Lost Worlds (book)

"The Flower-Women" was later republished in a 1949 issue of Avon Fantasy Reader.

Lost Worlds is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by author Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1944 and was the author's second book published by Arkham House. 2,043 copies were printed.

The stories for this volume were selected by the author. The collection contains stories from Smith's major story cycles of Hyperborea, Atlantis, Averoigne, Zothique and Xiccarph.

Contents

Lost Worlds contains the following tales:

1. "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros"
2. "The Door to Saturn"
3. "The Seven Geases"
4. "The Coming of the White Worm"
5. "The Last Incantation"
6. "A Voyage to Sfanomoë"
7. "The Death of Malygris"
8. "The Holiness of Azédarac"
9. "The Beast of Averoigne"
10. "The Empire of the Necromancers"
11. "The Isle of the Torturers"
12. "Necromancy in Naat"
13. "Xeethra"
14. "The Maze of Maal Dweb"
15. "The Flower-Women"
16. "The Demon of the Flower"
17. "The Plutonian Drug"
18. "The Planet of the Dead"
19. "The Gorgon"
20. "The Letter from Mohaun Los"
21. "The Light from Beyond"
22. "The Hunters from Beyond"
23. "The Treader of the Dust"

Reception

New York Times reviewer Marjorie Farber declared that "What is most fascinating about the present volume is the sort of obfuscatory prose which readers of Weird Tales, etc. are apparently willing to overcome for the sake of getting at whatever terror may lie at the end of the skull-dotted trail", concluding that Lost Worlds "cannot be read."^[1]

Reprints

• Jersey, UK: Neville Spearman, 1971.
• St. Albans, UK: Panther, 1974 (2 vols.).
• Lincoln, NE: Bison, 2006.

See also

• Clark Ashton Smith bibliography

References

• Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc. pp. 8–9. ISBN 1-55742-005-X. 
• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 27. 
• Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 27. ISBN 0-87054-176-5. 
• Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 52. ISBN 0-7864-1785-4.