Would anyone who has the story "The Face in the River" be willing to scan it and e-mail it to me? I understand it appeared in a recent CAS anthology entitled The Doorway to Saturn and in an issue of the Journal of Clark Ashton Smith studies. Sorry if anyone is offended by my parsimony, but I already have an otherwise full collection of CAS stories, and many stories appear in multiple books in my library. Consequently, I am loath to buy a whole new book simply to acquire one short story.

Well, no one replied to the foregoing post, and I'm really not surprised. I hope to one day obtain the story in question from a used book dealer, as I try to never support the publishing industry's exploitation of dead authors (though I make occasional exceptions; e.g., "Red World of Polaris"). Those who suppose that keeping Smith in print will promote his popularity are deluded; he is and always will be cherished by a rare few. This is a wonderful website, and I regret if what I am saying goes over like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl. Nevertheless, a parting shot: the cupidity of the "laughing heirs" of long-dead authors like Smith, Lovecraft, and Howard, together with their accomplices in book publishing, must be stymied. Long live the second-hand book market! Long live the internet!

Dear sir: you seem to have had some odd experiences in your life that have somewhat embittered you. I wonder how dead authors like Milton or Shakespeare might feel about your remarks - no to mention the mountain of serious scholarship generated by both admirers and detractors of the departed famous. I myself, carried about 150 pages of manuscript given me by Clark shortly before his death; I often wondered if any one would ever care about him, and I kept them carefully out of respect and to honor his memory -- then along came the internet and this and other sites - over that 40 years I met or heard of two youngsters who were fans of CAS - and lo, I found after all this time I discovered thousands of friends of my friend. At the present time, through my influence, an ever increasing number of teachers are adding Smith to their English curriculum - teaching kids to write - a boy who dropped out of Public School then read an entire library A-Z, the encyclopedia, and the dictionary!! and then writes delicious sci-fi satire?! perfect curriculum - Oh, yes,his popularity is growing - I well remember when his first paperback came out after his death he acquired a cult following in the University communities of the West Coast - and that has simmered along and produced a decidedly growing awareness -- I have a copy of the story you want, a gift from friends who are deeply committed to the memory and work of my friend Clark Ashton Smith - If they didn't honor your request - I certainly will not
dishonor their generosity in sharing it with me by sending it on. It is a very good tale -- and, as a side note, surely you can come up with a more appropriate analogy for this site than your crude punchbowl reference -- and then, long live the internet? -- at what point did this stream of electrons receive the breath of life?

I have Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" in twelve different books. I would happily buy twelve more anthologies containing it if it meant I could increase my collection of texts by or about my favourite authors. If that helps keeping them in print, then I'm fine with it.

Boycotting books by dead authors would pretty much mean the death of the printed book, unless you are only fond of living writers. Publishers are supported so they can continue publishing these works, otherwise we'd have to find everything in PDF or digital format.

Roger makes a good point. I'll confess my statement about boycotting books by dead authors is overbroad and, therefore, silly. I was writing a tad hastily, I suppose. My true grievances against the publishing industry are as follows. Once an author has been dead 70 years and his works have entered the public domain, I think prices charged for his works should be significantly reduced relative to works still under copyright. Dover publishing, for example, sells low-cost volumes of works in the public domain. Usually, though, publishers mulct an ignorant public. A case in point: I was in a book store recently and saw a row of new anthologies of Robert E. Howard stories published by Del Rey. I understand most of Howard's stuff is in the public domain now, but these books had high, new-book prices. Furthermore, I would be very surprised if, over the last 50 years, any of Howard's literary heirs had any personal acquaintance with Robert E. Howard. I'll bet the same was true in Lovecraft's case also. No, they were probably "laughing heirs," raking in royalties over the decades and then joining the periodic efforts to lobby Congress for extension of the term of copyright (the last such effort was spearheaded by the Gershwin heirs). Think I'm just a crank? The US Constitution provides that Congress can provide copyright protection for "limited times." The forces who want to extend copyright indefinitely have proposed that "forever less a day" is, technically, a "limited time." Since I think copyright should be limited to 30-40 years after an artists death (so as to benefit, say, only the children or immediate heirs of an artist), I believe all Smith's works should be freely available. And I try to use the paltry power of my own purse in the service of that conviction.

Calonlan calls me embittered; well, yes, I am a tad bitter about being a devotee of Smith for decades, amassing a redundant Smith library, and then finding it was not complete after all and that I must shell out $ 30 to get the one short story I don't have. Now and forever, NO WAY!!!!!!!!

I would guess that the issue of Lost Worlds with the story, although out of print, can be found for much less than $30.

> Those who suppose that keeping Smith in print will promote his popularity are deluded; he is and always will be cherished by a rare few.

I don't suppose anyone here thinks that keeping CAS in print will significantly raise his popularity (and who cares about mass popularity anyway) -- but it's infinitely nicer to be able to have a printed, hardbound book (with corrected texts) rather than reading from the screen or print-outs.

