Back in print in new trade paperback editions, the third of five volumes collecting the complete stories of renowned "weird fiction" author Clark Ashton Smith. "None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer." H. P. Lovecraft Clark Ashton Smith, considered one of the greatest contributors to seminal pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, helped define and shape "weird fiction" in the early twentieth century, alongside contemporaries H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, drawing upon his background in poetry to convey an unparalleled richness of imagination and expression in his stories of the bizarre and fantastical. The Collected Fantasies series presents all of Smith's fiction chronologically. Authorized by the author's estate and endorsed by Arkham House, the stories in this series are accompanied by detailed background notes from editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, who in preparation for this collection meticulously compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's own notes and letters. Their efforts have resulted in the most definitive and complete collection of the author's work to date. A Vintage from Atlantis is the third of five volumes collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. It includes all of his stories from "The Holiness of Azedarac" (1931) to "The God of the Asteroid" (1932), as well as an introduction by Michael Dirda. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Clark Ashton Smith was a prodigy, who wrote Arabian Nights novels in his mid-teens and was heralded as a major voice in American poetry by the time he was nineteen. In one frantic burst in the middle 1930s, he wrote nearly a hundred strange, wondrous, and grotesque stories, most of which were published in Weird Tales, Strange Tales, Wonder Stories, and other pulps, but he was by no means a conventional pulp writer. A direct heir to Edgar Allan Poe and to the late Romantics and Decadents, a translator of Baudelaire, Smith wrote in baroque, jeweled prose of distant times and remote planets, of baleful magics and reanimated corpses, lost lovers, eldritch gods, and inexorable fate. He is also a writer whose works refuse to die, even after nearly a century. Think of him as the sorcerer-poet, alone in his eyrie in the dry California hills, dreaming his strange dreams and creating his unique worlds-of Zothique, the Earth's haunted last conti- nent at the end of time, Hyperborea, a prehistoric land, Posei- donis, the last foundering isle of Atlantis, and Averoigne, an unhistoried province of medieval France, thick with vampires. runes, transported from the sorcerer's lair by in- describable genii or winged spirits. His stories are altogether unlike anyone else's and quite wonderful, among the treasures of fantastic literature. This fine collection of Clark Ashton Smith's work reprints eight of his classic fantasies, including two set in Hyperborea.

Clark Ashton Smith -- one of the "big three" classic authors from the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales (the others being H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard) -- began writing early in the twentieth century. By the 1920s, he became a regular poet and author in Weird Tales magazine, helping to usher in its golden age. "The Double Shadow" was originally published by the Auburn Journal in 1933 in an oversized edition limited to only 1,000 copies. Smith carefully signed and hand-corrected many typographical errors for years to come. A collection of six stories ranging from contemporary horror to weird alternate-world fantasy, it remains a fascinating introduction and showcase to his decadently jeweled prose.

A much-awaited collection of prose and poetry from one of the great cosmic masters of the supernatural
Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him "unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living" or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term "sui generis." Clark Ashton Smith--autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller--simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith's visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.

Clark Ashton Smith was one of the most remarkable and distinctive American poets of the twentieth century. His tremendous output of poetry, totaling nearly 1000 original poems written over a span of more than fifty years, is of the highest craftsmanship and runs the gamut of subject matter from breathtaking "cosmic" verse about the stars and galaxies to plangent love poetry to pungent satire to delicate imitations of Japanese haiku. This edition prints, for the first time, Smith's entire poetic work, including hundreds of uncollected and unpublished poems. The poems have been arranged chronologically by date of writing, so far as can be ascertained. This first volume includes poetry from the first two to three decades of Smith's career, when he published such noteworthy volumes as The Star-Treader (1912), Ebony and Crystal (1922), and Sandalwood (1925). Smith's early work was written under the tutelage of the celebrated California poet George Sterling, but Smith quickly surpassed his mentor in the writing of cosmic and lyric verse. Smith's greatest poetic triumph, perhaps, was The Hashish-Eater, a poem of nearly 600 lines that strikingly evokes the myriad suns of unbounded space and the baleful monsters that may lurk therein. But Smith could also write such touching elegies as "Requiescat in Pace," a dirge for a woman whose death affected him deeply. All poems have been textually corrected by consultation with manuscripts and early appearances, and have been extensively annotated by editors S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz.

