Clark Ashton Smith was an American writer and artist. 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".
Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy.
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 publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had previously been published only in pulp magazines. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.
Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's." and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, and H. P. Lovecraft. Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphrase Goethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous. Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, it experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s, under the labels of New Weird and Slipstream, which continues into the 21st century.
Poseidonis is the fictional last remnant of the lost continent of Atlantis, mentioned by Algernon Blackwood in his short story, "Sand", in his story collection, Four Weird Tales and is also detailed in a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith. Smith based Poseidonis on Theosophical scriptures about Atlantis, and his concept of "the last isle of foundering Atlantis" is echoed by the Isle of Númenor in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.
David Henry Keller was an American writer who worked for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century, in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. Considered to be "one of the most conceptually sophisticated" science fiction writers of his time, he was the first psychiatrist to write for the genre, and was most often published as David H. Keller, MD. He was also known by the pseudonyms Monk Smith, Matthew Smith, Amy Worth, Henry Cecil, Cecilia Henry, and Jacobus Hubelaire.
Edgar Hoffmann Price was an American writer of popular fiction for the pulp magazine marketplace. He collaborated with H. P. Lovecraft on "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".
Lost Worlds is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by the American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was published in 1944 and was the author's second book published by Arkham House. 2,043 copies were printed.
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 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.
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.
Hyperborea is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the twenty-ninth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1971. It was the second themed collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s, notably Weird Tales.
Zothique is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the sixteenth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1970. It was the first themed collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines in the 1930s, notably Weird Tales.
Poseidonis is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fifty-ninth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July 1973. It was the fourth collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines in the 1930s and 1940s, notably Weird Tales.
Dreams of Distant Shores is a collection of fantasy stories by Patricia A. McKillip. It was first published in ebook by Tachyon Publications in May 2016, with the trade paperback print edition following from the same publisher in June 2016.
Bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction writer Lin Carter:
"Necromancy in Naat" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Zothique cycle, and first published in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales.
"The Empire of the Necromancers" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Zothique cycle, and first published in the September 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