There is another side to this: Publishing these works also brings in enough attention to keep a writer's work alive and profitable enough to build a base for preserving his (or her) unpublished work, searching out work which is obscure (whether because of publication in small press journals and the like or because it was published anonymously -- Le Fanu is a good example of the latter), and so on. The more the industry sees such things as being viable, the more likely they are to take a chance on publishing such things once found and offered... and if those in turn sell well enough, it helps to increase the number interested in that writer's work, including those who will become scholars and search out more of their material... and so on.

As for the Howard-del Rey books: Those have gone back to Howard's original manuscripts, variant texts, and the like -- things which have often been highly edited or never published in their present form; hence, often quite different from the versions which have long been in the public eye.

In general, I am in agreement that it should be the case where long-available tales should be made more reasonable (or simply very inexpensive) in price; but there are reasons for the specialty houses and such charging a bit more, as they go to the effort to reexamine the manuscripts and various publications of tales to supply the most accurate and authoritative version -- or at least the closest to the author's final intent (or, in some cases, original intent, as with the publication of the facsimile of the ms. of Frankenstein) as it is possible to get.

So... if they are simply reprinting the same familiar texts then, yes, they should be at a reduced price. If, however, a lot of work went into ascertaining the above points or the presentation of variant readings, obscure material, etc., then the price should reflect that. Otherwise, however much scholars may love a writer's work and may continue to pursue such efforts to the best of their abilities, the lack of remuneration for such efforts will inevitably retard them in 99 out of 100 cases....

I agree with walrus and jdworth. Hence it is my policy to never help anyone asking for freebies. I've spent time, money, and effort building my collection; if you're not willing or able to make the same sacrifice you'll have to make do with whatever badly edited versions you can find online, or locate the volume through interinstitutional loan. TANSTAAFL

"locate the volume through interinstitutional loan"

That's the solution, actually, in my eyes. Then, photocopy the story. It's better than nothing, or than paying $30, especially if doing so offends you on principle.

While I agree that JKeltz went a bit overboard in his first, slightly frothing, reply, I also think that he makes valid points about the abuse of copyright laws. Even more irritating to me than the "laughing heirs", however, are the small-press publishers and their ridiculously overpriced "limited editions". Especially annoying are the ones who claim copyright protection on the basis of "editorial enhancement" because, in a collection of a dozen stories, the editors changed a single comma (I am exaggerating for effect, but not by much!).

Anyway, I've made my views on this subject known in at least one other thread here, so I'll leave the matter at that,

Quote:

as they go to the effort to reexamine the manuscripts and various publications of tales to supply the most accurate and authoritative version -- or at least the closest to the author's final intent (or, in some cases, original intent, as with the publication of the facsimile of the ms. of Frankenstein) as it is possible to get.

I almost missed this. Yes, and then they screw up, and propagate corrupt texts, anyway, because, although they are well-meaning, they are amateur editors working with underfunded, understaffed amateur publishing houses. So, instead of paying $6.95 for a Ballantine paperbound book with errors, one pays $30 for a hardbound book with errors. Big improvement, from the perspective of the reader! Lol.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> as they go to the effort to reexamine the
> manuscripts and various publications of tales to
> supply the most accurate and authoritative version
> -- or at least the closest to the author's final
> intent (or, in some cases, original intent, as
> with the publication of the facsimile of the ms.
> of Frankenstein) as it is possible to get.
>
> I almost missed this. Yes, and then they screw up,
> and propagate corrupt texts, anyway, because,
> although they are well-meaning, they are amateur
> editors working with underfunded, understaffed
> amateur publishing houses. So, instead of paying
> $6.95 for a Ballantine paperbound book with
> errors, one pays $30 for a hardbound book with
> errors. Big improvement, from the perspective of
> the reader! Lol.

Sadly, there is a fair amount of truth to this complaint... though I'm afraid it goes across the board with publishing these days.

I worked for quite a few years as a typesetter for a company which did all sorts of university press books and the like, and there were frequently times I wanted to hunt down some starry-eyed newbie editor and chop them into mincemeat. Why? Because I got to see the original manuscript, with their "corrections", which not infrequently meant they took perfectly lucid (if often not particularly impressive) prose and turned it into utter gobbledygook.

But these days, it seems to be simply, as you point out, lack of funding, lack of staff, and an overly crowded publication schedule, resulting in a plethora of errors creeping in without going through a final proofreading to catch and correct them. I'd much prefer a longer wait on a book, if it meant they had the time to actually follow through on that sort of thing. But this doesn't seem to be confined to the small specialty press -- I see tons of errors in books by major publishers, whether paper or hardbound.

In any event, while they do have such errors, they nonetheless have material which has never been published before, or is lacking the editorial manipulation that so often went on with writers during the pulp era (as well as others), so even with such errors, we still have something much closer to the writer's intent. I urge much more effort in correcting the typos and the like, but I also commend the efforts made in bringing the rest of this to light.

(Mind you, if a publisher is able to bring out an inexpensive edition of such and remain viable, while avoiding the problems mentioned above, I'm all for it. However, I doubt that this is ever going to fit with the realities of the situation... but oh, how I'd love to be proven wrong....)