and as I entered it I noticed that the queer odour...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Chapter V : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, V It was a gentle daylight rain that awaked me front my stupor in the brush-grown railway cut, and when I staggered out to the roadway ahead I saw no trace of any prints in the fresh mud. The fishy odour, too, was gone, Innsmouth's ruined roofs and toppling steeples...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 3 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 3 As I have said, it was not immediately that these wild visions began to hold their terrifying quality. Certainly, many persons have dreamed intrinsically stranger things - things compounded of unrelated scraps of daily life, pictures,and reading...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 7 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 7 From that point forward my impressions are scarcely to be relied on - indeed, I still possess a final, desperate hope that they all form parts of some daemonic dream or illusion born of delirium. A fever raged in my brain, and everything came to me through...
The Dreams In The Witch House : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE (WEIRD TALES, 1933) Whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams Walter Gilman did not know. Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the mouldy, unhallowed...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 1 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS (WEIRD TALES, 1931) CHAPTER 1 Bear in mind closely that I did not see any actual visual horror at the end. To say that a mental shock was the cause of what I inferred - that last straw which sent me racing out of the lonely Akeley...
The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. Iv. A Mutati : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, IV. A MUTATION AND A MADNESS 1 In the week following that memorable Good Friday Charles Ward was seen more often than usual, and was continually carrying books between his library and the attic laboratory. His actions were quiet and rational, but he had a furtive...
The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. Iii. A Search : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, III. A SEARCH AND AN EVOCATION 1 Charles Ward, as we have seen, first learned in 1918 of his descent from Joseph Curwen. That he at once took an intense interest in everything pertaining to the bygone mystery is not to be wondered at; for every vague rumour that he...
The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Part Iii : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, So at length Carter crawled through endless burrows with three helpful ghouls bearing the slate gravestone of Col. Nepemiah Derby, obit 1719, from the Charter Street Burying Ground in Salem. When they came again into open twilight they were in a forest of vast...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 5 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 5 Then, apparently crossing my incoherent note and reaching me Saturday afternoon, September 8th, came that curiously different and calming letter neatly typed on a new machine; that strange letter of reassurance and invitation which must have marked so...
Azathoth : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, AZATHOTH (1938) When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring's flowering meads; when learning stripped the Earth...
The Book : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE BOOK (1938) My memories are very confused. There is even much doubt as to where they begin; for at times I feel appalling vistas of years stretching behind me, while at other times it seems as if the present moment were an isolated point in a grey, formless...
The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. V. A Nightmare : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, V. A NIGHTMARE AND A CATACLYSM 1 And now swiftly followed that hideous experience which has left its indelible mark of fear on the soul of Marinus Bicknell Willett, and has added a decade to the visible age of one whose youth was even then far behind. Dr. Willett had...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Chapter Ii : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, II Shortly before ten the next morning I stood with one small valise in front of Hammond's Drug Store in old Market Square waiting for the Innsmouth bus. As the hour for its arrival drew near I noticed a general drift of the loungers to other places up the street...
The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Part Iv : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, One starlit evening when the Pharos shone splendid over the harbour the longed-for ship put in, and strange-faced sailors and traders appeared one by one and group by group in the ancient taverns along the sea wall. It was very exciting to see again those living...
The Haunter Of The Dark : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK (WEIRD TALES, 1936) "I have seen the dark universe yawning" "Where the black planets roll without aim," "Where they roll in their horror unheeded," "Without knowledge or lustre or name." Cautious investigators will hesitate to challenge...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Chapter Iv : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, IV I can hardly describe the mood in which I was left by this harrowing episode - an episode at once mad and pitiful, grotesque and terrifying. The grocery boy had prepared me for it, yet the reality left me none the less bewildered and disturbed. Puerile though...
The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Part Ii : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, When the captain sailed hack to Dylath-Leen Carter took quarters in an ancient tavern opening on an alley of steps in the original part of the town, which is built of brick and resembles the ruins of Yath's farther shore. Here he laid his plans for the ascent...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Chapter Iii : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, III It must have been some imp of the perverse - or some sardonic pull from dark, hidden sources - which made me change my plans as I did. I had long before resolved to limit my observations to architecture alone, and I was even then hurrying toward the Square...
The Quest Of Iranon : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE QUEST OF IRANON (1935) Into the granite city of Teloth wandered the youth, vine-crowned, his yellow hair glistening with myrrh and his purple robe torn with briers of the mountain Sidrak that lies across the antique bridge of stone. The men of Teloth are dark...
Previous : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, II. AN ANTECEDENT AND A HORROR 1 Joseph Curwen, as revealed by the rambling legends embodied in what Ward heard and unearthed, was a very astonishing, enigmatic, and obscurely horrible individual. He had fled from Salem to Providence - that universal haven of the odd...
The Evil Clergyman : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE EVIL CLERGYMAN (WEIRD TALES, 1939) I was shown into the attic chamber by a grave, intelligent-looking man with quiet clothes and an iron-gray beard, who spoke to me in this fashion: "Yes, he lived here - but I dont advise your doing anything. Your curiosity makes...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Chapter I : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH (WEIRD TALES, 1942) I During the winter of 1927-28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 8 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 8 Do not ask me how long my unexpected lapse into slumber lasted, or how much of what ensued was sheer dream. If I tell you that I awakened at a certain time, and heard and saw certain things, you will merely answer that I did not wake then; and th...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 6 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 6 I come now to the crucial and most difficult part of my narrative - all the more difficult because I cannot be quite certain of its reality. At times I feel uncomfortably sure that I was not dreaming or deluded; and it is this feeling in view...
The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward. I. A Result : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD (WEIRD TALES, 1941) "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;...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 2 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 2 My reabsorption into normal life was a painful and difficult process. The loss of over five years creates more complications than can be imagined, and in my case there were countless matters to be adjusted. What I heard of my actions since 1908 astonished...
From Beyond : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, FROM BEYOND (1934) Horrible beyond conception was the change which had taken place in my best friend, Crawford Tillinghast. I had not seen him since that day, two months and a half before, when he told me toward what goal his physical and metaphysical researches were...
The Whisperer In The Darkness. Chapter 4 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 4 The unknown things, Akeley wrote in a script grown pitifully tremulous, had begun to close in on him with a wholly new degree of determination. The nocturnal barking of the dogs whenever the moon. was dim or absent was hideous now, and there had been...
The Silver Key : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE SILVER KEY (WEIRD TALES, 1929) When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams. Prior to that time he had made up for the prosiness of life by nightly excursions to strange and ancient cities beyond space, and lovely, unbelievable garden...
The Other Gods : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE OTHER GODS (1933) Atop the tallest of earth's peaks dwell the gods of earth, and suffer not man to tell that he hath looked upon them. Lesser peaks they once inhabited; but ever the men from the plains would scale the slopes of rock and snow, driving the gods...
The Shadow Out Of Time. Chapter 4 : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, CHAPTER 4 I continued, however, to keep a careful record of the outr dreams which crowded upon me so thickly and vividly. Such a record, I argued, was of genuine value as a psychological document. The glimpses still seemed damnably like memories, though I fought off...
The Strange High House In The Mist : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE STRANGE HIGH HOUSE IN THE MIST (WEIRD TALES, 1931) In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan. And later...
The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Part I : * An H.P. Lovecraft Anthology, THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH (THE ARKHAM SAMPLER, 1948) Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls...