The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies Read Online Free Page B

more comprehensive edition is being prepared by Scott Connors.
    Smith’s essays were collected by Charles K. Wolfe as
Planets and Dimensions
(Mirage Press, 1973 ). His
Black Book,
containing plot germs and other interesting data, was edited by Donald Sidney-Fryer and Rah Hoffman (Arkham House, 1979 ). His epigrams were collected by Don Herron as
The Devil’s Notebook
(Starmont House, 1990 ). Steve Behrends edited an important edition of uncollected stories, fragmentary stories, plot synopses, and other matter:
Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays of Clark Ashton Smith
(Greenwood Press, 1989 ).
    Steve Behrends edited Smith’s
Letters to H. P. Lovecraft
(Necronomicon Press, 1987 ), but the letters were heavily abridged. Scott Connors and David E. Schultz edited a generous sampling of letters in
Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
(Arkham House, 2003 ). Schultz and S. T. Joshi edited the joint correspondence of Smith and George Sterling as
The Shadow of the Unattained
(Hippocampus Press, 2005 ); the same editors are editing the joint correspondence of Smith and H. P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press, forthcoming).
    Two volumes pertaining to Smith’s artwork are of note:
Grotesques and Fantastiques
(Gerry de la Ree, 1973 ) and Dennis Rickard’s edition of
The Fantastic Art of Clark Ashton Smith
(Mirage Press, 1973 ).
    SECONDARY
    Donald Sidney-Fryer’s
Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography
(Donald M. Grant, 1978 ) was a towering work of research begun in Smith’s lifetime, but is now sadly out of date and incomplete in its citations. A more comprehensive bibliography is being assembled by S. T. Joshi, Scott Connors, and David E. Schultz.
    There is no full-length biography of Smith, but much biographical information is contained in the introductory matter in Sidney-Fryer’s
Emperor of Dreams.
The various editions of Smith’s letters also provide a window into Smith’s life, family, associates, and thought.
    Jack L. Chalker’s small-press anthology
In Memoriam: Clark Ashton Smith
(Anthem, 1963 ) has some meritorious biographical and critical pieces, but is now largely of historical interest. The August 1972 issue of
Nyctalops
was devoted to Smith and still contains material of interest. Around the same time, Donald Sidney-Fryer’s slim monograph
The Last of the Great Romantic Poets
(Silver Scarab Press, 1972 ) appeared. The first full-length study of Smith was Steve Behrends’s
Clark Ashton Smith
(Starmont House, 1990 ). Ronald S. Hilger’s anthology
One Hundred Years of Klarkash-Ton
(Averon Press, 1993 ) contains several interesting items. An exhaustive collection of many of the better recent articles on Smith is Scott Connors’s
The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith
(Hippocampus Press, 2006 ), containing original and reprinted articles by such scholars as Steve Behrends, Fred Chappell, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Lauric Guillaud, S. T. Joshi, Jim Rockhill, Donald Sidney-Fryer, and Brian Stableford.
    Two journals devoted to Smith are
Klarkash-Ton
(last two issues titled
Dark Eidolon
), edited by Steve Behrends (three issues, 1988 – 93 ) and
Lost Worlds,
edited by Scott Connors and Ronald S. Hilger (five issues, 2004 – 8 ).
    Other noteworthy articles on Smith include:
    Ashley, Mike. “The Perils of Wonder: Clark Ashton Smith’s Experiences with
Wonder Stories,
”
Dark Eidolon
2 (July 1989 ): 2 – 8 .
    Comtois, Pierre. “Clark Ashton Smith and the French Romantics,”
Dark Eidolon
3 (Winter 1993 ): 28 – 33 .
    Connors, Scott. “Who Discovered Clark Ashton Smith?”
Lost Worlds
1 ( 2004 ): 25 – 34 .
    de Camp, L. Sprague. “Sierran Shaman: Clark Ashton Smith,” in de Camp’s
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy
(Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976 ), 195 – 214 .
    Ellison, Harlan. “
Out of Space and Time
by Clark Ashton