The story opens with an excerpt attributed to Borellus. Though there are conflicting opinions on the identity of “Borellus”, with one Lovecraft scholar suggesting the Italian scientist Giovanni Borelli, the most likely candidate is the French alchemist Pierre Borel. Nevertheless, the quote is misattributed to Borellus. Lovecraft got the quote from Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana. Cotton Mather, a puritan preacher who was a key figure during the Salem Witch Trials, paraphrases Borellus. The quote conjectures a purely scientific method of reviving and contacting the dead, without the need of criminal arts such as necromancy.

Part I is titled A Result and a Prologue. It details the inevitable escape of a patient - Charles Dexter Ward - from a private insane asylum near Providence, RI. The prologue also details the upbringing of the patient which instilled in him a scholarly attitude and a fascination for history. The family doctor ponders on the events leading to Ward’s institutionalisation, and believes Ward’s insanity to be inextricably linked to his research of a disgraced ancestor and purported necromancer, Joseph Curwen. It appears that efforts have been made to expunge all historical records of the existence of Joseph Curwen.

The prologue does a great job in establishing the premise of the story. A young man with an obsession for colonial history finds evidence of a great grandfather with links to the Salem Witch Trials. In seeking out information of this ancestor, he finds a new obsession in continuing Curwen’s work and finds himself haunted by Curwen over one and a half centuries later.

This story’s only connected by reference to the Dream Cycle. Though we don’t see the direct reference to a Dream Cycle character in the first three parts, there is one sentence from the prologue that interests me. “Here ran innumerable little lanes with leaning, huddled houses of immense antiquity; and fascinated though he was, it was long before he dared to thread their archaic verticality for fear they would turn out a dream or a gateway to unknown terrors.” While this can be shrugged off as the fantasies of a child, we have seen from numerous characters of the Dream Cycle this ability to seamlessly find oneself wandering absently from the waking world to the dreaming world simply by wandering down the right (or wrong) path. Though this may just be a childish fear to Ward, there definitely exists the danger of wandering into dream and facing the terrors that reside there; recall from last week the perilous journey of an expert dreamer in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.

Part II is titled An Antecedent and a Horror. It presents the story of Joseph Curwen as researched by Ward and so has holes in the narrative where records were more thoroughly destroyed.

Curwen is a supposed chemist, apparently in his early 30s, who fled from Salem to Providence following the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials, for he believed that his experiments may attract unwanted attention from ignorant townsfolk. Thirty years after resettlement, he appears to have physically aged a maximum of five years. Though he explains away this anomaly as good genetics, people come to believe him an alchemist who can provide cures for their common ailments. Though he does not dissuade people away from these claims, his supposed antidotes do not work.

Curwen becomes an enigma to the people of Providence as he eventually reaches at least his 90th year with no signs of debilitation or ageing. He orders all manners of powders, bottles, and boxes to his residence, and his purchases from local chemists becomes a topic of gossip. He is seen at all hours of the night riding to and fro between manor and farm, the latter being managed by a pair of Native American servants. odd sounds are often heard from this farm in the dead of night.

Despite his eccentricities and a general aura of fear surrounding him, Curwen is regarded as a scholarly and well read, generous, and a shrewd businessman. He eventually attracts the attention of another scholarly gentleman - Mr Merritt - from nearby Newport, who pays Curwen a visit to discuss literature. Mr Merritt is frightened away when he discovers numerous blasphemous tomes, including a copy of the Necronomicon which was rebound to appear as a more innocuous occult tome.

Now over a century old, Curwen is a social outcast. Despite this, he holds a virtual monopoly over shipment of certain goods to Providence, and so he continues business. He continues to donate generously to civic projects in order to keep up pretences. He is caught numerous times in the midst of nighttime ramblings through a local cemetery.

Eventually a new scandal arises when people note the rate of disappearances among the sailors Curwen employs. Furthermore, it has been a while since he was last caught on his skulks through the cemetery. People become increasingly hesitant to work for him, but Curwen’s business does not appear to be impacted. He turns first to financial domination and eventually to outright fear in order to coerce sailors into loyal service. Wanting to make an in-road back into society, he forces one of his captains to break an engagement between his 18 year old daughter and a man from town. Curwen, now well over a century old, marries the young woman and sires a daughter. The breaking of this engagement will prove his eventual downfall.

