The Last Hieroglyph

by Clark Ashton Smith

  Smith submitted the story to Wright under the title “The Tomb in the Desert” in July 1933;2 since he submitted the story to Astounding, it would appear that Wright rejected it.3 CAS wrote to Lovecraft that Astounding held on to the typescript for a month but ultimately returned it, then announced later in the same letter its acceptance by Wright under the current title.4

  Since Smith prepared a new typescript under the new title, he apparently rewrote the story, but the extent of the revision is not apparent since the only manuscript or typescript to survive is an incomplete (missing the final page) carbon of the version published in Weird Tales (May 1934); a copy of the WT appearance was consulted for the text from the missing page. Some idea may be found in a letter to Derleth wherein he remarked “Glad you liked ‘The Tomb-Spawn.’ That little tale certainly cost me enough work, so it ought to be good.”5 Smith received thirty-five dollars for “The Tomb-Spawn,”6 which was posthumously collected in TSS.

  1. BB item 13.

  2. CAS, letter to AWD, July 23, 1933 (SL 213).

  3. CAS, letter to AWD, September 2, 1933 (SL 223).

  4. CAS, letter to HPL, c. mid-October 1933 (SL 228).

  5. CAS, letter to AWD, June 4, 1934 (ms, SHSW).

  6. WT, letter to CAS, November 30, 1934 (ms, JHL).

  The Witchcraft of Ulua

  Steve Behrends calls this “the first of Clark Ashton Smith’s short stories to be rejected for publication because of an erotic tone or content,”1 although as we have noted earlier that dubious distinction belongs to “The Disinterment of Venus.”2 CAS called the story, the first version of which was completed on August 22, 1933, “an erotic nightmare, and deals with a youth who had spurned a young witch and was bedevilled by her with various disagreeable sendings. He found amorous corpses in his bed, and was persecuted by peculiar succubi.”3

  Smith complained to August Derleth that Wright rejected the story “saying that it is a sex story and therefore unsuitable for W.T. Perhaps he is right; though erotic imagery was employed in the tale merely to achieve a more varied sensation of weirdness. The net result is surely macabre rather than risqué. I am enclosing the ms. and would appreciate your opinion. Also, if you can think of any possible market you might mention it. I can think of none….”4 CAS denied any risqué intent, telling H. P. Lovecraft that he “was aiming mainly at weirdness; and whatever erotic imagery the tale contained was intended to be subordinate to its macabre qualities. Mere bawdiness is a bore, as far as I am concerned.” He noted the irony of Wright’s rejection: “Ye gods—when you consider the current cover of the magazine!”5 (referring to the usual nude by artist Margaret Brundage, this one a lesbian whipping scene illustrating Robert E. Howard’s “The Slithering Shadow”).

  Lovecraft, who had suffered more from Wright’s rejections than any other writer, expressed his support and outrage: “Damn Satrap Pharnabazus for rejecting ‘Ulua’! He certainly is a pip for consistency—to howl about excessive eroticism after deliberately adopting a policy of ha’penny satyr-tickling in his damn cover-designs… a policy which amusingly causes his more subservient writers (not excluding the illustrious Quinn &—at times—even the sanguinary Two-Gun Bob) to go miles out of their way to drag in a costumeless wench! But then—consistency & Brother Farny never were very close associates.”6 E. Hoffmann Price took a contrary position, asking “Hellsfire, must we have castrated wizards, and fair witches who have been very thoughtfully provided with a zone of anaesthesia reaching from… well, from there to there?”7

  Smith next tried submitting “Ulua” to Astounding after revising the temptation scene, although he explicitly denied this to Derleth.8 Earlier CAS told Derleth that he would not rewrite the story for resubmission to Weird Tales, adding “As to the so-called sexiness, it would not interest me to write a story dealing with anything so banal, hackneyed and limited as this type of theme is likely to be. Too many writers are doing it to death at the present time; and I have ended by revolting literarily against the whole business, and am prepared to maintain that a little Victorian reticence, combined with Puritan restraint, would harm nobody.”9 After the story was returned by Astounding, Smith, who was now more and more occupied with the care of his mother, now recuperating with a scalded foot, capitulated and submitted a third revised version to Wright, who accepted it on October 26, 1933 and offered thirty-three dollars.10 He admitted to Derleth that he had “toned down the temptation scene a little,” adding that “In the new version, Ulua teases the hero and twits him for his backwardness, instead of proffering her charms so flamboyantly. On the whole, it seems an improvement.”11

  Lovecraft read “The Witchcraft of Ulua” in typescript after its first rejection. He offered Smith his customary encouragement, calling it “a powerful piece—with intimations of horror & loathesomeness which do not soon leave the imagination. The style & atmosphere are admirable—prose-poetry in every line!”12 He said much the same to Robert H. Barlow, adding “It has some terrific images.”13 (However, while commenting on the February 1934 issue of Weird Tales in which “Ulua” was published, HPL rated it “average.”14)

  Despite the frustrations of rejection and revision, Smith was proud of “Ulua.” He wrote to Barlow “I feel that it is well-written; and it gives a certain variant note to my series of tales dealing with Zothique.”15 Later, noting the uncharacteristically moralistic stance of the story, Smith told the same correspondent “You are damned well right about aretology—the word itself is marked obsolete in my Webster, which is of no recent date either. If I’m not careful, the latter-day bigots of phallicism will lock me up in the Iron Maiden for such anaphrodisiacs as Ulua! By the way, don’t undervalue this tale; I wouldn’t have had the originality to write it a few years back.”16

  The current text follows the lead of Steve Behrends, who based the text used in Necronomicon Press’ Unexpurgated Clark Ashton Smith series upon the carbon of the version ultimately published by Weird Tales, but replacing the published temptation scene with the version submitted to Astounding. We concur in his judgment that the writing in this version was not done under duress and that it represents an improvement over the original. The first and third versions may be found in Appendix 2. Smith originally wanted to include “The Witchcraft of Ulua” in his third Arkham House collection, GL, but space restrictions pushed it back to his fourth, AY. We have made slightly different word choices in establishing a text. All typescripts may be found among Smith’s papers at the John Hay Library of Brown University.

