A Rendezvous in Averoigne

From the vampire-cursed realm of medieval Averoigne to the time-ravaged spires of dying Zothique, the works of Clark Ashton Smith comprise a unique and imperishable legacy. A major pillar of Arkham house since 1942, Smith was a member of the Weird Tales triumvirate, including H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, who created a non-legendary golden age of American dark fantasy during the 1930s. Of these three authors, Clark Ashton Smith was the master literary sorcerer, presiding over a vast verbal apothecarium of piquant savors and precipitates. The author once defined fantastic literature as being “akin to sublime and exalted poetry, in its evocation of tremendous, non-anthropomorphic imageries,” and the stories collected herein seem to defy the capacity of the English language to render sonorous rhythms, subtle shades and nuances of meaning, awesome conjurations of exoticism and mystery. In employing his prismatic prose to erect edifices of wonder, Smith became a seminal figur