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118-534: Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith 's " The Empire of the Necromancers " ( 1932 ), had used lich as a general term for any corpse, animated or inanimate, before the term's specific use in fantasy role-playing games. The more recent use of the term lich for a specific type of undead creature originates from the 1976 Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game booklet Greyhawk , written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz . Often such

236-702: A Girl Dancing was published as a limited edition of 120 elegantly designed hardcover books by the Grabhorn Press, one of the most esteemed fine presses in America. That September Sterling accomplished an unusual literary feat: Charles Brennan, a defense attorney for movie star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle ’s rape and murder trial, hired Sterling to “prepare the epigrams for the speech of defense.” Alexander Robertson published Sterling’s newest collection of poems in December 1921: Sails and Mirage and Other Poems . Of

354-454: A banquet announcing his new organization. He wanted the event to rouse and enthuse his attendees. Henry Anderson Lafler and George Sterling were hired to write an inspiring musical play. At Bell’s banquet the night of April 7, 1913, their A Masque of the Cities was performed and by all accounts was a success. Newspapers gave glowing reviews. Four papers printed the play. A Masque of the Cities

472-492: A book version into print in December, in time for the Exposition’s last few days. The Evanescent City sold out its 4,000-copy first printing as well as a 1,000-copy second printing, one of the two best-selling volumes Sterling ever wrote. With Sterling focusing in 1915 on his Californian successes, he sold poems to only nine national magazines that year. Sterling’s fifth collection of poetry, The Caged Eagle and Other Poems ,

590-743: A boulder to the immediate west of where his childhood home (destroyed by fire in 1957) stood; some were also scattered in a stand of blue oaks near the boulder. There was no marker. Plaques recognizing Smith have been erected at the Auburn Placer County Library in 1985 and in Bicentennial Park in Auburn in 2003. Bookseller Roy A. Squires was appointed Smith's "west coast executor", with Jack L. Chalker as his "east coast executor". Squires published many letterpress editions of individual Smith poems. Smith's literary estate

708-536: A burst of productivity from Sterling. His poems appeared in national publications American Magazine , Bookman , Century , Current Opinion , Everybody’s Magazine , Harper’s Monthly , Hearst’s International , North American Review , Saturday Evening Post , and other magazines, and were reprinted by the Washington Post and other newspapers across the country. In 1912 a nationwide contest had been announced, offering large cash prizes for what judges chose as

826-743: A buyer to Sterling; the two men would be frequent pen pals, they would visit in person in New York and San Francisco, and Mencken would be indirectly involved in Sterling’s suicide. Harmon Bell, the founding president of the Oakland Commercial Club, conceived of a joint task force linking all industries and city governments around the entire San Francisco Bay to attract businesses to the Bay Area. Bell persuaded 400 leading businessmen and politicians from all major Bay Area cities to gather at

944-642: A coronary attack. Aged 61, he married Carol(yn) Jones Dorman on November 10, 1954. Dorman had much experience in Hollywood and radio public relations. After honeymooning at the Smith cabin, they moved to Pacific Grove, California , where he set up a household including her three children from a previous marriage. For several years he alternated between the house on Indian Ridge and their house in Pacific Grove. Smith having sold most of his father's tract, in 1957

1062-518: A creature is the result of a willful transformation, as a powerful wizard skilled in necromancy who seeks eternal life uses rare substances in a magical ritual to become undead. Unlike zombies , which are often depicted as mindless, liches are sapient revenants , retaining their previous intelligence and magical abilities. Liches are often depicted as holding power over lesser mindless undead soldiers and servants. A lich's most often depicted distinguishing feature from other undead in fantasy fiction

1180-402: A day.” In American Literature , professor Robert G. Berkelman called it “one of Sterling’s most enduring achievements and certainly among the memorable sonnets in our literature.” After the poem’s first book publication in 1911, reprints of “The Black Vulture” in newspapers, magazines, and books have kept it almost continually in print for more than a hundred years. The years 1912 and 1913 saw

1298-425: A dead friend’s passing and the absence or presence of an afterlife. It was Sterling’s first appearance in print. For the next thirteen years Bierce continued to review and comment on Sterling’s poems, teaching his protégé poetic skills and shaping his artistic preferences. Between 1897 and 1901, Sterling wrote many poems but, usually dissatisfied, let only a handful become published. On April 11, 1901, Sterling mailed

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1416-487: A decade. In his later youth, Smith met Sterling through a member of the local Auburn Monday Night Club, where Smith read several of his poems with considerable success. On a month-long visit to Sterling in Carmel, California , Smith was introduced by Sterling to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire . He became Sterling's protégé and Sterling helped him to publish his first volume of poems, The Star-Treader and Other Poems , at

1534-411: A few friends in New York, but did not sell many poems or stories. On May 30, he moved to Sag Harbor, New York for the summer, writing either a thousand words of fiction or a complete poem every morning and swimming most afternoons. Writer James Hopper lined Sterling up with a literary agent to sell his fiction. While Sterling visited Sag Harbor, Alexander Robertson published his newest book, Beyond

1652-413: A hundred changes to the texts of the poems. Many were modernizations; he changed “thy” to ”your,” “thine” to “yours,” “thou art” to “you are,” and “hath” to “had” or “has.” Critic Harriet Monroe had complained Sterling’s use of “deems” was “the frippery of a by-gone fashion.” Sterling now replaced “deems” with “thinks” or “dreams.” These changes echo the contemporary vocabulary of Sterling’s new poems, and

1770-431: A hundred short stories between 1929 and 1934, nearly all of which can be classed as weird horror or science fiction. Like Lovecraft, he drew upon the nightmares that had plagued him during youthful spells of sickness. Brian Stableford has written that the stories written during this brief phase of hectic productivity "constitute one of the most remarkable oeuvres in imaginative literature". He published at his own expense

