A rare publication of the original version of Smith's tale,"The Black Abbot of Puthuum" is up for bidding on Ebay, to be sold later today. It's the only available publication of Smith's original manuscript version, which was rejected by Weird Tales, and excluded by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger in their edition of The Complete Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith Volume 5, from Nightshade Press. They did however include the approximately 1500 words that Smith cut (when he was forced to rewrite it for persnickety WT editor Farnsworth Wright) in an appendix on pages 345-347. This Volume 5 of the Nightshade series, btw, has eight tales of Zothique and can still be obtained rather inexpensively in the trade edition. Anyway, the auction item is circa 2007, and includes a laid-in copy of Virgil Finlay's superb original artwork for the story. You can see it on the eBay listing if you hurry. The small press item itself is dedicated to Smith's friend R. Hoffmann and to Roy A. Squires, who published much rare Smith material up until 1987. As discussed in a prior topic I posted in September, the decision to not present the story as Smith originally intended it to read was a blunder because the "sub-plot", to use the editors' dismissive term for the excised material, involved not only some interesting development of a pivotal character, but an entirely new ending. Smith's original manuscript was found (when, I wonder) among the papers of Robert H. Barlow, Lovecraft's literary executor. I would appreciate it if anyone having that Nightshade Press book checks out pages 345-347 and offers an opinion.

jkh