Letter to H. P. Lovecraft

From Clark Ashton Smith

[27] [c. mid-March 1932]

The marble, demon-haunted
house of Avyctes, at
the hour of the impingement of
the Shadow.

Dear E'ch-Pi-El:

I certainly share your despair in regard to ever finding a serviceable fountain-pen — it's the main reason why I have taken to typing most of my letters. I, too, often employ pencils in making the first draft of a story — though such drafts, with me, are likely to get themselves done any old way. Sometimes I start 'em on the machine -- and then finish up or alternate with all the available mediums of scripture. I don't dare leave the resultant mass lying around too long before making the final typed version — or even I would be powerless to unscramble it!

[. . .]

[. . .] My new weird, "The Double Shadow", will come to you presently, "in turn", even as the shadow came to the sorcerers in the tale; and you can send it along to the third guardian of the baleful triangle.

[. . .]

Yrs, hoping that the ellipse of Oumor
will remain unbroken in the hour of need,
Klarkash-Ton

From: Clark Ashton Smith: LETTERS TO H. P. LOVECRAFT, edited by and footnotes by Steve Behrends (July 1987) Necronomicon Press.

Top of Page