1888-614: A long poem about Yosemite National Park and sold it to the San Francisco Call and Post . In October, Alexander Robertson published Yosemite: An Ode as a book. That month Sterling wrote his second poem about the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. This time he described the beauty of the fair’s buildings at sunset and reflected how such temporary glory will quickly fade. Sunset magazine printed his poem. Alexander Robertson rushed

2006-532: A long poem depicting the galaxies and stars of “the stellar universe at strife, when to the eye it is a symbol of such peace and changelessness … It surely is a war if the cosmic processes are viewed as a whole.” The long poem, “ The Testimony of the Suns ,” is a lengthy astronomical poem that combines elements of science, fantasy, science fiction, and philosophy. Literary historian S. T. Joshi called it Sterling’s “longest poem and one of his greatest.” The unusual poem

2124-654: A major role in the growth of the California cities of Oakland, Piedmont, and Carmel-by-the-Sea. During George Sterling’s thirty-year career as a writer, he wrote songs, plays, movies, short stories, essays, and more than a thousand poems. His works were published in nearly all American literary magazines, in more than a hundred newspapers, in anthologies, and in his own books. He earned several literary awards. Although some critics of his time dismissed Sterling’s poems (In Freeman magazine, poet John Gould Fletcher called him “a versifier lavishing his craft on subjects beneath

2242-503: A member of a "Smith" circle as Smith was a member of a Lovecraft one. In 1920 Smith composed a celebrated long poem in blank verse , The Hashish Eater, or The Apocalypse of Evil , published in Ebony and Crystal (1922). This was followed by a fan letter from H. P. Lovecraft , which was the beginning of 15 years of friendship and correspondence. With studied playfulness, Smith and Lovecraft borrowed each other's coinages of place names and

2360-508: A new book, The Binding of the Beast and Other War Verse . It was published in time for Christmas 1917. Sterling warned Clark Ashton Smith: “My little book of war-verse is out … it’s verse and not poetry.” At the end of 1917, Sterling’s poem “The Glass of Time,” about reflections in a lake at Jack London ’s Beauty Ranch, was chosen one of the best poems of the year. Back in 1916, Bohemian Club managers had told Sterling they wanted him to write

2478-454: A new poem titled “Memorial Day, 1901” to Bierce for criticism. His mentor responded, “It is great—great!—the loftiest note that you have struck and held .” Bierce arranged for the Washington Post to publish the poem and wrote a preface explaining that though Sterling was a new poet, “he has written a considerable body of verse. Not all of it has the strength, fire, and elevation of the remarkable poem printed here, but none has been delinquent in

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2596-458: A project for movie star Douglas Fairbanks , who produced his own movies. In those days movies were silent, so words spoken by characters were conveyed to audiences by titles on the screen. Fairbanks was producing and starring in the spectacular action-fantasy The Thief of Bagdad , and wanted Sterling to write more than 200 titles for the three-hour film. “I get $ 25. a day [about $ 750 a day in today’s dollars] and my fare to and from S.F. Not bad for

2714-499: A pulp fiction “rag.” The series title was Babes in the Wood . It was the only longer piece of fiction by Sterling ever published. At the end of 1913, critic William Stanley Braithwaite named Sterling’s “Night Sentries” one of the best poems of the year. Because Carrie Sterling divorced him, Sterling left Carmel, California on April 13, 1914 and moved to New York City. He hoped to sell poems and stories to New York publishers. He met

2832-467: A self-directed course of literature, including Robinson Crusoe , Gulliver's Travels , the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and Madame d'Aulnoy , the Arabian Nights and the poems of Edgar Allan Poe . He read an unabridged dictionary word for word, studying not only the definitions of the words but also their etymology . The other main course in Smith's self-education was to read

2950-573: A series of six stories as they grew into a young man and woman. “Their adventures are more interesting and better told than [Edgar Rice] Burroughs , and more believable, too. All are good,” proclaimed Fantasy Commentator . Sterling spiced paragraphs with the rhythms and vividness of verse: “Then silence leaped in upon sound like water above a cast pebble, and the forest resumed its dream.” He finished his six stories and mailed his prehistoric series to magazine publishers. Most turned down his cavekids tales. Sterling could sell them only to Popular Magazine ,

3068-517: A short period of time: Robert E. Howard 's death by suicide (1936), Lovecraft's death from cancer (1937) and the deaths of his parents, which left him exhausted. As a result, he withdrew from the scene, marking the end of Weird Tales ' s Golden Age . He began sculpting and resumed the writing of poetry. However, Smith was visited by many writers at his cabin, including Fritz Leiber , Rah Hoffman , Francis T. Laney and others. In 1942, three years after August Derleth founded Arkham House for

3186-511: A songbook Songs by George Sterling had music by Lawrence Zenda. Zenda was the pen name of Mrs. Rosaliene Reed Travis, one of Sterling’s lovers. When Songs was published, Sterling was in Los Angeles working on a play. The Play of Everyman is his adaptation of Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal 's German play Jedermann . Lavish productions of Sterling’s The Play of Everyman in 1917 and 1936 were acclaimed by critics and boosted

3304-470: A sort of incantation." Smith was born January 13, 1893, in Long Valley, Placer County, California , into a family of English and New England heritage. He spent most of his life in the small town of Auburn, California , living in a cabin built by his parents, Fanny and Timeus Smith. Smith professed to hate the town's provincialism but rarely left it until he married late in life. His formal education

3422-425: A true poet.” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse ran a one-sentence dismissal ending: “his talent has been overshadowed by latecomers.” By June 1923 Sterling was working on a third editing project: The Book Club of California recruited him to join poets Genevieve Taggard and James Rorty to collect an anthology of poems from California’s best living poets. Work on the anthology would occupy Sterling’s time for more than

