Clark Ashton Smith

Born on January 13th, 1893, in Long Valley, California, CLARK ASHTON SMITH was wholly home-schooled, and heavily engaged himself in a remarkable course of self-education, teaching himself Latin and reading all the way through Webster’s unabridged dictionary. He began writing as early as 1904, producing both prose and poetry, but it was when he got in touch with George Sterling in 1911 that his career as a writer-and especially as a poet-took off. He had come into contact with H. P. Lovecraft in 1922, when Lovecraft wrote him a fan letter in which he waxed enthusiastic about some of his early poetry volumes. SMITH, in turn, read a lot of Lovecraft’s short stories, both in manuscript and as they were published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, founded in 1923. Around 1925, SMITH felt he needed to find a new direction in his writing, since his poetry wasn’t gaining him much recognition. So he wrote the story “The Abominations of Yondo.” He was stunned that Sterling didn’t like it (the older poet said that “All highbrows think the ‘Yondo’ material outworn and childish. The daemonic is done for, for the present”), but Lovecraft and others loved it. In 1929 he began writing fiction in great quantity: he would produce more than 100 stories over the next six years. These stories made SMITH‘s reputation as a writer of fantasy, appearing in such venues as Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, and Strange Tales.

The five works represented on Inferno are only a tiny sampling of the nearly one-thousand poems CLARK ASHTON SMITH wrote over a period of nearly fifty years. Like all his poetry, they are written with supreme care and craftsmanship, as Smith carefully weighs the

imaginative impact of every word and pays great attention to the poetic rhythm that can create an atmosphere of weirdness, fantasy, and cosmic menace. And yet, we also find pathos, melancholy, and poignancy in these poems. SMITH could express the full range of human emotions in his verse, and we are fortunate that he so often chose to focus on the emotions of terror and strangeness in poems that will endure for as long as English verse is read.

CLARK ASHTON SMITH‘s fiction has demonstrably influenced the work of both his contemporaries (such as Lovecraft, who incorporated some elements from Smith’s stories into his own tales of the Cthulhu Mythos) and successors, such as Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, and Neil Gaiman.

***Cadabra releases:***

Live In Auburn, the Elder Tapes (2016)

Live In Auburn, the Elder Tapes (2017)

Inferno

The Muse of Hyperborea

The Return of the Sorcerer

***Bibliography:***

### Books published in Smith's lifetime

* 1912: *The Star-Treader and Other Poems*. San Francisco: A.M. Robertson, Nov 1912. 100 pages. 2000 copies. Some copies have a frontispiece photo by Bianca Conti; others lack it.
* 1918: *Odes and Sonnets*. San Francisco: The Book Club of California, June 1918. 28 pages. 300 copies.
* 1922: *Ebony and Crystal: Poems in Verse and Prose*. Auburn CA: The Auburn Journal Press, Oct 1925. 43 pages. Limited to 500 copies signed by Smith. Some copies are found with corrections in Smith's hand to typos in the text.
* 1925: *Sandalwood*. Auburn CA: The Auburn Journal Press, Oct 1925. Verse. 43 pages. Limited to 250 (i.e. 225)numbered copies signed by Smith. Some copies are found with corrections in Smith's hand to typos in the text.
* 1933: *The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies*. Auburn, CA: The Auburn Journal Press, 1933. Short stories. Limited to 1000 copies in grey paper wrappers.
* 1937: *Nero and Other Poems*. Lakeport CA: The Futile Press, May 1937. 24 pages. c.250 copies. Complete copies have laid in the three page essay "The Price of Poetry", on Smith's verse, by David Warren Ryder, which was printed to accompany the book.
* 1951: *The Dark Chateau and Other Poems*. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, Dec 1951. 63 pages. 563 copies.
* 1958: *Spells and Philtres*. Sauk City: Arkham House, March 1958. Verse. 54 pages. 519 copies.

### Books published posthumously

* 1962: *The Hill of Dionysus – A Selection*. Pacific Grove, CA: Roy A. Squires and Clyde Beck. Verse. This volume was prepared while Smith was still living but he died before it could see print. It was published 'In memoriam'.
* 1971: *Selected Poems*. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, Nov 1971. This volume was delivered by the author to Arkham House in December 1949 but remained unpublished until 1971.

