CAS In Penguin Classics!

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but I just came across some very exciting news in S.T. Joshi's latest blog post (http://www.stjoshi.org/news.html). To wit:

I am now prepared to make a momentous announcement: I have at last been given the go-ahead to compile a volume of Clark Ashton Smith’s writings for Penguin Classics. This book was long in the making, and I suppose my persistence paid off. It could appear as early as next year. The editors want a roughly 80/20 split between prose fiction and poetry, recognising (alas) that poetry does not sell. I had wanted a somewhat higher proportion of poetry, but that’s a small point. I have already consulted with Scott Connors (who has forgotten more about Smith than I ever knew) on a list of the stories to be included; there will also be a substantial section of prose-poems, where Smith also did outstanding work. Whatever the actual contents, it will be a landmark in the recognition of Clark Ashton Smith as a significant American author.

Hurray!

I probably won't buy it - between the Collected Fantasies and Poems in Prose I presumably already own the bulk of the contents - but it's always nice seeing CAS getting some attention.

Surprised I am just now seeing this - Scott Connors posted the following on The Eldritch Dark's Forum back in January (http://www.eldritchdark.com/forum/read.php?1,9173,page=1):

Today, on this 120th anniversary of the nativity of Clark Ashton Smith, I spoke with S. T. Joshi about CAS' forthcoming induction into the Penguin Modern Classics (tenativel scheduled for early 2014): THE DARK EIDOLON AND OTHER FANTASIES. A mixture of prose poems, fiction, and poetry, the collection include the following sample of Smith's fiction:
Sadastor
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros
The City of the Singing Flame
The Holiness of Azédarac
The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis
The Demon of the Flower
The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan
Ubbo-Sathla
The Double Shadow
The Disinterment of Venus
The Beast of Averoigne
The Maze of the Enchanter
Genius Loci
The Dark Eidolon
The Weaver in the Vault
The Death of Malygris
The Seven Geases
Xeethra
The Last Hieroglyph
The Treader of the Dust
Phoenix

Along with most of the prose poems and a hefty sampling of poetry from all periods of his career (but not, alas, including "The Hashish-Eater," whose length would have meant eliminating too many other fine pieces), this book should ensure CAS' place in the canon.

What do you all think of the choice of stories? If you feel we left out one of your favorites, please share why it should be included. Some popular stories were omitted. For instance, both "The Return of the Sorcerer" and "The Seed from the Sepulchre" are often anthologised. However, in the former CAS is trying to out-Lovecraft Lovecraft and his style is less poetic and more hysterical (in both senses of the word), while the former is a near-copy of "Yoh-Vombis" in all but setting (and besides, we have "The Demon of the Flower" covering Smith's fascination with vegetables that will eat you if you don't eat them first.:) ) Come on, share your thoughts!

Nice to see the inclusion of "Xeethra", which is my all-time favorite CAS story. 8)

I would have liked to see "The Uncharted Isle" even though it is Smith's takeoff on Poe's "MS. Found in a Bottle". I love its final sentence: "But often in my dreams, I see again the incognizably distorted stars, and share the confusion and bafflement of a lost people, as they pore above their useless charts, and take the altitude of a deviated sun."

>4 RandyStafford:

With a body of work as rich and multifaceted as Smith's, it is probably inevitable that they were going to have to leave some very good stories of his out of a one-volume collection of his work, particularly one that includes some of his poetry and most(!) of his prose poems. With some luck, this collection will be a hit and Penguin will put out additional Smith volumes as they did with Lovecraft and M.R. James.

>5 artturnerjr: Agreed. It's a wonderous thing to see CAS make his way into the Penguin Classics "canon", a place where a lot of curious readers go to read an old author and a sometime source of assigned readers.

Penguin has decided that they do want to include "The Hashish-Eater"!! Alas, this means that a story or two will be dropped from ye Contents. I am so excited about this book that I have started discussions concerning it on Amazon, as I think the book will serve as an excellent introduction to Smith's work to those who have not read him. The cover illustration for the book will also be a painting by Smith, I think it's called "The Spy." My hope is that the book will be a wild success and lead to other publishers becoming interested in bringing out CAS volumes.

> 7

As I've got all the Night Shade Books collected fantasies, increasing the ratio of poetry to stories in the Penguin edition makes it more appealing to me (although I would have bought it anyway, for the introduction and notes and to show solidarity).