3540-790: A vast variety of topics in different poetic styles that evolved throughout his writing career. At age 26, San Francisco business executive George Sterling became obsessed with a new passion. He wanted to write serious poetry inspired by his poetic heroes such as John Keats and Edgar Allan Poe . Sterling wrote his first poems after his February 1896 marriage. He knew eminent literary critic Ambrose Bierce and asked permission to send him poems for evaluation. Bierce replied: “Of course you may send me verses—a bellyful if you like.” Sterling mailed Bierce dozens of poems and Bierce replied with detailed, precise comments. Bierce appreciated one Sterling poem enough to include it in his February 21, 1897 San Francisco Examiner column. The poem, “Farewell,” reflected on

3658-614: A volume containing six of his best stories, The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies , in an edition of 1000 copies printed by the Auburn Journal . The theme of much of his work is egotism and its supernatural punishment; his weird fiction is generally macabre in subject matter, gloatingly preoccupied with images of death, decay and abnormality. Most of Smith's weird fiction falls into four series set variously in Hyperborea , Poseidonis , Averoigne and Zothique . Hyperborea, which

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3776-483: A writer. After five years writing practice poems, Sterling at age 31 determined to become a writer of serious, elevated verse. Sterling loved astronomy because “my dear dead father was greatly interested in it, and I’ve spent many hours on the house-top with him and his telescope.” He marveled at planets, stars, and galaxies—apparently resting in peace but actually slowly and endlessly colliding with and destroying each other. Sometime after December 16, 1901, Sterling began

3894-534: A year. Sterling wrote Truth , a verse drama telling a fantasy set in the imaginary medieval city of Vae, in 1921 and 1922. Chicago-based Bookfellows published Truth in 1923. Half a century later literary historian Thomas E. Benediktsson ranked Truth as “one of Sterling's finest works.” Sterling’s two poems “The Fog-Sea” and “The Young Witch – 1698” were both selected to appear in The Best Poems of 1923 . Sterling began 1924 in Hollywood, working on

4012-630: Is S. T. Joshi , David E. Schultz, and Scott Conners' Clark Ashton Smith: A Comprehensive Bibliography. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2020. The first Smith bibliography, which focused on his short fiction, was The Tales Of Clark Ashton Smith, published by Thomas G L Cockcroft in New Zealand in 1951. Scholars S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz are preparing various additional volumes of Smith's letters to such of his individual correspondents as Donald Wandrei and R. H. Barlow . George Sterling George Sterling (December 1, 1869 – November 17, 1926)

4130-454: Is a lost continent of the Miocene period, and Poseidonis, which is a remnant of Atlantis, are much the same, with a magical culture characterized by bizarreness, cruelty, death and postmortem horrors. Averoigne is Smith's version of pre-modern France, comparable to James Branch Cabell 's Poictesme. Zothique exists millions of years in the future. It is "the last continent of earth, when the sun

4248-642: Is dim and tarnished". These tales have been compared to the Dying Earth sequence of Jack Vance . In 1933 Smith began corresponding with Robert E. Howard , the Texan creator of Conan the Barbarian . From 1933 to 1936, Smith, Howard and Lovecraft were the leaders of the Weird Tales school of fiction and corresponded frequently, although they never met. The writer of oriental fantasies E. Hoffmann Price

4366-601: Is made significant by the unusual quality this large power has upon his nature. I seem to feel this subtle sense of largeness, it may be spirit or vision or dream, in all that Mr. Sterling writes.” Elsewhere in Boston, the Transcript ’s competitor the Boston Post was more matter-of-fact: “In The Caged Eagle and Other Poems , George Sterling, a deservedly well known California poet, is certain to gratify those who have had

4484-465: Is marked by an extraordinarily rich and ornate vocabulary, a cosmic perspective and a vein of sardonic and sometimes ribald humor. Of his writing style, Smith stated: "My own conscious ideal has been to delude the reader into accepting an impossibility, or series of impossibilities, by means of a sort of verbal black magic, in the achievement of which I make use of prose-rhythm, metaphor, simile, tone-color, counter-point, and other stylistic resources, like

4602-436: Is one of the choicest moments of the work.” Musical America ’s national competitor Musical Courier agreed “the play has much literary value. As to the dramatic side, it is in many passages splendid. … This is a deeply impressive prophetic drama.” The other national magazine for professional musicians, Musical Leader , concluded its review: “The sentiment expressed in the masque and its pictureful presentation made this one of

4720-407: Is particularly successful in the sonnet form and one has only to note ‘The Dust Dethroned’ (which fairly claims consideration with Shelley ’s ‘ Ozymandias ’) and ‘ The Black Vulture ’ to see how surely the poet handles this difficult form. His poems in regular forms often touch a real beauty, but the book taken as a whole fails really to stir the reader. Perhaps one reason for this is that Mr. Sterling

4838-441: Is rather out of touch with his time.” Outlook magazine disagreed: “It is poetry ‘in the grand manner,’ concerned with life and death and destiny and the mystery of the universe. … In profuse imagination and profound music George Sterling’s poetry is always richly endowed, and his followers will find in this volume poems that have won a place for themselves with these qualities.” The New York Evening Post decided: “he sings best of

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4956-581: Is represented by his stepson, Prof William Dorman, director of CASiana Literary Enterprises. Arkham House owns the copyright to many Smith stories, though some are now in the public domain. For 'posthumous collaborations' of Smith (stories completed by Lin Carter), see the entry on Lin Carter . While Smith was always an artist who worked in several very different media, it is possible to identify three distinct periods in which one form of art had precedence over

5074-434: Is the method of achieving immortality; liches give up their souls to form "soul-artifacts" (called a "soul gem" or " phylactery " in other fantasy works), the source of their magic and immortality. Many liches take precautions to hide and/or safeguard one or more soul-artifacts that anchor a part of a lich's soul to the material world. If the corporeal body of a lich is killed, that portion of the lich's soul that had remained in

5192-428: Is the only man known to have met all three in the flesh. Critic Steve Behrends has suggested that the frequent theme of 'loss' in Smith's fiction (many of his characters attempt to recapture a long-vanished youth, early love, or picturesque past) may reflect Smith's own feeling that his career had suffered a "fall from grace": Smith's late teens and early twenties had certainly been a heady period: he'd been taken under

