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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uncollected and unpublished poems.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.
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.
When An Epicure in the Terrible first appeared in 1991,
commemorating the centennial of H. P. Lovecraft's birth, it was
hailed as a significant contribution to Lovecraft studies. Its
thirteen original essays, along with a lengthy biocritical
introduction by S. T. Joshi, contained penetrating work by leading
authorities in the field. Among them were Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.'s
pioneering study of Lovecraft's parents; Jason C. Eckhardt's
analysis of Lovecraft's heritage as a New England Yankee; and
Donald R. Burleson's treatment of the key theme of "touching the
glass," epitomized by "The Outsider." Other essays in the book deal
with such topics as the theme of isolation in Lovecraft's fiction
(Stefan Dziemianowicz); Lovecraft's cosmic imagery (Steven J.
Mariconda); Lovecraft's progression from a macabre writer to a
cosmic writer (David E. Schultz); and Lovecraft's "artificial
mythology" and its development (Robert M. Price). Essays by Peter
Cannon, Robert H. Waugh, R. Boerem, Norman R. Gayford, and Barton
L. St. Armand round out the volume. This paperback edition presents
these perspicacious essays to a new readership, and shows the
richness and complexity of H. P. Lovecraft's writing-writing that
is destined to endure for centuries. Citations to Lovecraft's work
have been updated to reflect newer and more accurate editions that
have appeared since 1991, and some of the essays have been slightly
revised in other particulars.
If we could only put aside our civil pose and say what we really
thought, the world would be a lot like the one alluded to in The
Unabridged Devil's Dictionary. There, a bore is ""a person who
talks when you wish him to listen,"" and happiness is ""an
agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of
another."" This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition
ever of Ambrose Bierce's satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete
all other versions that have appeared in the book's ninety-year
history. A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay,
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever
definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred
and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from
matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and
excesses to shine forth. This new edition is based on David E.
Schultz and S. T. Joshi's exhaustive investigation into the book's
writing and publishing history. All of Bierce's known satiric
definitions are here, including previously uncollected,
unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from
previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred
wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated
Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.
Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary is a classic that stands
alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and
Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans
and word lovers everywhere.
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