The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

This narrator has an exotic name and a voice akin to the crunch of dry toast. I was looking forward to listening to this book...I love Lovecraft, however there is more inflection presented within the 10 o'clock news broadcast.
I gave only one star as I couldn't make it even a quarter of the way through due to the narration.
I'm sure it's a wonderful book. I'll have to read it someday.

From Lovecraft? Absolutely. I am a long-time fan. Read by Herriot? Absolutely not.

This is one of Lovecraft's strongest novels, with a mounting sense of dread and perpetual mystery that builds to a masterful climax.

No. I have listened to two of his performances ("The Case of..." and "At the Mountains of Madness") and the man CONSTANTLY mispronounces words (palimpsest, paroxysm, alembic, Adirondacks, Metatron, and many, many more) and then continues to mangle them throughout the reading. What is more, while his voice is not unpleasant, there is no variation in his tone and no emotion. All characters sound the same, and he sounds like he is simply reading the text without being aware of what is being read. It was alternately infuriating and tedious.

As a boy, it inspired me to study antiquities and ancient religious and magical practices in my professional life.

Lovecraft forever! Herriot never!

Lovecraft's book is not a problem. The plot is unusually creepy and original. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is arguably Lovecraft's best story and the fullest realization of his literary style. Having said that, I must complain that the Herriot narration doesn't do justice to Lovecraft's deliciously macabre language and cadences. Indeed, the dry and awkward narration diminished my enjoyment of the story. (see below)

Lovecraft's gift was for narrative. He was not a 'character' writer. I find no tendency in his work to develop his characters in any sense of the word. He didn't usually employ much in the way of dialogue. When he did, his characters are mainly making speeches without any emotional/dialectical interaction.

Frankly, I doubt it. His delivery is virtually expressionless. Some of the appeal of Lovecraft's style depends upon his use of unusual and archaic words, names, spellings and expressions. It would be an understatement to say that Herriot has difficulty pronouncing many of these. I was especially annoyed by his substituting 'antiquitarian' wherever the original text reads 'antiquarian'. The two words aren't precisely equivalent; in any case what call does Herriot have to edit the author's text?

Over the years The Case of Charles Dexter Ward has been reprinted in very many editions without much attention to faithful reproduction of the original autograph wording. Minor corruptions have naturally abounded. This problem is not without a remedy. I keep a notebook of my own commentaries and annotations to Lovecraft's stories; particularly this one, which is my favorite. Someday perhaps I'll compose these random notes into a fully annotated critical edition of the work... Or maybe not.

Dry Scientific Horror.

I don't thing there's a favorite character as its written in more of a case study style.

I Love the Narration of this one. But be warned that he delivers it in a very dry style. It makes me think of a english doctor trying to not get emotional about a case that was strange and personal. He underacts it but to me at least it comes of as dry but not boring it seems more the style that HP wrote it in.

This is one of the few books I return to again and again when I'm looking for something else to read. This book really doesn't provoke any type of extreme reaction its not really meant to.

There are some other comments on how dry this book is and boring it gets. But I think its charm. Its a tale of the strange that the requires a bit of background knowledge in the mythology that is slightly hidden in the margins. Like many of Lovecrafts stories it tries to take it self seriously and at first the narrator doesn't want to believe that odd things are happening and finds mental safety in trying to be detached and scientific. But slowly things become irrefutably unexplainable and the protagonist must ether except and work with the new rules of the strange world or go mad and let evil in the world run unchecked.