Re: Was Robert W. Chambers an influence on Smith's Averoigne Cycle?
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 29 October, 2023 09:27PM
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Long ago I owned a copy of the Ace paperback --
> yes, Ace's multitude of sf and fantasy reprints
> included this volume. But of more interest is
> that a high school acquaintance of mine had access
> to a copy of what I believe was the Neely first
> edition -- I think it belonged to his brother, but
> he seems to have had permission to loan it to me.
> It was an octavo bound in green cloth with a
> design of a salamander (?) stamped in brown ink.
> I don't think I ever attempted to read more than
> two or three stories in it, knowing already,
> evidently, that only "The Yellow Sign" etc. were
> strange stories, the rest being about Parisian
> artists and their models or something like that;
> and at the age of 15 or so I hardly would have
> been likely to make much of those stories even if
> I had read them. Of much greater interest to me
> in my acquaintance's household were a handful of
> vintage comic books. Nevertheless, I wrote a
> poem, "In Carcosa" (I think that was the title)
> that was published in a fanzine called Nyctalops;
> but I have neither a copy of the 'zine nor (as far
> as I know) of the poem, which is no loss. I think
> one of the stanzas was
>
> Here softly walked, in yellow robes,
> The King of outer dark,
> Through halls of grey, unpolished stone,
> Their faces grim and stark
>
> -- or something equally perishable. I wonder if
> the idea of the verse-play the perusal of which
> drives people insane has perhaps more appeal to
> the imaginations of many people than the stories
> Chambers actually wrote.
>
> "You, sir, should unmask."
> "I wear no mask."
> "No mask -- no mask?"
>
> That's approximately the epigraph to something,
> isn't it? A supposed excerpt from the play.
>
> I wonder if Chambers got the idea for the weird
> play, though, from MacDonald's Lilith, a superior
> book. In it, the protagonist comes upon a
> manuscript book in which there is a sequence
> written by Lilith herself that's quite macabre.
> Incidentally perhaps the best example I know of,
> of the combination of grotesque humor and the
> macabre, is the chapter of the skeletons in
> MacDonald's book.
Thanks, Dale. I have the issue you mention, which has Donald Sidney-Fryer's long essay on Arthur Machen. Do you recall that? Is it very good? The full text of your poem there is as follows: "Beyond the stars, beyond the void There is a country dim, It is Carcosa, lost Carcosa, Swathed in legends grim. Here softly walked, in yellow robes, The King of Outer Dark. Through halls of rough, unpolished stones, Their faces grey and stark. I have been in Old Carcosa. I would not go back again." Well, it was 197 then and Harry Morriss was your publisher. I talked to an old bookseller in Albuquerque, whose address I still have, and knows Morriss and related some interesting details of his life back in those days. My cat spit something up as I began typing your poem-- well, the first 4 lines aren't the best part, so possibly a reaction there (just a hairball). Yes, The copy you describe of The King in Yellow, with the salamander design, is the first edition, and I think you're right about the mysterioso fictional play being more interesting than the latter portion of the book to most readers. But it's still a personal favorite of mine. I will take a close look at that chapter in LILITH, which I labored through about six years ago after reading PHANTASTES first, the two Macdonald novels being published in one volume. LILITH is the better of the two, but is this copy in the double edition the original version or the revised? What's the difference, I mean?
jkh