>7 wilum:

Greetings, Wilum! It's an honor to have you post here on the WT. Good to hear that a painting by CAS will adorn the Penguin cover. Why not an entire volume of Smith's prose/poetry featuring his artwork in various media? Has this been attempted before?

>8 housefulofpaper:

As I have the NSB CAS volumes, too, I definitely agree!

>7 wilum:

Hey, Wilum! Great to see you here! :)

Good news about The Hashish Eater; it's really his magnum opus and very much deserves to be included.

I forgot my password so I began a new account as this. I went on a road trip with S. T. last week-end, and he hopes that none of the projected tales need be dropped from the edition to make room for "The Hashish-Eater." I have a passion for Penguin Classics (I have my favourites of HPL, Wilde, Poe, M. R. James and The Book of Mormon on a shelf here on my desk, and can't wait to add the CAS collection!), so I am overjoy'd about this forthcoming edition. Smith's poetry & prose bewitch me. I have long wanted to write a book of tales inspir'd by his work, but I am finding that a very difficult project to get into--I doubt I have what it takes to write such a book. Very happy to be here, my ducks. I hope to be fairly active, now that writing fiction hath become so difficult in these, my antique years.

>11 whpugmire:

Thanks for mentioning the M.R. James Penguin edition, Wilum. I see that it is actually two volumes, which are now on my Amazon short list. This thread has me re-thinking the necessity of having the Penguin books in my library.

Pre-ordered my copy on Amazon earlier this week:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143107380/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&a...

>11 whpugmire:

I have a passion for Penguin Classics (I have my favourites of HPL, Wilde, Poe, M. R. James and The Book of Mormon on a shelf here on my desk, and can't wait to add the CAS collection!), so I am overjoy'd about this forthcoming edition.

I'm a big Penguin Classics fan, too; they and Library of America are probably my two favorite publishers. I'm getting ready to re-organize my library pretty soon - am seriously thinking about dedicating a shelf to all the PC editions I have accumulated over the years. 8)

There's a PC edition of The Book of Mormon? Fascinating. I had no idea.

I got the book yesterday. I have it on pre-order at Amazon, but babies I COULD NOT WAIT, knowing that S. T. already had copies. I drove like a madman to his pad, cursing freeway traffic, and then stay'd just long enough to have him sign ye book and chat a little. I have now read the excellent Introduction and ye first three tales. The Introduction is lengthy and informed, and gives real attention to Smith's link with Lovecraft. It's interesting that Smith's friendship with Lovecraft, as well as needing to earn money so to help with the care of his aging parents, impelled Smith to begin writing weird fiction; and then, after Lovecraft died (in the same year that Smith's father died), Smith almost entirely lost interest in writing fiction.

The book's opening story is a Mythos tale (complete with menacing tentacle!), "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros," and in the notes for the story at the back of the book there is a passage from a letter by Lovecraft concerning his delight in the story. The note for the second story includes a passage from a letter that CAS wrote to Donald Wandrei. This is fascinating stuff, fun to read, and shewing the close connection of the Weird Tales/Lovecraft Circle. Ooooo, I love me this book!

>14 wilum:

Good for you, Wilum! I won't get mine until next week, at the earliest; will have to wait patiently (and conceal my jealousy lol) until then. :)

Amazon UK says I have to wait until August.

Mind you, late summer/early autumn probably not a bad time to read CAS.

I am baffled as to why it isn't available at Amazon UK until August! I wonder if, in Britain, one can order it now from the Penguin site itself.

> 17

The workings of the Corporate mind are unfathomable! And the Penguin UK site says that the book will be published in August.

You could always just order it from Amazon US.

From S.T. Joshi's latest blog post (http://www.stjoshi.org/news.html):

I am pleased to announce that my Penguin Classics edition of Clark Ashton Smith, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, is now out. It is a splendid-looking book with a lovely Smith painting on the cover, and containing a wide selection of Smith’s fiction, prose-poems, and poetry. I have a number of copies for sale. I can offer it for $15 per copy on the usual terms.

> 19,20

I'm actually quite attracted to the idea of being able to buy this volume in an ordinary bookshop.

As an aside, the Digby Rumsey mentioned in S T Joshi's blog must be the director behind three short Dunsany adaptations in the 70s and early 80s.