5310-527: Is undoubtedly Sterling’s best poem.” On March 23, 1920, Sterling announced he had finished the first draft of a historical play, Rosamund . He finished the final draft on April 15, telling H. L. Mencken, “I’ve finished my dramatic poem, Rosamund . It contains one rape and four murders—quite Shakespearean.” Sterling found Princess Rosamund’s story in chapter 45 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons. In 567 A.D., Alboin , king of

5428-539: The Arabian Nights , like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the works of Edgar Allan Poe , are known to have strongly influenced Smith's early writing, as did William Beckford 's Vathek . When he was 15, Smith read George Sterling 's fantasy-horror poem " A Wine of Wizardry " in a national magazine (which he later described as "In the ruck of magazine verse it was like finding a fire-opal of

5546-595: The New York Evening Post Literary Review , then reprinted in the national magazine Literary Digest , (which said: “Sterling is California’s leading poet, and judged by this his leadership extends much wider”), next reprinted in another national magazine, and finally selected by an anthology editor as one of the best poems of the year. The Bookfellows, a Chicago-based national organization of 3,000 booklovers and authors, announced April 28, 1923 Sterling’s sonnet “Shelley at Spezia” had won

5664-440: The 61 poems in this anthology, only 22 were new in 1921. The majority were older. Differences in Sterling’s newer poems were noticed by some reviewers. The New York Tribune pointed out: “In Sails and Mirage , I believe, we have Sterling’s choicest work; certainly his most keenly human. … Sterling in the past was too prone, one feels, to hurl suns and meteors and satellites about his finely-chiseled Dantesque head. … This gesture in

5782-469: The Arabian Nights. Later, he wrote long adventure novels dealing with Oriental life. By 14 he had already written a short adventure novel called The Black Diamonds which was lost for years until published in 2002. Another juvenile novel was written in his teenaged years: The Sword of Zagan (unpublished until 2004). Like The Black Diamonds , it uses a medieval , Arabian Nights -like setting, and

5900-680: The Bohemian Club asked Sterling to write a play for its 1906 Midsummer Jinks. Sterling wrote the first half in one day. By December 17, he had almost finished a first draft of his entire verse play. He took it to the Bohemian Club members responsible for the Jinks. After months of extensive changes, they agreed to stage Sterling’s fantasy as the Club’s 1906 summer presentation. However, in 1906 everything changed. The April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire burned Alexander Robertson’s bookstore to

6018-521: The Breakers and Other Poems , is better than any of the three distinguished volumes that preceded it.” The New York Times differed: “ Beyond the Breakers does not contain so much verse of unusual beauty as his previous volume, [ The ] House of Orchids, but it maintains a high average.” In February 1914 Sterling had written a short play, The Flight , for Bay Area social club the Family to present in

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6136-589: The Breakers and Other Poems . The Los Angeles Times stated: “There is strength as well as grace in his verse, a richness of metaphor and simile, and seldom a weak line—never a careless one. His blank verse has no equal among his contemporaries.” Poet Joyce Kilmer , in Literary Digest , decided: “By writing ‘[A] Wine of Wizardry’ and ‘The Black Vulture,’ George Sterling earned the gratitude of all lovers of poetry. And unlike most poets who suddenly become famous, he has steadily gained power. His new book, Beyond

6254-511: The Club’s grove play for 1918. In early 1918 he finished the play’s song lyrics. The name of Sterling’s anti-dictatorship musical drama was The Twilight of the Kings (with Richard Hotaling and [uncredited] Porter Garnett; music by Wallace A. Sabin). It was a science fiction allegory of World War I, but set in medieval times, with a prince inventing the superweapon gunpowder and suffering its consequences. As with other Bohemian Club Jinks spectacles,

6372-515: The Club’s private redwood forest. Slowly, stage lights imitating moonbeams faded in, causing figures on the Grove’s large stage to become discernible as sleeping tree-spirits. The play’s story pitted tree-spirits and their trees against the efforts of winds, time, fire, lumberjacks, and Mammon (greed) to destroy their forest. The trees are saved by an immense owl—the mascot of the Bohemian Club—and by

6490-572: The Dryad!’” he wrote in his diary. Meanwhile, Sterling sold his poetry for the first time to the prestigious magazine The Smart Set , one of the most irreverent and influential literary magazines of its time. The Smart Set ’s prominence grew thanks to its two editors, H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan . Mencken, first as editor of Smart Set and later of American Mercury , became Sterling’s best customer, buying more of his poetry and prose than any other editor. Mencken became much more than just

6608-607: The Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures". Additional writers influenced by Smith include Leigh Brackett , Harlan Ellison , Stephen King , Fritz Lieber , George R. R. Martin , and Donald Sidney-Fryer . Smith

6726-510: The Great War) and fifteen stories. He sold a few to magazines, but only for low prices. In spite of Sterling knocking on New York editors’ doors during 1914, the national magazines that bought his poems were mostly publications he’d already sold to in prior years. Sterling’s lack of an established reputation with East Coast editors crippled his ability to sell to other magazines. His new year looked bleak in New York. In San Francisco, however,

6844-518: The History of California and the Pacific West ], the most important publication in the [Book] Club’s first decade.” Sterling’s second 1922 editorial project was his own book, Selected Poems . New York publisher Henry Holt and Company told Sterling the company wanted to publish a collection of Sterling’s poetry. He went through five of his earlier books and selected 56 poems. He made more than

6962-510: The Lombards, killed the Gepid king Cunimund . King Alboin raped Cunimund’s daughter Princess Rosamund , then forced her to marry him and become his queen. In 572 A.D., Queen Rosamund avenged her father by assassinating her husband King Alboin. Sterling self-published 500 numbered, hand-signed copies of Rosamund: A Dramatic Poem . The Oakland Tribune summed it up: “The story of the princess who

