The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a novel by H. P. Lovecraft written in early 1927, set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. It was first published (in abridged form) in the May and July issues of Weird Tales in 1941; the first complete publication was in Arkham House's Beyond the Wall of Sleep collection (1943).
In August 1925, Lovecraft's Aunt Lillian sent him an anecdote about the house at 140 Prospect Street in Providence. Lo...
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The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a novel by H. P. Lovecraft written in early 1927, set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. It was first published (in abridged form) in the May and July issues of Weird Tales in 1941; the first complete publication was in Arkham House's Beyond the Wall of Sleep collection (1943).
In August 1925, Lovecraft's Aunt Lillian sent him an anecdote about the house at 140 Prospect Street in Providence. Lovecraft wrote back: "So the Halsey house is haunted! Ugh! That's where Wild Tom Halsey kept live terrapins in the cellar--maybe it's their ghosts. Anyway, it's a magnificent old mansion, & a credit to a magnificent old town!" Lovecraft would make this house--renumbered as 100 Prospect--the basis for the Ward house in Charles Dexter Ward.
The following month, September 1925, Lovecraft read Providence in Colonial Times, by Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, a 1912 history that provided him with aspects of Charles Dexter Ward, such as the anecdotes about...
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