Re: Fifty years ago
Posted by:
wilum pugmire (IP Logged)
Date: 14 August, 2011 09:21AM
Fifty years. CAS seems, for me, in many ways, a fugitive figure in our genre. He has escaped, too long, his proper place, his deserved exposure. I'm hoping that this will now be corrected through the publication of his complete fantasies and poetry. He has delighted me since I discovered him through Arkham House in the early 1970s, when I bought the SELECTED POEMS and one or two volumes of his weird tales that were then available, and then I found the Panther horror editions that reprinted earlier AH volumes. Jessica Salmonson is a huge admirer, and my friendship with her taught me more clearly Smith's importance as a genre writer. His work has assuredly influenc'd my own style and imaginative approach, but I have never yet try'd to write weird fiction that is audaciously Klarkash-Tonic in nature until now. I am writing a book, with Maryanne, of poetry and prose in the Clark Ashton Smith tradition, and the core challenge is to pen prose that evokes the work of CAS rather than HPL. I am not certain that I can accomplish this. I just submitted "Your Seventh Eikon" to S. T. for a future BLACK WINGS volume; & it wou'd rather please me if he rejects it as being "more in the tradition of Smith than Lovecraft" or some such reason--then I wou'd know that I am approaching my aesthetic goal.
SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT shou'd be at my doorstep to-morrow, & thus I will be able, at last, to send ye your copy of it and THE TANGLED MUSE. Going to try and buy an edition of the new B&N HPL from S. T., & then I'll know it will indeed have your corrections. I fear if I order'd it online I wou'd get one of ye old textually corrupt tomes, & I have two such as it is.
Shalom, dear heart.
"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 14 Aug 11 | 09:22AM by wilum pugmire.