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. _1. A Result and a Prologue_ From a private hospital for the insane near Providence, Rhode Island, there recently disappeared an exceedingly singular person. He bore the name of Charles Dexter Ward, and was placed under restraint most reluctantly by his grieving father. The patient seemed oddly older than his twenty-six years would warrant; his face had taken on a subtle cast which only the very aged usually acquire. While his organic processes showed a certain queerness of proportion which nothing in medical experience can parallel. Respiration and heart action had a baffling lack of symmetry, the voice was lost, so that no sounds above a whisper were possible, digestion was incredibly prolonged and minimized. The skin had a morbid chill and dryness, and the cellular structure of the tissue seemed exaggeratedly coarse and loosely-knit. Even a large olive birthmark on his right hip had disappeared, whilst there had formed on his chest a very peculiar mole or blackish spot of which no trace existed before.