Jacket illustration by Frank Utpatel for Spells and Philtres | |
Author | Clark Ashton Smith |
---|---|
Cover artist | Frank Utpatel |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | poetry |
Publisher | Arkham House |
Publication date | 1958 |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Pages | 54 |
Spells and Philtres is a collection of poems by Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1958 and was the author's fifth book and second collection of poetry to be published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 519 copies. The book was a second stop-gap volume following The Dark Chateau . It represented Smith's poetry while the more extensive Selected Poems was being prepared which did not ultimately appear until 1971. The collection also includes several translations of French and Spanish poems. Clérigo Herrero, however, is not a real person and the poem is actually a composition of Smith's.
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures".
This article is a summary of the literary events and publications of 1958.
Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.
Spells and Philtres contains the following poems:
Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer was a Spanish Romanticist poet and writer, also a playwright, literary columnist, and talented in drawing. Today he is considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature, and is considered by some as the most read writer after Cervantes. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had done earlier. He was associated with the romanticism and post-romanticism movements and wrote while realism was enjoying success in Spain. He was moderately well known during his life, but it was after his death that most of his works were published. His best known works are the Rhymes and the Legends, usually published together as Rimas y leyendas. These poems and tales are essential to the study of Spanish literature and common reading for high-school students in Spanish-speaking countries.
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.
Sheldon Jaffery was an American bibliographer. An attorney by profession, he was an aficionado of Weird Tales magazine, Arkham House books, the weird menace pulps, and related topics.
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
Donald Sidney-Fryer is a poet and entertainer principally influenced by Edmund Spenser and Clark Ashton Smith.
Demons and Dinosaurs is a 1970 collection of poetry by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, published by Arkham House in an edition of 500 copies. It was de Camp's first book published by Arkham House.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories, poems and essays by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1943 and was the second collection of Lovecraft's work published by Arkham House. 1,217 copies were printed. The volume is named for the Lovecraft short story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".
Marginalia is a collection of Fantasy, Horror and Science fiction short stories, essays, biography and poetry by and about the American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1944 and was the third collection of Lovecraft's work published by Arkham House. 2,035 copies were printed.
Out of Space and Time is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1942 and was the third book published by Arkham House. 1,054 copies were printed. A British hardcover appeared from Neville Spearman in 1971, with a two-volume paperback reprint following from Panther Books in 1974. Bison Books issued a trade paperback edition in 2006.
Lost Worlds is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1944 and was the author's second book published by Arkham House. 2,043 copies were printed.
Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre is a poetry anthology edited by August Derleth and published in 1947 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,634 copies. It is a pioneering anthology of weird poetry from the Middle Ages to the present, arranged chronologically.
Genius Loci and Other Tales is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1948 and was the author's third book published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 3,047 copies. The stories were written between 1930 and 1935.
The Dark Chateau is a collection of poems by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1951 and was the author's fourth book to be published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 563 copies. The book was intended to be a stop-gap volume representing Smith's poetry while the more extensive Selected Poems was being prepared, although Selected Poems did not ultimately appear until 1971.
The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces is an anthology fantasy, horror short stories, essays and memoirs by American author H. P. Lovecraft and others. It was released in 1959 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,527 copies and was the fifth collection of Lovecraft's work to be released by Arkham House. August Derleth, the owner of Arkham House, and an admirer and literary executor to Lovecraft, edited the collection and wrote the title story, "The Shuttered Room", as well as another story, "The Fisherman of Falcon Point" from lines of story ideas left by Lovecraft after his death. Derleth billed himself as a "posthumous collaborator".
The Abominations of Yondo is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1960 and was the author's fourth collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 2,005 copies. The stories were mostly written between 1930 and 1935.
Tales of Science and Sorcery is a collection of stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1964 and was the author's fifth collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 2,482 copies. The stories were originally published between 1930 and 1958 in Weird Tales and other pulp magazines.
Poems in Prose is an illustrated collection of prose poems by Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1965 and was published by Arkham House in an edition of 1,016 copies. The book is a nearly complete collection of Smith's prose poetry.
The Arkham Collector was an American fantasy, horror fiction and poetry magazine first published in Summer 1967. The magazine, edited by August Derleth, was the second of two magazines published by Arkham House, the other being the Arkham Sampler. Each issue of The Arkham Collector had an approximate print run of 2,500 copies. Its headquarters was in Sauk City, Wisconsin.
Other Dimensions is a collection of stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1970 and was the author's sixth collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 3,144 copies. The stories were originally published between 1910 and 1953 in Weird Tales and other pulp magazines.
Selected Poems is a collection of poems by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1971 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,118 copies. The collection also includes several translations of French and Spanish poems. Christophe des Laurieres and Clérigo Herrero, however, are not real people, and the poems are actually compositions of Smith's.
The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith is a transcription of a notebook that was kept by author Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1979 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,588 copies. The book was transcribed from Smith's notebook by Donald Sidney-Fryer and Robert A. ('Rah') Hoffman. Appended to the transcription are two memoirs of Smith by George F. Haas.
A Rendezvous in Averoigne is a collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1988 by Arkham House in an edition of 5,025 copies. The collection contains stories from Smith's major story cycles of Averoigne, Hyperborea, Poseidonis, Xiccarph, and Zothique. Its title story is a relatively conventional vampire story.