This second volume of Clark Ashton Smith's complete original poetry contains the poems he wrote in the decades following the death in 1926 of his early mentor, George Sterling. Although much affected by Sterling's passing, Smith carried on in his poetic work, seeking new modes of expression and expanding his range beyond the cosmic and lyrical verse that had dominated his early career. Having taught himself French in the mid-1920's Smith began composing original poems in French. After focusing primarily on the writing of fantastic fiction from 1925-35, he resumed his poetic output with such masterworks as The Hill of Dionysus. In the late 1940's he experimented with haiku, and in the 1950's having taught himself Spanish, he wrote numerous original poems in Spanish. Also among his later output are a number of witty satires on the vagaries of modern poetry. In its entirety, Clark Ashton Smith's work stands as one of the great literary contributions to twentieth-century poetry. All poems have been textually corrected by consultation with manuscripts and early appearances, and have been extensively annotated by editors S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. This volume also contains an exhaustive commentary on all the poems and a complete title and first line index.

Poetry readers and fantasy connoisseurs the world over have treasured "A Wine of Wizardry" and "The Hashish-Eater" for almost a century. Written by George Sterling in 1904 and Clark Ashton Smith in 1920 respectively, these poems have been the supporting lintel and threshold to a fantastic doorway of the imagination for generations of enthralled readers. Now at last there is a contemporary response to these masterworks from poets as diverse and distinguished as Richard L. Tierney, Bruce Boston, Alan Gullette, Leigh Blackmore, Michael Fantina, Wade German, Earl Livings, and Kyla Lee Ward. Their magnificent poems evoke the enduring, timeless qualities of Sterling's and Smith's masterpieces and rework the spell to enthral a new generation. "We seem to be in the midst of a renaissance of fantastic poetry, as the present volume attests. The poets in this book have found in their work the inspiration to weave a tapestry of weirdness that stands as a substantial contribution to the fantastic verse of our own time. Connoisseurs of poetry know what aesthetic pleasures are in store for them when they read vivid, meticulously crafted work such as is contained in this book." S. T. Joshi (author Supernatural Literature of the World, I Am Providence, H. P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography) "Inspired by George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith, yet fueled by the twenty-first century talents of celebrated poets from both hemispheres, this collection of vintages has something for every rarefied taste. From hashish dreams to psychic expeditions through deep space-time, here are experiences not to be found elsewhere. Sip slowly, and revel in the flight." Ann K. Schwader (author Twisted in Dream, In the Yaddith Time, Wild Hunt of the Stars) "A feast of fantastic verse, a special delight for Klarkash-tonians who need no further reassurance that the stately, cosmic tradition represented by such masterpieces as 'The Star-Treader' and 'The Hashish-Eater' is alive and well." Darrell Schweitzer (author Pathways to Elfland, Windows of the Imagination, Exploring Fantasy Worlds)

In addition to being a prolific and innovative poet in his own right, Clark Ashton Smith was a noted translator of French and Spanish poetry. Teaching himself French in the mid-1920s, Smith undertook the ambitious program of translating the entirety of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) into English. Over the next several years he succeeded in translating all but six of the 157 poems that comprised the definitive (1868) edition of Les Fleurs du mal. His mentor George Sterling testified to the remarkable spiritual affinity between Smith and Baudelaire, rendering him the perfect translator of this difficult poet. Smith also translated other noteworthy French poets-Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, and Theophile Gautier, among others-as well as such obscure poets as Marie Dauguet and Tristan Klingsor. In the 1940s Smith taught himself Spanish, making splendid verse translations of such poets as Amado Nervo, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and and Jorge Isaacs. The great majority of the poems included in this volume are unpublished. The current edition presents, for the first time, Smith's complete translations in French and Spanish, also printing the French and Spanish texts on facing pages. All texts are annotated by S. T .Joshi and David E. Schultz.

This new collection assembles some of the rarest fantasy and horror stories from the pen of Clark Ashton Smith. Included are "The White Sybil," "Chinoiserie," "The Raja and the Tiger," "The Justice of the Elephant," "The Kiss of Zoraida," "The Ghoul," "Something New," "The Malay Krise," "The Ghost of Mohammed Din," "The Mirror in the Hall of Ebony," "The Mahout," "The Primal City," "The Hunters from Beyond," "The Passing of Aphrodite," "The Tale of Sir John Maundeville," and "The Light from Beyond."