I was reading a thread here from stevereplogle going back to August last year, and wanted to reply to it, but have been unable to re-find the original discussion thread on the forums. Steve had a number of questions about Carter's proposed contents for his never-issued Averoigne collection, including whether the list of contents printed in THE DARK EIDOLON #3 represented the running order Carter had proposed; wther Carter planned to include any poems; what were the "Notes for Unwritten Stories"; whewther or not Carter planned to include other medieval or European flavoured stories in is collection, such as "A Night in Malneant"; and finally, whether or not an introduction or afterword for AVEROIGNE exists amongst Carter's papers.

Steve also mentioned that he had posed these questions to Robert M. Price, Lin Carter's literary executor. Price had replied that he though he published Lin's list of stories for these collections in an old issue of CRYPT OF CTHULHU - it would be in one of the three Lin Carter issues or the CAS issue (#27).

I thought I might be able to answer the questions more thoroughly because I have a pretty complete collection of CRYPT OF CTHULHU and also (I believe) all issues of THE DARK EIDOLON. The three issues of CRYPT OF CTHULHU deovted to Lin Carter were Nos 36, 54, and 69. (In fact there was also a fourth deovoted to him, #70, collecting his tales of The Necronomicon). I can report that I have seacrhed those issues thoroughly, and Carter's proposed contents list for his Averoigne collection is now printed anywhere in those issues. Price also mention the CAS issue of CRYPT (#27). Aagain, there were actually two CAS issue of CRYPT - #26, and #27 ("Untold Tales" by CAS). I have searched both those issues also, but Carter's Averoigne contents list is not printed oin either of them. So Rev Price's memory must be mistaken in that regard.

As to whether an intro or afterword exist amongst Carter's papers, Rev price would be the only one who could answer that and apporaently he did not address this point specifically in his reply to Steve.

Having searched further in my own collection, I now fear that I don't actually have DARK EIDOLON No 3, so I can't cast any further light on this. Does anyone else on the forum have this issue of ED? I must now try and track down a copy of it to complete my run!

Leigh Blackmore

More to the point, Carter had maps in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Does a map of Averoigne by Carter exist?

Anyone know anything about this? [www.amazon.co.uk]

Looks kinda unofficial to me, but glancing at the contents, possibly fairly comprehensive.

The English Assassin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone know anything about this?
> [www.amazon.co.uk]
> on-Smith/dp/1481086170/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1356
> 044795&sr=8-6



Interesting. I tried to poke Necronomicon Press into doing an Averoigne volume, to follow up their earlier context volumes with Smith, but they don't seem to be interested.

interesting indeed.
i agree with Kygatin, i wish Necronomicon Press would have finished the collection and added a Poseidonis and a Averoigne volume. Or at least digital copies by now. A reprinting of those works would be nice though.

As for the content list i'm quite interested, though i dislike how intrusive Carter was with the editing in the publications, i'm still curious.

i just uploaded an epub i made putting together the Zothique stories, and i might plan on eventually doing one for each of the other three series.

i might even do a few for lovecraft since i cant seem to find any decent collections of his work, like the two necronomicon press books on hyperborea and zothique, the del rey books on conan.

i'd say most if not all the del rey collections on robert e howards series are good, and i wish there were counterparts to C A Smith's and H P Lovecraft's work.

oh well, i might be getting out of subject, sorry about derailing there!

I really love those Necronomicon Press paperback books Tales of Zothique and Book of Hyperborea. I'm not sure what it is, there's just something magic about them. A wonderful format of framework series books. The sans serif font in Book of Hyperborea was perhaps not entirely successful, but that's minor; its blue cover is like the deep ice of a glacier up in the Arctic.

As an east coast small publisher, Necronomicon Press captured a successful atmosphere through the right spirit. And they have had happy association with the great Jason C. Eckhardt.

It would have been nice to see Averoigne too. Especially since no other publisher has done it.

I understand that Necronomicon Press unfortunately have had publishing difficulties over recent years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 22 Dec 12 | 07:31AM by Knygatin.

I realize that I am a year late in responding to Leigh's post, above. I typically reread my Smith once a year and then usually (but not always) check this forum to see what's current. Thank you, Leigh, for searching through your own collection for the information that Robert M. Price had published. It's good to rule out some possibilities if nothing else. I looked online to purchase the elusive copy of Dark Eidolon #3, but couldn't find it for sale. I had hoped that someone reading this forum might have a copy and post the information about Carter's plans, but apparently that's not the case, either. I did not feel comfortable pushing Mr. Price further at the time of our correspondence, although I hasten to add that he was very accommodating for someone who seemed to me to be a very busy man.

I realize that this is a little bit strange, hoping to review Lin Carter's notes on a proposed but never completed volume from so many years ago. Carter's Smith books were my introduction to CAS, so there is still a kind of glamour there. I hope someday to see the information shared, here or somewhere - and in the meantime, I also still hope for a real Averoigne collection to be published somewhere, by someone.

According to THE DARK EIDOLON, pp. 12-14, Carter planned several more collections. Without Price's permission, I do not feel comfortable giving full details here; therefore I will only list the title and planned publication dates for them, along with the full request contents for AVEROIGNE.

KALOOD (1975)

YDMOS (1976)

AVEROIGNE (1977) contents would have been:
"The Maker of Gargoyles"
"The Holiness of Averoigne"
"The Colossus of Ylourgne"
"The Beast of Averoigne"
"The Mandrakes"
"The Disinterment of Venus"
"The Satyr"
"The End of the Story"
"A Rendezvous in Averoigne"
"Mother of Toads"
"The Enchantress of Sylaire"
Pages from "The Black Book" and Notes for Unwritten Stories

SADASTOR (1978)
MALNEANT (No date)

Hi, Jim, and thanks for sharing the above. I believe this information corroborates an earlier post somewhere, perhaps even one shared on this forum. It brings up some interesting questions.

Why would Carter delay such a strong book as Averoigne for collections that might be a bit more piece-meal? I know that I have a bias toward the Averoigne stories, but I have to imagine that Kalood or Ydmos simply would not have been as strong. They would have been more like Carter's edition of Poseidonis than his Zothinque or Hyperborea.

Also, what pages from the Black Book and which notes? Would they have simply been attached as an appendix? Given Carter's other editorial shaping of Smith's work, I bet they would have been interspersed throughout the book. I wonder if that information is given in Carter's plans.

Were there really enough stories to make a book titled Malneant? I imagine Carter is reaching here. It may be that he had no real plans for such a book. Perhaps he was considering his own "collaborations" to sound out the proposed volume.

Jim, I wonder if you might reconsider and share more from THE DARK EIDOLON, since you have it in your possession and the rest of us don't. Without being too bothersome about this, I'd like to address the reservation you share. Mr. Price, in our correspondence, did not treat the information as reserved or proprietary. He simply told me that his own copies were buried in boxes of papers and he didn't have the time or inclination to search it out. In fact, he urged me to use forums like this to obtain back copies of the fanzines or the information inside them.

As a general publication - not to put too fine a point on it - THE DARK EIDOLON was intended for public distribution, not meant to remain some kind of private resource. It would be no breach of copyright (or even manners, I think) to share the other details. Legally, I believe this would fall under academic use, although I am a teacher and not a lawyer. And mostly, as by now is obvious, I am a fan who would simply like to know more, if that is possible!