Hello. I was curious if there were any good collections of Smith's "Weird Fiction" stories? It seems like they are all over the place. I discovered a 5 volumes series called "The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith" but vol 1 is out of print and expensive. I do not have a kindle and want physical books rather than e ones.

Yes, it can be overwhelming to choose a collection of the many that there are. "The Collected Fantasies Of Clark Ashton Smith" is excellent. It is a 6 volume series that prints the stories as Smith intended, making that series the definitive versions of Clark Ashton Smith's work. It's unfortunate that Volumes 1 and 2 (I missed out on them too) are out of print and expensive, and it seems that Night Shade Books has no plan to reissue them.

However, I'd still recommend the other volumes (still individually affordable) in that series or The Return Of The Sorcerer a collection of 18 stories published in 2009 by Prime Books and that is still very affordable. This book was my personal introduction to Smith's fiction and it has a great story selection and cover art work. Its only drawback is that the texts of the stories were not prepared from Smith's manuscripts, but from the first magazine and book publications of the stories.

In March or April of 2014, Penguin Classics is going to be publishing a new collection of Smith's work (fiction and poetry) which will be affordable, easy to find, the texts will be based on Smith's manuscripts, and even the cover art will be one of his paintings. I'm most looking forward to this one. It will be entitled: The Dark Eidolon And Other Fantasies.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 5 Oct 13 | 01:17PM by Too_Many_Elevens.

May I recommend The Emperor of Dreams? It was published by Gollancz in 2002 as part of the Fantasy Masterworks series and contains a more extensive and -- in my view -- more enjoyable selection than The Return of the Sorcerer, which I honestly cannot imagine being like anyone's idea of a "Best of". But to each his own, of course.

Barnes and Nobles put out a large collection of Smith's work (about 133 stories :) )which you might want to check out as it is fairly inexpensive. In a sense, this publication also lifts CAS up in literary recognition being recognized by a very mainstream publisher whose market isn't confinded to the select fandom.

I do not recall seeing or hearing of this Barnes and Noble collection. What is its name, Frederick?

It is entitled "The Ultimate Werid Tales Collection" and technally is published by the Trilogus Media Group, but sold by Barnes and Noble.

Thank you, Frederick. This is only available as a Nook Book isn't it?

No, it's available at Amazon for Kindle. I have it.

Amazon seems to have pulled it. I suspect it was not a legitimate edition. Same thing happened with Clive Barker's Books of Blood recently.

It's still on my devices. I guess they didn't remove it after the fiasco they had with removing an unauthorized edition of 1984 from customers after they'd purchased it.

Sorry for the late reply. I will look into some of the suggestions, thanks. I recently obtained the Lovecraft Complete Fictions sold by B&N. Between liking what I have read of Smith and being interested in seeing the references he and Lovecraft made to each others' material, I look forward to delving in.