An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia

One significant literary influence may be Walter de la Mare’s novel The Return(1910). HPL had first read de la Mare in the summer of 1926; of The Returnhe remarks in “Supernatural Horror in Literature”: “we see the soul of a dead man reach out of its grave of two centuries and fasten itself upon the flesh of the living, so that even the face of the victim becomes that which had long ago returned to dust.” In de la Mare’s novel, actual psychic possession is involved, as there is not in Charles Dexter Ward,and, although the focus in The Returnis on the afflicted man’s personal trauma rather than the unnaturalness of his condition, HPL has manifestly adapted the general scenario in his own work.

Although there are many autobiographical touches in the portraiture of Ward, many surface details appear to be taken from a person actually living in the Halsey mansion at this time, William Lippitt Mauran (b. 1910). HPL was probably not acquainted with Mauran, but it is highly likely that he observed Mauran on the street and knew of him. Mauran was a sickly child who spent much of his youth as an invalid, being wheeled through the streets in a carriage by a nurse. Indeed, a mention early in the novel that Ward as a young boy was “wheeled… in a carriage” in front of the “lovely classic porch of the double-bayed brick building” that was his home may reflect an actual glimpse HPL had of Mauran in the early 1920s, before he went to New York. Moreover, the Mauran family owned a farmhouse in Pawtuxet, exactly as Curwen is said to have done. Other details of Ward’s character fit Mauran more closely than HPL. One other amusing in-joke is a mention of Manuel Arruda, captain of a Spanish vessel, the

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Fortaleza,which delivers a nameless cargo to Curwen in 1770. Manuel Arruda was actually a Portuguese door-to-door fruit merchant operating on College Hill in the later 1920s. The novel does not appear to involve psychic possession in the obvious sense: in the latter stages of the novel the resurrected Curwen actually kills Ward and pretends to be him. But psychic possession of a subtler sort may nevertheless come into play. Curwen marries not only because he wishes to repair his reputation, but because he needs a descendant. He seems to know that he will one day die and require resurrection by the recovery of his “essential Saltes,” so he makes careful arrangements to this effect: he prepares a notebook for “One Who Shal Come After” and leaves sufficient clues toward the location of his remains. It appears, then, that Curwen exercises psychic possession on Ward so that the latter finds first his effects, then his body, and brings him back to life.

In many ways the novel is a refinement of “The Horror at Red Hook”: Curwen’s alchemy parallels Suydam’s cabbalistic activities; Curwen’s attempt to repair his standing in the community with an advantageous marriage echoes Suydam’s marriage with Cornelia Gerritsen; Willett as the valiant counterweight to Curwen matches Malone as the adversary of Suydam. HPL again dipped into his relatively small store of basic plot elements and again retold a mediocre tale in masterful fashion. HPL, however, felt that the novel was an inferior piece of work, a “cumbrous, creaking bit of selfconscious antiquarianism” (HPL to R.H.Barlow, [March 19, 1934]; ms., JHL). He therefore made no effort to prepare it for publication, even though publishers throughout the 1930s professed greater interest in a weird novel than a collection of stories. R.H.Barlow began preparing a typescript in late 1934, and in 1936 was still typing it, but he typed only twenty-three pages. Barlow did not deposit the manuscript at JHL until around 1940, by which time a full transcript (full of errors, however) had been made by Derleth and Wandrei for its abridged appearance in WTand its complete appearance in BWS. It was published separately by Victor Gollancz (London, 1951) and subsequently reprinted in this form by Panther, Belmont, and Ballantine.