7080-660: The Spirit of Bohemia. The Bohemian Club printed copies of The Triumph of Bohemia for its members. “The climax of this year’s play left the audience in an awed silence which most playwrights would give years of their lives to win from a professional audience,” enthused a two-page review in Collier’s: The National Weekly .” The New York Times reported: “The people who saw it described it as being wonderful beyond words.” In January 1904, Sterling had sent Bierce another long poem, “ A Wine of Wizardry .” When Bierce read

7198-410: The Suns ,” is about as good as de Heredia or Fitzgerald : that is to say, a minor Frenchman or a minor Englishman. At his worst, in “ A Wine of Wizardry ,” he is sheer drivel: “ Endymion ” or “ The Witch of Atlas ” gone to pieces.” Fletcher concluded that what “ Keats saw, Mr. Sterling can not see, and therefore he has remained purblind—a versifier lavishing his craft on subjects beneath the dignity of

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7316-531: The Titans in a potato bin") and decided he wanted to become a poet. At age 17, he sold several tales to The Black Cat , a magazine which specialized in unusual tales. He also published some tales in the Overland Monthly in this brief foray into fiction which preceded his poetic career. However, it was primarily poetry that motivated the young Smith and he confined his efforts to poetry for more than

7434-508: The United States”), Upton Sinclair (“His work possess the qualities of the greatest poetry: sublimity of thought, intensity of emotion, enchanting melody, and severe and reverent workmanship”), Theodore Dreiser (“The ranking American poet, greater than any we have thus far produced”), and H. L. Mencken (“He was one of our greatest poets. … I had tremendous respect for his work and an admiration for his style”). Sterling wrote about

7552-452: The advice he currently gave his protégés, such as telling poet Clark Ashton Smith to avoid the word “enfraught” because it “seems too artificial,” and to revise a phrase because it “sounds forced, obscure, and unnatural.” Sterling sent Henry Holt and Company the manuscript of Selected Poems in May. During 1922, Sterling’s poem “Pumas” attracted notable responses. “Pumas” was first published in

7670-511: The age of 19. Smith received international acclaim for the collection. The Star-Treader was received very favorably by American critics, one of whom named Smith "the Keats of the Pacific". Smith briefly moved among the circle that included Ambrose Bierce and Jack London , but his early fame soon faded away. A little later, Smith's health broke down and for eight years his literary production

7788-402: The association’s Kemnitz Prize for the best poem of the year. The next month Sterling’s Selected Poems was published. It contained mostly his older poems. Reviews were mixed. The New York Times said Selected Poems “contains a deal of beautiful albeit classical work. Some of it, to be sure, is on the cosmic order, but even here when Mr. Sterling is good he is very, very good. … Mr. Sterling

7906-486: The banner years in the history of the club.” On August 15, The Twilight of the Kings was staged in a concert version in San Francisco, with actor Richard Hotaling narrating the action and reading dialog, and professional singers performing the songs. “ Jerome Uhl [a bass-baritone with New York’s Metropolitan Opera] made a tremendous hit performing the drinking song,” reported Musical Courier . The audience stopped

8024-406: The body does not pass on to the next world, but will rather exist in a non-corporeal form capable of being reconstitute or resurrected in the near future. However, if all of the lich's soul-artifacts are destroyed, then the lich's only anchor in the material world would be the corporeal body, whereupon destruction will cause permanent death. Lich is an archaic English word for "corpse"; the gate at

8142-472: The book business, called Sterling’s book “an uncanny, bitter, and very touching conflict between passionate longing for beauty and angry resentment at the ugliness of life.” Sterling himself thought he still had a way to go to make his poems feel modern. Of Sails and Mirage and Other Poems , he said: “It’s my best book, but almost as mid-Victorian as the others!” Sterling’s two major literary accomplishments of 1922 were both editorial projects. He began work on

8260-751: The careers of people involved. Sterling's adaptation was also staged in 1941 in New York City. For months Sterling had called for the United States to join the Great War to support the Allies. Congress voted for the U.S. to enter World War I on April 6, 1917. Sterling joined a pro-war group of writers called the Vigilantes, pledging to write pieces to support Allied efforts. At Alexander Robertson’s request, Sterling gathered 28 of his war poems for

8378-569: The complete 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica at least twice. Smith later taught himself French and Spanish to translate verse out of those languages, including works by Gérard de Nerval , Paul Verlaine , Amado Nervo , Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and all but 6 of Charles Baudelaire 's 157 poems in The Flowers of Evil . His first literary efforts, at the age of 11, took the form of fairy tales and imitations of

8496-555: The dead. Several stories by Robert E. Howard , such as the novella Skull-Face (1929) and the short story "Scarlet Tears", feature undying sorcerers who retain a semblance of life through mystical means, their bodies reduced to shriveled husks with which they manage to maintain inhuman mobility and active thought. The term lich , used as an archaic word for corpse (or body), is commonly used in these stories. Ambrose Bierce 's tale of possession " The Death of Halpin Frayser " features

8614-522: The dignity of a true poet”), other media reviewers regarded Sterling’s works highly ( Atlanta Constitution : “There is no doubt at all about the genius of George Sterling”; New York Times : “ [Ambrose] Bierce has been hailing Mr. Sterling for some years past as the greatest poet on this side of the Atlantic … Mr. Bierce’s hail seems likely to be justified”). Sterling’s works were admired by such prominent writers as Jack London (“the greatest living poet in

8732-603: The finest poetic dramas yet written in English.” Author Theodore Dreiser said: “It rings richer in thought than any American dramatic poem with which I am familiar.” Poet Clark Ashton Smith wrote: “ Lilith is certainly the best dramatic poem in English since the days of Swinburne and Browning . … The lyrics interspersed throughout the drama are as beautiful as any by the Elizabethans.” In his book George Sterling , Thomas E. Benediktsson stated: “The allegorical Lilith

