In his essay, "Facts in the Case of H. P. Lovecraft," Barton L. St. Armand declares that The Case of Charles Dexter Ward "is a fable about the problems of history itself and also a warning about the dangers of historical research." St.

Armand may go too far by suggesting that Lovecraft portrays historical study as in and of itself dangerous, but history is the principal social concern of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Charles Ward's antiquarian research reveals that he is descended from an evil practitioner of black magic, Joseph Curwen, whose evil was finally halted in the 1700s by the same Rhode Islanders who would later lead the colonies to independence from Great Britain. Lovecraft makes two points about history in the tale of Charles Ward's succumbing to domination by the evil spirit of Joseph Curwen: First, that there is no such thing...