I've been visiting this site for over a year now with great pleasure, and learnt a lot about CAS and his enthusiasts. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about his relationship as a writer with John Cowper Powys? I gather CAS saw him as a kindred spirit, and certainly they are both wonderful examples of writers who go their own way, regardless of fashion or critical approval, and speak eternally to those who relate to them. I know JCP spent time in San Francisco in the 20s - I doubt whether they would have met, but would love to know more about what CAS thought of him, and if JCP knew anything about CAS.
(hope the initials haven't obscured my prose style!).

Dear Bob -
During the years of my friendship with Clark (1952-death) I never
once heard him mention Powys. If he was in San Francisco in the
20's and in contact with the "literati", Powys may have met Clark.
Rah Hoffman is the oldest living person of literary and artistic
bent to have known Clark, and I shall inquire of him for you. Clark
probably would have read enough of his stuff to have made a decision
as to its value to himself. Suffice it to say that he never cited
him in my presence either as a valuable neglected author (like himself),
or as an example of extraordinarily bad writing. Most likely Clark
did not find his contributions to his taste.
PS - don't worry too much about style - just write.

Dear Dr Farmer
Many thanks for replying. According to Richard Perceval Graves' biography of the Powys brothers, JCP and his brother Lewellyn were in San Francisco c1921 - JCP was an itinerant lecturer-showman across America for many years, and on his visits to the west coast was entertained quite widely by the literary establishent. He and his brother definitely met George Sterling. It was somewhere on the Eldritch Dark that I found some mention of CAS considering Powys, along with Arthur Machen, as a kindred spirit, but I cannot remember where - I have spent many hours browsing the site, mainly late at night! Maybe CAS attended a lecture, or Sterling mentioned Powys to him. Powys hadn't written much at this time, certainly not the great novels that he is best known for. Clark and his contemporaries would have thought of him as a critic-philosopher, perhaps as a poet. CAS must have seen or heard enough about him to feel an affinity, anyway. Perhaps someone who knows their way around the Eldritch Dark can remember where I got the idea from!
Best wishes
Bob

It's at machen_review_of_clark_ashton_smith. I found it thanks to the built-in search engine of the Eldritch Dark (top of the page). But a Google search could have lead you there too: they have a very useful tool in the "extended search" section that enables visitors to search for a word within a specific domain or website. Quite useful when the site has no search engine.

Bests,

Philippe Gindre

Oops: the forum swallowed my url: you can read it online, as posted at the Eldtrich Dark, but not in the message as sent to you via email. Security I guess.

I searched through all of the letters of Clark's that I've put into a data-base, and I found only the following reference:
Aug. 28th, 1919
Dear George [Sterling]:
Thanks for "The Hill of Dreams," the reading of which has given me considerable pleasure. Much of it is very beautiful and subtle. Am I to keep the book? . . . I have another of Machen's books, entitled: "Hieroglyphics," one of the best things on literature and literary values that I have seen for a long time, apart from the writings of John Cowper Powys. [...]

This appears in SL of CAS. Note that this mention occurs _before_ Powys went to SF. Perhaps you could tell us what he had written up to this point, and perhaps hazard some intelligent speculation as to why CAS felt an affinity with him? Sometime this summer I'm supposed to receive what remains of Clark's library, and will look out for any of Powys' writings.

Thank you very much for that. I'll have a look and see what Powys stuff was available for CAS to have seen. I was never expecting a lot, but it would please me to know what two of my favourite authors knew and thought of each other.
Regards
Bob

From the context of the comment on Machen, it is clear that CAS was thinking of Powys as a literary critic, and the most likely book for him to be referring to is Visions and Revisions, 1915, a selection of essays on favourite writers. The book (reprinted by Village Press in 1974) has been described as the nearest thing in print to Powys's lectures. A bit diffuse and rhetorical, but full of affirmation and enthusiasm for the spiritual values of great literature. A couple of years later came Suspended Judgments and 100 Best Books. Any of these could have been in his mind when he wrote to Sterling. I suppose CAS would have felt at home with Powys's sense of the cosmic significance of everything, the fellow feeling for inamimate as well as animate nature. They were both strange, solitary mystics with a distaste for the technolgy and lifestyles of the times they were in. Perhaps that is about all that can be said! It will be interesting anyway to know what is contained in his library.
Thanks for all replies so far.
Bob