8850-580: The first project in January, a book for the Book Club of California: The Letters of Ambrose Bierce . He selected the book’s contents. He reviewed each letter and deleted unfavorable references to living people and passages he felt made Bierce look bad. He helped the Book Club’s secretary, Bertha Clark Pope write an introduction, and himself wrote “A Memoir of Ambrose Bierce” for the book. Sterling proofread

8968-401: The full play was performed only once, on August 3, 1918. The magazine Musical America called it “a play affording broadly laid out and well characterized scenes, and … dignified and often impressive literary expression. The lyrics of the play … are by that conjurer of the beautiful, George Sterling … A ‘Peace Song,’ sung by one of the princes in the play, recommended itself very particularly; it

9086-677: The galleys and the printer’s proofs, keeping involved through September. Sterling often gave credit for his own work to someone else, and here gave Bertha Pope sole credit as editor, keeping his name only as author of “A Memoir.” H. L. Mencken reviewed the book' in Smart Set as “the most important contribution to Bierceiana made since Bierce’s death. The letters are well selected, and Sterling’s memoir and Mrs. Pope’s introduction are very well turned out.” Thirty-six years later, historian David Magee called The Letters of Ambrose Bierce “A most ambitious project and, aside from Cowan’s Bibliography [ of

9204-459: The genius from the philistine.” “ The Black Vulture ,” a sonnet from The House of Orchids , was cited by Thomas E. Benediktsson in his book George Sterling as "a sonnet which became Sterling’s most consistently praised and most anthologized poem." Poet and critic William Rose Benét wrote: “As for ‘The Black Vulture,’ I think it is one of the finest sonnets in the language.” The New York Times said: “No finer sonnet has been written for many

9322-434: The good fortune to read his earlier volumes. And the 50 poems on the war, all but one of them sonnets, will insure him a welcome to many new readers, although they will not endear him to German-Americans.” The most unexpected review of The Caged Eagle and Other Poems came from former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt , who on July 14, excited by the book’s pro-war poems, wrote a letter to Sterling beginning: “Three cheers for

9440-532: The grand manner is in Sails and Mirage admirably subdued, and Sterling’s genuine gift for lyricism … issues forth with a pleasing klang for the sensitive ear and the active imagination.” In the New York Evening Post , poet William Rose Benet remarked on the tenderness and wistfulness of the poems, different from Sterling’s earlier echoes of Milton’s “mighty line.” Bookman , a leading publication for

9558-572: The greatest poet on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Bierce’s hail seems likely to be justified.” The Los Angeles Times : “The undeniable merits of the majority of the poems in The House of Orchids make the book an important addition to America’s modern poetic literature. Sterling has a rare perception of that thing which we call Beauty. And he possesses, also, the literary sense which results in that inevitable just-a-position of words which no amount of study can bring about, and which always distinguishes

9676-516: The ground. All but 200 copies of the second edition of The Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems were destroyed. Earthquake destruction meant the Bohemian Club could not prepare Sterling’s play The Triumph of Bohemia: A Forest Play , so the Club postponed it a year to the night of July 27, 1907. That night after dark about 600 Bohemian Club members gathered on log benches in Bohemian Grove ,

9794-532: The lowest end of the cemetery where the coffin and funerary procession usually entered was commonly referred to as the lich gate . This gate was quite often covered by a small roof where part of the funerary service could be carried out. The literary lich developed from monsters found in earlier classic sword and sorcery fiction, which is filled with powerful sorcerers who use their magic to triumph over death. Many of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories feature powerful wizards whose magic enables them to return from

9912-405: The matter of ‘that something other than the sense’ which distinguishes poetry from mere verse. George Sterling is a poet, and a great one—one may safely stake on that all the reputation for literary judgment that one may hope to have.” The appearance of “Memorial Day, 1901” in the Washington Post was Sterling’s first publication of a major poem. It marked his entry into a new stage of development as

10030-574: The names of strange gods for their stories, though so different is Smith's treatment of the Lovecraft theme that it has been dubbed the "Clark Ashton Smythos." In 1925 Smith published Sandalwood , which was partly funded by a gift of $ 50 from Donald Wandrei . He wrote little fiction in this period with the exception of some imaginative vignettes or prose poems . Smith was poor for most of his life and often did hard manual jobs such as fruit picking and woodcutting to support himself and his parents. He

10148-635: The nature of man. The poems are often of great lyrical beauty and always have some music to them.” Impressions Quarterly began its review: “A poet of the first magnitude has risen.” “There is no doubt at all about the genius of George Sterling,” proclaimed the Atlanta Constitution . The nationwide critical success of “The Testimony of the Suns” established Sterling’s career as a poet. On August 18, 1905 Sterling and his wife Carrie moved from Piedmont, California to Carmel-by-the-Sea . In December

10266-606: The new year made most people feel eager. Their biggest anticipation was the 1915 World’s Fair, which would be held in the city to celebrate both the Panama Canal’s opening and San Francisco’s recovery from the 1906 earthquake and fire. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition was scheduled to begin February 20, 1915. That January, the San Francisco Examiner commissioned Sterling to write an ode commemorating

10384-656: The old house burned – the Smiths believed by arson, others said by accident. Smith now reluctantly did gardening for other residents at Pacific Grove, and grew a goatee. He spent much time shopping and walking near the seafront but despite Derleth's badgering, resisted the writing of more fiction. In 1961 he suffered a series of strokes and in August 1961 he quietly died in his sleep, aged 68. After Smith's death, Carol remarried (becoming Carolyn Wakefield) and subsequently died of cancer. The poet's ashes were buried beside, or beneath,

10502-683: The opening of the exposition. Sterling’s long poem was printed in the Examiner , read at the exposition’s opening ceremony, excerpted by magazines and books, and in November, published by Alexander Robertson as a 525-copy hardcover limited edition on handmade paper. The Examiner paid Sterling the equivalent of $ 4,100 for his ode, more than he earned from his entire summer of work in New York. Sterling missed California and his family and friends there. On April 15, 1915, he left New York City to return to San Francisco, arriving May 1. In July Sterling wrote

