An artist, poet, and prolific contributor to Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1967) is an influential figure in the history of pulp fiction. A close correspondent and collaborator with H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith was widely celebrated as a master by his contemporaries. Back in print for the first time since 1971, Out of Space and Time showcases the many facets of Smith's unique prose that make him one of the greatest American writers of macabre and fantastic tales.

 

Here are tales of Averoigne, tales belonging to the Cthulhu, stories of sheer horror, and one or two of sardonic comedy. Jeff VanderMeer provides an introduction for this Bison Books edition.

Jeff VanderMeer is a two-time World Fantasy Award winner whose books of fiction and edited anthologies have been finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award and the International Horror Guild Award.

“Jeff VanderMeer, who introduces the Nebraska reprints of Smith’s first two major collections of stories, admits to a love-hate relationship with the writer, largely because of his overlush and ‘hyperelevated’ style. And yet without it, Smith couldn’t create the dark beauty and alluring otherness of his best work. If you’ve never read Clark Ashton Smith before, start with either the collection A Rendezvous in Averoigne or the reissues of Out of Space and Time and Lost Worlds.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

"He had a monstrously vivid imagination, a keenly ironic sense of humor, and an uninhibited bent for the macabre. Weird-heroic fantasy is not a large genre, but Smith was a giant in this field."—L. Sprague de Camp

"Incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures. . . . Take one step across the threshold of his stories and you plunge into color, sound, taste, smell and texture: into language."—Ray Bradbury