Ezra Weeden, a sailor and former fiance of Curwen’s wife Eliza, seeks revenge on Curwen and singularly dogs Curwen during his suspicious endeavours. Several nights he hears Curwen interrogating apparently distressed subjects. Oddly, Curwen questions them in foreign languages and on obscure subjects that occurred centuries past. He spies several shipments of coffins travelling up river to a hidden cove, bypassing the docks and any suspicion from the town. In 1770 a ship with a cargo of mummies is forbidden to dock, and Curwen takes a defensive position on the medical properties of the balms, all but confirming but never admitting his involvement in the affair.

Weeden, now possessing enough information to indict Curwen, seeks aid in town. He finds aid in a cabal of well-to-do gentlemen and a mob of willing raiders, all of whom wish to bring Curwen to justice. They conduct a nighttime raid on Curwen’s properties while preventing reinforcements from the river. Records of the raid are lost, other than a river watchman describing horrific noises arising from Curwen’s lands, including an ominous curse and plume of red smoke on the wind. Curwen’s laboratory is razed, his experiments destroyed; Curwen himself is executed and buried in an unmarked grave.

---

Lovecraft manages to tell a thrilling and evocative story without yet introducing us to the actual horrors of this tale. It’s very clear that Curwen was engaging in necromancy in order to gain historical secrets, and I found myself invested in the nighttime raid; Lovecraft manages all of this without one mention of zombies or gratuitously violent scenes. It’s a masterclass in horror writing.

Part III is titled A Search and an Evocation. It details Charles Ward’s quest to uncover the information revealed in part II, and his continuation of Curwen’s work.

Ward, now 17, is intrigued by the mystery of a lost ancestor and takes to researching at libraries and archives spanning the entirety of New England. He comes across undestroyed diaries of witnesses and private correspondences between Curwen and other necromancer friends. One notable friend is a Samuel Orne, posing as his son Jebediah at the time of the particular letter. Understanding that his unnatural lack of ageing will raise suspicion, Orne goes on long journeys, returning decades later as his “son” with a will from Samuel bequeathing his estate to Jebediah. Curwen laments at his inability to do this due to the need to manage his shipping business.

Ward is excited to learn that Curwen’s manor at the time of his death still stands. He bribes the family living there in order to gain access to the house. He is disappointed at the state of disrepair of the once grand manor and the apparent lack of care by the current owner. He knows from his research that Curwen had a portrait in this house. He finds a peculiar wall and tests it with his knife. He finds evidence of an oil painting painted onto the panelling of the wall and thus bribes the owner for him to have the newer layers of paint stripped.

It is now that Ward comes face to face with his long lost ancestor. He is shocked to find that Curwen bears an uncanny likeness to himself. He brings his parents to view the painting. His father is astonished and pays to have the painting removed and reinstalled at the Ward household.

Behind the removed painting, Ward finds a curious small hole in the wall. Inside the wall he finds a diary and a note left “To Him Who Shal(sic) Come After.” Comparing the handwriting to other pieces, Ward confirms this to be the writing of Curwen.

He begins his singular task of researching Curwen. His schoolwork slips though he still passes his classes, thus not arousing concern from his parents. Upon graduating, Ward declares that he will not attend university, for Curwen’s notes hint at scientific discoveries that he could not achieve through a classical education. Curwen becomes obsessed with finding the grave of Curwen, as he finds evidence of its location relative to another grave.

At 21, Ward embarks on a 4 year journey across Europe, where he will continue his studies under the supervision of great European minds. Upon returning at 26, Ward claims the garret of the family manor to himself and forbids entrance to all others. Here he conducts chemical experiments and produces bangs and noises that frighten his mother and servants.

One night he sneaks out and returns with a gang of men in a motor car. They bear a heavy oblong container up the stairs and Ward continues his studies. His mother later reads about a disturbance at a local cemetery. The site is not on the groundskeeper’s record of burials, thus he surmises that the disturbance was a brilliant scheme by bootleggers to hide contraband.

The sounds in the garret reach their crescendo, with Ward shouting a continuous evocation. His mother investigates and is horrified to recognise the evocation as that carried on the wind in the record of the nighttime raid over 150 years ago. Ward’s father returns to find his wife passed out near the door to the garret, and a whispering occurring inside. The smell is terrible. When Ward appears, his manner is apparently changed. His father says that the limit has been reached on his experiments in the house. Ward agrees and says that he needs only read now, with further experiments conducted away from the house when needed.

---

The way that Ward appears changed from the attic, I believe at this point that he has become possessed by Curwen, who he has disinterred from his unmarked grave. I find it a bit comical how disconnected and apathetic his parents seem to be. It’s fair enough that he’s declared he shan’t be attending university, but for a reason he states he is conducting private research which would stump even Einstein. No matter how brilliant they reckon their child is, they should have steered him away from this research years ago.