10620-569: The others. Smith published most of his volumes of poetry in this period, including the aforementioned The Star-Treader and Other Poems , as well as Odes and Sonnets (1918), Ebony and Crystal (1922) and Sandalwood (1925). His long poem The Hashish-Eater; Or, the Apocalypse of Evil was written in 1920. Smith wrote most of his weird fiction and Cthulhu Mythos stories, inspired by H. P. Lovecraft . Creatures of his invention include Aforgomon , Rlim-Shaikorth , Mordiggian, Tsathoggua ,

10738-447: The performance with applause and cheering and made Uhl sing the song again. Sterling wrote Lilith : A Dramatic Poem , a four-act fantasy verse drama from 1904 to 1918. The play was first published in 1919. Influential critic H. L. Mencken said of Sterling: “I think his dramatic poem Lilith was the greatest thing he ever wrote.” The New York Times declared Lilith “the finest thing in poetic drama yet done in America and one of

10856-527: The phylactery remains intact. Other imagery surrounding demiliches , in particular that of a jeweled skull, is drawn from the early Fritz Leiber story "Thieves' House". Gary Gygax , one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons , said that he based the description of a lich included in the game on the short story "The Sword of the Sorcerer" (1969) by Gardner Fox . Clark Ashton Smith Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961)

10974-482: The poem, he thrilled: “And the poem! I hardly know how to speak of it. No poem in English of equal length has so bewildering a wealth of imagination. Not Spenser himself has flung such a profusion of pearls into so small a casket. Why, man, it takes away the breath!” When “A Wine of Wizardry” was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1907 with an afterword by Bierce it stimulated a nationwide controversy. It

11092-475: The poetic beauty of Lilith ; but nevertheless, it is a great drama. What action! It should make a tremendous ‘film’, if you don’t mind my saying so; I don’t mean that as a slam, in any sense.” Outside of Rosamund , Sterling had little published in 1920. That year, just four national magazines printed his poems. However, a local newspaper poem was a hit. Sterling’s “The Cool, Grey City of Love (San Francisco),” gave San Francisco its most popular nickname. The poem

11210-446: The purpose of preserving the work of H.P. Lovecraft, Derleth published the first of several major collections of Smith's fiction, Out of Space and Time (1942). This was followed by Lost Worlds (1944). The books sold slowly, went out of print and became costly rarities. Derleth published five more volumes of Smith's prose and two of his verse, and at his death in 1971 had a large volume of Smith's poems in press. In 1953, Smith suffered

11328-670: The sea and of the stars. ‘Beyond the Breakers’ is a swimmer’s poem as thrilling as one of Swinburne ’s. ‘Aldebaran at Dusk’ is wholly beautiful.” In Ontario, Canada, the Border Cities Star said: “Only a few of these poems are excellent, but they alone, by their compression, form, and harmony, justify the collection.” Poet John Gould Fletcher wrote a long negative review in Freeman magazine: “Mr. Sterling, at his best in certain sonnets, and in his overpretentious “ Testimony of

11446-508: The summer. When the members of the Family club held their annual summer gathering, Sterling’s The Flight , with music by Cass Downing, was a high point. “So enthusiastic were the clubmen over this little drama that they immediately wired to Sterling at Sag Harbor, Long Island, informing him in all sincerity that it was the most beautiful play that had ever been given in the club’s history.” In autumn Sterling moved from Sag Harbor back to New York City with about 75 newly-written poems (most about

11564-587: The table, he found it a very distasteful business at times—he had once said to Sterling that writing prose was "a hateful task, for a poet, and [one which] wouldn't be necessary in any true civilisation." In short, it may be that Smith experienced that variety of "let-down" or loss peculiar to the child prodigies. In September 1935, Smith's mother Fanny died. Smith spent the next two years nursing his father through his last illness. Timeus died in December 1937. Aged 44, Smith now virtually ceased writing fiction. He had been severely affected by several tragedies occurring in

11682-466: The three best poems published in a newspaper or magazine during 1912 but not published in any book. Sterling submitted an ode to Robert Browning, and out of hundreds of poets who entered, won second place. He received a cash award of almost $ 8,000 in today’s money. Even with many sales of his verses, Sterling was dissatisfied by how little money his poems earned. In January 1913 he began writing short fiction. “Finished my first short-story, ‘Mr. Easton &

11800-402: The unneutral sonnets!” 1916 was a good year for Sterling in terms of the quantity of national magazines publishing his poetry: Ainslee’s , Art World , Bellman , Bookman , Collier’s , Current Opinion , Harper’s Monthly , Literary Digest , McClure’s , Munsey’s , Pearson’s , Poetry Journal , even the staid Scribner’s . The last days of 1916 saw a different kind of Sterling publication:

11918-428: The wing of a personal idol, the poet George Sterling, and his first book of poetry had brought him comparisons to Keats and Shelley. This notoriety must surely have raised his standing in his small hometown. And yet the depression found Smith without a job or viable occupation, unable to eke out a living as a poet, with girlfriends berating him for his lack of ambition. And while his turn to writing fiction did put bread on

12036-532: The wizard Eibon , and various others. In an homage to his friend, Lovecraft referred in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Battle That Ended the Century" (written in collaboration with R. H. Barlow) to an Atlantean high-priest, "Klarkash-Ton". Smith's weird stories form several cycles, called after the lands in which they are set: Averoigne , Hyperborea , Mars , Poseidonis , Zothique . To some extent Smith

12154-476: The word in its introduction, referring to a corpse. H. P. Lovecraft also used the word in " The Thing on the Doorstep " (published 1937) where the narrator refers to the corpse of his friend possessed by a sorcerer. Liches are sometimes depicted using a magical device called a phylactery to anchor their souls to the physical world so that if their body is destroyed they can rise again over and over, as long as

