Lost Worlds: Issue One

Contains:

"The Face by the River" by Clark Ashton Smith. One of two previously unpublished CAS stories that were rediscovered in 2003 (the other being Red World of Polaris). This is the first appearance of this long-thought lost story anywhere.
Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), despite minimal formal schooling, achieved early recognition (largely through the advocacy of George Sterling) for his fin de siecle traditional verse. Smith's inclusion in the September 1928 issue of Weird Tales encouraged a short story career and he rapidly became one of the great legends in American popular short fiction until he virtually stopped writing stories in 1937. In addition to his distinguished verse and prose, the author created fantastic paintings, drawings, and sculptures, now much sought after by collectors.

"Eblis in Bakelite" by James Blish. A reprint of Blish's 1945 critical essay concerning the belief that Smith consciously allowed influences to taint his own work.
James Blish (1921-1975), while best known as an author of seminal science fiction novels (A Case of Conscience, Cities in Flight, Black Easter, The Day After Judgment), was also a scholar of classical literature, scientist (degree in biology), musicologist, historical novelist (Dr. Mirabilis), playwright, critic and poet. During the decade when he was at the top of his creative form, roughly from 1949 to 1959, Blish produced a remarkable body of work which contributed a great deal to the definition of American magazine science fiction.

"James Blish versus Ashton Smith: to Wit, the Young Turk Syndrome, a riposte" by Donald Sidney-Fryer. A response to Blish's "Eblis in Bakelite".
Poet and performing artist Donald Sidney-Fryer is the last in the great line of Californian Romantics (Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, Nora May French, and Clark Ashton Smith). A pupil of Smith's, Sidney-Fryer carries on the tradition of "pure poetry" long after it was abandoned by the mainstream poetry establishment. During his long career, Sidney-Fryer has edited Clark Ashton Smith's Selected Poems as well as Smith's story collections "Other Dimensions", "The City of the Singing Flame", "The Monster of the Prophecy" and "The Last Incantation". Sidney-Fryer also assembled the mordant horror and fantasy poetry of Ambrose Bierce under the title "A Vision of Doom". His own first collection of verse, "Songs and Sonnets Atlantean", was the final book to appear from Arkham House under the personal supervision of that press's founder, August Derleth.

"The Poetics of Morbidity: The Original Text to Clark Ashton Smith's The Maze of Maal Dweb and Other Works First Published in The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies" by Jim Rockhill. As the title indicates, this is an informative essay (expanded from an on-line version for The Weird Review) concerning how the richer unedited versions of CAS tales need to supercede the standard editions.
Besides being a supporter of the Robert Aickman: An Appreciation website, Jim Rockhill is also one of the major contributors worth watching for on alt.books.ghost-fiction. At last count, he had nine and one-half articles online at The Weird Review and he has recently seen some of his work in print.

"Who Discovered Clark Ashton Smith?" by Scott Connors. A scholarly attempt to end the eternal CAS question.
Scott Connors, editor of Lost Worlds, recently co-edited the Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith (Arkham House), CAS' Red World of Polaris (Night Shade Books), and has a biography of Smith forthcoming from Arkham House. In addition to writing numerous articles for magazines like the New York Review of Science Fiction and Publisher's Weekly, Connors is also the long-time editor of Continuity.

"Reviews" include CAS' A Rendezvous in Averoigne and The Emperor of Dreams by Ronald S. Hilger as well as Donald Sidney-Fryer's Songs and Sonnets Atlantean by Philippe Gindre.

Perfect Bound softcover chapbook