The Emperor of Dreams

From the vampire-haunted alleyways of mediaeval Averoigne to the shining spires of dying Zothique, Clark Ashton Smith weaves his literary sorcery, transporting us to forgotten realms of necromancies and nightmares, lost worlds and other dimensions. In the enchanted regions of Hyperborea, Atlantis and Xiccarph, encounter malefic magic and demonic deeds beneath the last rays of a fading sun...

For the first time ever, this volume encompasses Clark Ashton Smith's entire career as a writer. Smith virtually stopped writing stories in 1937, for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, but he left behind a unique legacy of fantasy fiction which is as imaginative and decadent today as when it was first published in the pulp magazines more than half a century ago.

Contents:

• On Fantasy
• Song of the Necromancer
• The Abominations of Yondo
• The Ninth Skeleton
• The Last Incantation
• A Rendezvous in Averoigne
• The Return of the Sorcerer
• The Tale of Satampra Zeiros
• The Door to Saturn
• The Gorgon
• The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan
• The Nameless Offspring
• The Empire of the Necromancers
• The Hunters from Beyond
• The Isle of the Torturers
• The Beast of Averoigne
• Genius Loci
• Ubbo-Sathla
• The Kiss of Zoraida
• The Seed from the Sepulcher
• The Weaver in the Vault
• The Ghoul
• The Charnel God
• The Death of Malygris
• The Tomb-Spawn
• The Seven Geases
• Xeethra
• The Dark Eidolon
• The Flower-Women
• The Treader of the Dust
• The Black Abbot of Puthuum
• Necromancy in Naat
• The Death of Ilalotha
• The Garden of Adompha
• Mother of Toads
• The Double Shadow
• The Coming of the White Worm
• The Root of Ampoi
• Morthylla
• An Offering to the Moon
• The Theft of Thirty-Nine Girdles
• Symposium of the Gorgon
• Told in the Desert
• Prince Alcouz and the Magician
• A Good Embalmer
• The Mortuary
• Afterword: The Lost Worlds of Klarkash-Ton (by Stephen Jones)