Undated. A one-page prose poem, typed, and signed "Clark Ashton Smith/Auburn, California." This version of the prose poem differs in a number of particulars from the published version, which was included in The Abominations of Yondo (Arkham House, 1960) and Poems in Prose (Arkham House, 1965). Previously folded in thirds but now in a custom binder, bearing the bookplate of horror writer Stanley Wiater, from whose library this came. Fine, with a letter laid in to Wiater from Roy Squires, the noted science fiction collector and dealer, from whom Wiater purchased it. Squires' lengthy letter comments extensively on the appallingly high prices "being asked -- and paid -- for the more desirable Arkham House books," in 1972, and then goes on to justify the high price Wiater had just paid for the Clark Ashton Smith manuscript, and says that he knows of only four prose poem manuscripts by Clark Ashton Smith in existence -- this one; one that he himself still had; and two that Smith's widow had at that time. A rare typescript by one of the most important American horror writers of the 20th century, with a long, illuminating letter from one of the great collectors and dealers in the field, and from the library of a horror writer who has been a three-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, given by the Horror Writers of America. [#029000] ON HOLD
$5,500