I've written a wee review of the book at Amazon, and urge ye who have read it to do likewise, so that we can shew real support and perhaps persuade Penguin to ask for a second volume. Too, there is an anti-Joshi troll at Amazon who has been bad-mouthing the book (before its publication!) and urging people not to buy it in the Clark Ashton Smith Forum discussions there, so we need to counter such pernicious idiot troll behavior.

Got a text message from Amazon this morning - my copy has shipped - should be here by Saturday. 8)

>22 wilum:

I will certainly be writing my own review as soon as I have my copy and have had a chance to read it.

Here's a link to Wilum's review:

http://www.amazon.com/review/RMBQFP68F6MVA/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=01...

>22 wilum:

Thumbs-upped your review, Wilum. Then I ordered the book.

S. T. came over last night with the 300 signature sheets he and Jason and I had to sign for the deluxe edition of BLACK WINGS III, and after we did that (it's so exhausting! S. T. signs so quickly, trying to keep up with him is like following him on one of his Lovecraft tours in Providence--you end up weak and out of breath....) we recorded some YouTube videos. In the first, S. T. spoke of the book and then he read Smith's poem in memory of H. P. Lovecraft; & S. T. got so emotional during that incredible reading that he began to weep! BUT--woe o woe--just as we were finishing that first video we LOST OUR INTERNET CONNECTION! YouTube wouldn't let us retrieve what we had recorded and the video was lost! We are going to try again on the morning we drive out to Portland for the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival. I hope some of you will post your own reviews of the Penguin CAS book at Amazon, and I am especially interested in reviews of the Kindle edition, as sometimes, I have the feeling, these Kindle editions get messed-up.

note: just got an email from S. T. that he doesn't want to wait until April 11 to record a video for the Penguin CAS and plans on coming over within ye next few days to do so. Rad!

Got my copy today (two days early - hurray!). 8)

If you're curious, the final table of contents (which differs somewhat from the one I posted in #3) can be viewed by going to the page for the Amazon Kindle Edition (http://amzn.com/B00DQV6QQW) and clicking on the image of the book's cover.

Received the book a couple of days ago. My plan was to read S.T.'s intro and then pull it down for the occasional Deep Ones read, etc., but I got hooked and decided to read the entire thing instead. Can't wait to get to the poetry, which I am mostly unfamiliar with. My set of CAS from Night Shade looks good on the shelf, but these Penguin editions simply demand to be read!

I had the same reaction. I simply had to sit down and begin reading it immediately. I had to hold it in my hands and reassure myself that it was in fact not an illusion--it was real, a freaking PENGUIN CLASSICS CLARK ASHTON SMITH. S. T. came over and we recorded a long video on just my computer, without doing it directly on YouTube. It ran a little over 16 minutes, but when I clicked on the YouTube link to send the video there, I got a message that videos had to be UNDER FIFTEEN MINUTES to be sent to YouTube. So we decided to film another shorter video directly on YouTube, and I stayed out of that one, so that it could be a totally professional-looking video of the editor reading the book without ye lingering phantom of some punk transvestite freak. Now that I see it, I wish I had brought up a screen so as to hide my kitchen in the background. Both videos are now up at YouTube and I think they're pretty rad!

>28 wilum:

Thanks for sharing the "S. T. Joshi reads..." video on your blog, Wilum, it's a gem. The link follows. Future WT denizens, see the March 30, 2014 entry:

http://lovecraftianhorror.blogspot.com/

>27 gwendetenebre: & 28

Just sitting here smiling and nodding my head in agreement. 8)

ETA: Took a moment to check out Wilum's vid last night. It is indeed quite moving and I encourage all my fellow WT members to take a moment to check it out.

I'm in Philadelphia this weekend. This is the only book I brought with me and I'm having a blast continuing to pick through it. Even stories I read not too long ago are a pleasure to re-read. S.T. really came up with a nice selection for the ToC. I'm not quite at the poetry yet, but it's interesting to note how many of the stories have really downbeat endings. Yum.

>31 gwendetenebre:

I'm still working on my copy as well, and am coincidentally at about the same spot that you are (specifically, I'm about halfway through the story "Xeethra"). Definitely pretty bleak; CAS seems to be saying to all future pretenders to the throne, "Dark fantasy? I gothcher dark fantasy right here!" :D

My review is done.

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R32BH2TUEWH1IE/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

LT link:

http://www.librarything.com/work/14340042/reviews/103855363