12272-553: The wrong direction.” In 1911, Alexander Robertson published Sterling’s third collection of verses, The House of Orchids and Other Poems . It sold more copies than his prior two volumes, and also generated his best reviews to date. The New York Times said: “In his new book … Mr. Sterling has added to his earlier unusual qualities of imagination and of expression the restraint needed to make them truly effective. … One could quote from it an hundred lines of exceptional beauty. … Mr. Bierce has been hailing Mr. Sterling for some years past as

12390-480: Was also printed using handset type on handmade paper as a keepsake edition. The next month, Sterling scored a quieter triumph. His poem “Willy Pitcher” appeared in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly , America’s most prestigious magazine. Sterling wanted to write fiction about prehistoric people. He created two Stone-Age characters, a boy and a girl. He introduced them as 10-year-old cave kids, then worked them through

12508-473: Was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and Carmel-by-the-Sea . He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of Bohemianism during the first quarter of the twentieth century. His work was admired by writers as diverse as Ambrose Bierce , Theodore Dreiser , Robinson Jeffers , Sinclair Lewis , Jack London , H. P. Lovecraft , H. L. Mencken , Upton Sinclair , and Clark Ashton Smith . In addition, Sterling played

12626-507: Was an able cook and made many kinds of wine. He also did well digging, typing and journalism, as well as contributing a column to The Auburn Journal and sometimes worked as its night editor. One of Smith's artistic patrons and frequent correspondents was San Francisco businessman Albert Bender . At the beginning of the Depression in 1929, with his aged parents' health weakening, Smith resumed fiction writing and turned out more than

12744-531: Was an influential American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories and poetry, and an artist. He achieved early recognition in California (largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling ) for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne . As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller , Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as "The Last of

12862-959: Was both critically praised and condemned. The poem was reprinted in Sterling's 1908 collection A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems . It was reprinted again several times, and has been imitated and parodied by many writers. The poem inspired Clark Ashton Smith to become a poet and influenced other writers as well. By late 1907, Sterling was notorious due to the “Wine of Wizardry” furor, so he found it easier to sell his verses to magazines. Leading national magazines such as The American Magazine , Bookman , Century Magazine , Current Literature , Literary Digest , and McClure's bought his poems. Dozens of newspapers reprinted his verses. In 1910 and 1911, Sterling began to consciously evolve his style and subjects. “I’m trying to become somewhat more human [in poetry]!” he wrote to poet Witter Bynner “It’s not so easy as I had fifteen years’ start [1896-1910] in

12980-591: Was influenced in his vision of such lost worlds by the teachings of Theosophy and the writings of Helena Blavatsky . Stories set in Zothique belong to the Dying Earth subgenre . Amongst Smith's science fiction tales are stories set on Mars and the invented planet of Xiccarph . His short stories originally appeared in the magazines Weird Tales , Strange Tales , Astounding Stories , Stirring Science Stories and Wonder Stories . Clark Ashton Smith

13098-523: Was intermittent, though he produced his best poetry during this period. A small volume, Odes and Sonnets , was brought out in 1918. Smith came into contact with literary figures who would later form part of H.P. Lovecraft's circle of correspondents; Smith knew them far earlier than Lovecraft. These figures include poet Samuel Loveman and bookman George Kirk. It was Smith who in fact later introduced Donald Wandrei to Lovecraft. For this reason, it has been suggested that Lovecraft might as well be referred to as

13216-409: Was limited: he suffered from psychological disorders including intense agoraphobia , and although he was accepted to high school after attending eight years of grammar school, his parents decided it was better for him to be taught at home. An insatiable reader with an extraordinary eidetic memory , Smith appeared to retain most or all of whatever he read. After leaving formal education, he embarked upon

13334-444: Was one of "the big three of Weird Tales , with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft", though some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. The fantasy writer and critic L. Sprague de Camp said of him that "nobody since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse". Smith was a member of the Lovecraft circle, and his literary friendship with Lovecraft lasted from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937. His work

13452-562: Was published in July 1916 by A. M. Robertson. His new poetry collection was not reviewed as widely as his prior books. The most passionate review came from William Stanley Braithwaite in the Boston Evening Transcript : “However he may express himself in strictly conventionalized forms, they do not seem to impede the really immense scope of his imagination. … it is of particular importance to note that his whole spiritual temper

13570-420: Was reprinted many times, both in publications and as stand-alone collectables. As if to make up for his scant 1920 output, during 1921 Sterling placed 15 poems in seven national magazines. The poems he wrote in 1921 rarely used old-fashioned words such as “thee” or “thou” to sound “poetical” as many of his earlier poems did; instead, most of his new poems used only contemporary words. In June Sterling’s poem To

13688-709: Was the third member of the great triumvirate of Weird Tales , with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard . Many of Smith's stories were published in six hardcover volumes by August Derleth under his Arkham House imprint. For a full bibliography to 1978, see Sidney-Fryer, Emperor of Dreams (cited below). S. T. Joshi is working with other scholars to produce an updated bibliography of Smith's work. A selection of Smith's best-known tales includes: By this time his interest in writing fiction began to lessen and he turned to creating sculptures from soft rock such as soapstone . Smith also made hundreds of fantastic paintings and drawings. The authoritative bibliography on Smith's work

13806-484: Was thrown into a world of fighting and lustful men, who was most grievously wronged and who became thereafter an avenger who used her beauty and her love as her weapons, is one that is filled with intense dramatic possibility and as told by Sterling has a tremendous emotional appeal, a noble rhythm, and a tragic atmosphere comparable to that of Macbeth . ” After reading the play, Clark Ashton Smith wrote to Sterling: “My congratulations on Rosamund ! As you warned me, it lacks

13924-552: Was too long for magazines and was rejected by book publishers, so in 1903 Sterling self-published it in his first book, The Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems . When his book was released, Sterling’s poems had been published in newspapers and magazines for seven years, but “The Testimony of the Suns” marked the first time Sterling’s poetry attracted nationwide attention from critics. The New York Times said Sterling’s poetry has “the note of character that promises permanence.” Book News Monthly said his book “in every part rings true to

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