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 now-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 figure in the fictional presentation of alien cultures and influenced an entire generation of younger fantasists, including Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, and of course, Jack Vance.

Return now to the realms of Clark Ashton Smith, where the sciences have been forgotten and the necromantic arts reborn, where decadent kings and malefic wizards stride through the ruins of a dim-lit landscape, where under the blackened moon and paling sun, the world grows old...

Introduction by Ray Bradbury.

Contents:

• Introduction (by Ray Bradbury)
• Averoigne
  • The Holines of Azédarac
  • The Colossus of Ylourgne
  • The End of the Story
  • A Rendezvous in Averoigne
• Atlantis
  • The Last Incantation
  • The Death of Malygris
  • A Voyage to Sfanomoë
• Hyperborea
  • The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan
  • The Seven Geases
  • The Tale of Satampra Zeiros
  • The Coming of the White Worm
• Lost Worlds
  • The City of the Singing Flame
  • The Dweller in the Gulf
  • The Chain of Aforgomon
  • Genius Loci
  • The Maze of Maal Dweb
  • The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis
  • The Uncharted Isle
  • The Planet of the Dead
  • Master of the Asteroid
• Zothique
  • The Empire of the Necromancers
  • The Charnel God
  • Xeethra
  • The Dark Eidolon
  • The Death of Ilalotha
  • The Last Hieroglyph
  • Necromancy in Naat
  • The Garden of Adompha
  • The Isle of the Torturers
  • Morthylla