Ye poftman just brought ye newest mailing of ye Esoteric Order of Dagon apa, and I noticed this in ye mailing by David E. Schultz:

"I would like to start working up volumes of letters of Clark Ashton Smith. Primarily his correspondence with [a] August Derleth, [b] Donald Wandrei and R. H. Barlow, and [c] Samuel Loveman. The Derleth group covers a long period and discussion covers everything, starting initially with the usual circulation of stories for comment and current contents of the pulp magazines, but over time adding a 'business' aspect as Derleth became Smith's publisher. The other bunches contain much discussion of poetry, since the writers were themselves poets.At this date, only the Barlow letters are annotated, as that book was once intended for Necronomicon Press. It would have made a nice booklet. All the necessary letters are typed, so all that remains is the usual annotation. I remember these (dimly) as being quite interesting, for the poets wrote not only about their own work but also about the poets they liked and read (or not)."

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

While I find Smith's letters in and of themselves generally of less interest than Lovecraft's, this is by no means always the case, and as far as information goes, I most fervently hope such a project can be pushed through to completion. As for the discussions with other poets and writers on the above... that seems (to me) to be where the most interesting aspects of CAS's correspondence lies (again, generally speaking),so definitely something to look forward to.....

I hope that S. T. Joshi (God bless him for recently taking a firm stand against political correctness targeted at Lovecraft) and David E. Schultz are inspired and still working diligently on The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith in 2 volumes for Hippocampus Press.

From Dave's November offering for ye E.O.D.:
"Another big project for 2016 will be to complete--finally--the Lovecraft-Clark Ashton Smith correspondence. The rough--very rough--transcript for the book is running to 664 pages, and that does not include an index, introduction, illustrations, glossary. It appears the book may exceed 700 pages when done. The bibliography alone comes to 35 pages! Of course, it lists all of HPL's and CAS's works that are discussed, stories from WEIRD TALES, and numerous other books."

So it will be one huge volume rather than two volumes as originally planned.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

wilum pugmire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> So it will be one huge volume rather than two
> volumes as originally planned.

Yes, last time he explained that "packaging" (binding, covers, cover art, etc.) can increase the price and decrease the profit quite considerably sometimes, so that one big volume may be better. That's also why they are doing the fourth Variorum Lovecraft volume (the revisions) as one huge (much bigger than any single one of the other three) volume, instead of two smaller.

Latest news from Hippocampus Press (posted on FB):

Quote:

We are starting a series of annotated Clark Ashton Smith letters to individual correspondents. On deck: CAS to Wandrei & Barlow, CAS to Loveman, CAS to Derleth.

Hippocampus Press posted an image of the ARC of Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith on FB the other day. The very tentative release date is ("possibly") December.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hippocampus Press posted an image of the ARC of
> Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P.
> Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith on FB the other
> day. The very tentative release date is
> ("possibly") December.


"Dawnward Spire", ... odd play with words. Doesn't sound very much like Lovecraftian humour to me.

It's probably not meant to be humorous. CAS's poem "To Howard Phillips Lovecraft" includes the lines "Beyond the dawnward spires of Providence?" and "This lonely western hill of Averoigne", so I would guess it is meant as a reference to their homes.

Martinus, do you, or anyone else here, have a rough idea how much more text of their correspondence can be expected in Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, compared to in the Arkham House volumes of Selected Letters by Lovecraft and The Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith?

David Schultz mentioned on FB that there will be 239 Lovecraft items (letters and postcards) in the book; six of the letters are known only from the Arkham House Transcripts, while the rest are based on original manuscripts or photocopies. I don't have my Selected Letters at hand here, but 239 sounds like a lot more than the letters to CAS included there, and the ones in SL tend to be abridged anyway.
I don't know how many letters from CAS to HPL will be included.

I have checked -- there are 88 items (presumably both letters and postcards) from HPL to CAS in Selected Letters. That still leaves 151 items that aren't in SL.

Don't forget the nine postcards in Hail, Klarkash-ton!. For anyone interested in the CAS/HPL correspondence as currently published, I've got entries up on wikithulhu with abstracts for everything in the Selected Letters of HPL and CAS as well.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't know how many letters from CAS to HPL will
> be included.

But I do now -- in his latest EOD mailing, David says that there are "perhaps only 90 pieces".

David Schultz posted the following in the Hippocampus press FB group:

Quote:

David E. Schultz
Prog report: Lead editor has completed draft of DAWNWARD SPIRE, LONELY HILL--coeditor now working on text.
Lead editor has completed draft of Smith-Wandrei-Barlow letters.
Lead editor completed a draft of the Smith-Loveman letters in December, but will proof and edit further before turning over text to co-editor.
Lead editor of Smith-Derleth correspondence working on immense bibliography for the book, has proofed Smith's half of correspondence, must proof Derleth half, and then interleave the letters into one big file. May complete this by end of June.