### Night Shade Books

* *The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith* 5-volume work
* *Miscellaneous Writings*. Originally announced as *Tales of India and Irony* (a collection of non-fantasy/science fiction/horror tales, planned to be available only to subscribers of above collection). Now commercially available.
* *Red World of Polaris* (complete tales of Captain Volmar)

### Hippocampus Press

* *The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith* (3 vols)
* *The Black Diamonds*. A juvenile Oriental fantasy.
* *The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith*
* *The Sword of Zagan and Other Writings*. Juvenile Oriental fantasy.
* *The Shadow of the Unattained: Letters of George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith*
* *The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith*

### Arkham House

* *Out of Space and Time*
* *Lost Worlds*
* *Genius Loci and Other Tales*
* *The Dark Chateau*
* *Spells and Philtres*
* *The Abominations of Yondo*
* *Tales of Science and Sorcery*
* *Poems in Prose*
* *Other Dimensions* (o.o.p.)
* *Selected Poems*
* *The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith*
* *A Rendezvous in Averoigne*
* *Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith*

#### *Spearman* (reprinted from Arkham House)

* *Lost Worlds* hardcover 1971 ISBN 0-85435-111-6
* *Out of Space and Time* 1971 ISBN 0-85435-101-9
* *Genius Loci* hardcover 1971 ISBN 0-85435-381-X
* *Abominations of Yondo* 1972 ISBN 0-85435-371-2

#### *Panther* (reprinted from Arkham House)

* *Lost Worlds* (published in 2 volumes, ISBN 0-586-03964-3, ISBN 0-586-04086-2)
* *Genius Loci* ISBN 0-586-03965-1
* *The Abominations of Yondo* ISBN 0-586-03956-2
* *Other Dimensions* (published in 2 volumes, ISBN 0-586-04350-0, ISBN 0-586-04351-9)
* *Out of Space and Time* (published in 2 volumes, ISBN 0-586-03966-X, ISBN 0-586-04110-9)
* *Tales of Science and Sorcery* ISBN 0-586-04352-7

### Ballantine Adult Fantasy series

* *Zothique* 1970 ISBN 0-345-01938-5
* *Hyperborea* 1971 ISBN 0-345-02206-8
* *Xiccarph* 1972 ISBN 0-345-02501-6
* *Poseidonis* 1973 ISBN 0-345-03353-1
* *Averoigne* (reportedly compiled by series editor Lin Carter, but never released)

### Wildside Press

* *The Double Shadow*
* *The Maker of Gargoyles and Other Stories*
* *The White Sybil and Other Stories*

### Timescape Books

* *The City of the Singing Flame* 1981 ISBN 0-671-83415-0
* *The Last Incantation* 1982 ISBN 0-671-83543-2
* *The Monster of the Prophecy* 1983 ISBN 0-671-83544-0

### HIH Art Studios

* *Shadows Seen and Unseen: Poetry from the Shadows*. San Jose, CA: Hih Art Studios, 2007. Edited by Raymond L. Johnson and Ardath W. Winterowd and signed by both editors. Limited to 540 copies. Hardcover in slipcase. Includes reproductions of poetry manuscripts by Smith, and color plates of several Smith paintings.

### Penguin Books

* *The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies*. Ed, S. T. Joshi. 2014.

### Other

* Smith, Clark Ashton. *Planets and Dimensions: Collected Essays*. Edited by Charles K. Wolfe. Baltimore MD: Mirage Press, 1973.
* *Emperor of Dreams*. Ed, Stephen Jones. Gollancz, 2002. An omnibus edition in paperback of Smith's best tales.
* *In the Line of the Grotesque and Monstrous*. Introduction by D.S. Black. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library, 2004. Prints the text of three letters by Smith to Samuel Loveman. 50 copies only printed, in burnt orange wrappers. Printed on the Bancroft library's 1856 Albion handpress.
* *The Black Abbot of Puthuum*. Glendale, CA: The RAS Press, Oct 2007. Limited to 250 numbered copies.
* Roy A. Squires, bookman and letterpress printer, issued many limited edition pamphlets consisting of individual Smith poems and prose poems.

Scholars S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz are preparing various volumes of Smith's letters to such of his individual correspondents as Donald Wandrei, Robert H. Barlow, and August Derleth.