Re: Clark Ashton Smith: A Critical Guide
Posted by:
jimrockhill2001 (IP Logged)
Date: 17 April, 2013 07:46PM
My copy arrived today, and I must admit to being of two minds about it. Behrends is an extraordinarily sympathetic and perceptive reader of Smith, and this new edition incorporates additional chapters and appendices based on writings about Smith he was not able to incorporate into the first edition.
What I find dismaying, however, is this second edition's failure to acknowledge, let alone reflect upon or incorporate, any Smith scholarship printed subsequent to the first edition. The few items reprinted in the book or mentioned in the "Secondary Bibliography" with publication dates after 1985 were either reprints of material printed before that date or written/edited by Behrends himself.
I can understand overlooking some of the reviews published about Smith, some of the essays in print or on the internet, and possibly even the journal Scott Connors edited; but Behrends also fails to mention any of the prose, verse, or critical volumes printed by Hippocampus Press, the collected stories from Night Shade, and the SELECTED LETTERS from Arkham House.
It is impossible not to recommend the book to anyone who admires the work of Clark Ashton Smith, because Behrends is one of the best scholars and writers about Smith we have, and what he has to say about the man's work is both clearly written and unfailingly illuminating. Nonetheless, anyone who has followed or contributed to Smith studies will find the failure to so much as mention any of the work completed in the interim to go beyond mere oversight and border on insult.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 17 Apr 13 | 07:48PM by jimrockhill2001.