  1. Steve Behrends, “Foreword,” in The Witchcraft of Ulua. By Clark Ashton Smith (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1988): 5.

  2. See ME 291–292.

  3. CAS, letter to DAW, August 6, 1933 (SL 217).

  4. CAS, letter to AWD, August 29, 1933 (SL 219).

  5. CAS, letter to HPL, c. September 1, 1933 (LL 40).

  6. HPL, letter to CAS, September 11, 1933 (ms, JHL).

  7. E. Hoffmann Price, letter to CAS, undated (ms, JHL).

  8. CAS, letter to Derleth, September 26, 1933 (SL 223).

  9. CAS, letter to Derleth, September 14, 1933 (SL 220).

  10. FW, letter to CAS, October 2, 1933 (ms, JHL).

  11. CAS, letter to AWD, November 6, 1933 (ms, SHSW).

  12. HPL, letter to CAS, November 13, 1933 (AHT).

  13. HPL, letter to RHB, November 13, 1934 (in O Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft’s Letters to R. H. Barlow [Tampa, FL: University of Tampa Press, 2007]: p. 86).

  14. HPL, letter to Robert Bloch, February 2, 1934 (in Letters to Robert Bloch, Ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz [West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1993]: p. 47).

  15. CAS, letter to RHB, October 4, 1933 (ms, JHL).

  16. CAS, letter to RHB, December 5, 1933.

  The Coming of the White Worm

  Clark Ashton Smith probably had more fun writing “The Coming of the White Worm” than he did any other of his stories; he also probably experienced more frustration in getting it into print, and his remuneration
was minimal at best. He announced the story in a postcard to H. P. Lovecraft: “I am doing the ‘IX Chapter of Eibon’ at present—a start on that much-requested cycle of occult elder lore!”1 It appears that the impetus behind the story was the increasing number of readers who wanted to read more from such eldritch but imaginary tomes as the Necronomicon (Lovecraft), the Book of Eibon (Smith), or von Junzt’s Nameless Cults (Howard), numbers which swelled after the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales ran no fewer than three stories referring to such fonts of dark lore.2 Smith described its composition in a letter to August Derleth:

  It is hard to do, like most of my tales, because of the peculiar and carefully maintained style and tone-colour, which involves rejection of many words, images and locutions that might ordinarily be employed in writing. The story takes its text from a saying of the prophet Lith: “There is one that inhabits the place of utter cold, and One that respireth where none other may draw breath. In the days to come He shall issue forth among the isles and cities of men, and shall bring with Him as a white doom the wind that slumbereth in His dwelling”.3

  Smith completed the story on September 15, 1933 and submitted it to Weird Tales. Farnsworth Wright’s letter of rejection sounded an all-too-familiar theme: “I enjoyed reading ‘The Coming of the White Worm,’ but I fear that we cannot use it. It would occupy eleven or twelve pages in Weird Tales, and many of our readers, I fear, would object strongly to reading a prose poem as long as this.”4

  Lovecraft’s reactions to Smith’s stories are often as entertaining as the story itself, and his reaction after reading “The Coming of the White Worm” is a case in point: “Nggrrrhh… what a revelation! Thank God you spared your readers the worst & most paralysing hints—such as the secret of Yikith’s origin, the reason why it bore certain shapes not of this planet, & the history of Rlim Shaikorth before he oozed down to the solar system & the earth through the void from ___________ [HPL’s underscore]…. but I must not utter that name at which you, & Gaspard du Nord, & Eibon himself grew silent! Altogether, this is a stupendous fragment of primal horror & cosmic suggestion; & I shall call down the curses of Azathoth Itself if that ass Pharnabazus does not print it.”5 The story was next submitted to Astounding, which kept it for some time but ultimately returned it. CAS vented his frustrations to Derleth when he noted that “[Desmond] Hall, the sub-editor of that triply xxxed Astounding, deigned to drop me a line about their new policy following the rejection of the S-G with a blank, when he returned The White Worm after holding it for more than a month. I dare say one of these tales would have been bought if it hadn’t been for such laboratory-minded donkeys as [Forrest J.] Ackerman. Of course, the lower type of ‘fan’ is always the most vociferous. A dozen such birds, I dare say, can change the policy of a magazine.”6

  Smith apparently gave the story to William L. Crawford for use in his semi-prozine Unusual Stories. Crawford, like many of his contemporaries, harbored a prejudice against weird stories (as witnessed by the contemporary exchange in the Fantasy Fan’s “Boiling Point” column discussed in earlier volumes7), but CAS felt that he was more open minded than many: “I should judge that his prejudice against weirdness applies largely to stuff dealing with stock superstitions. He seems to class work such as mine and Lovecraft’s as ‘pure fantasy.’”8 Crawford had been given stories by Lovecraft and by Robert E. Howard, which he ran in Marvel Tales, a sister magazine that was slanted more to the fantastic. The Summer 1935 issue of Marvel Tales contains an announcement that “The Coming of the White Worm” would appear in the next issue, which never appeared.

  “The Coming of the White Worm” appears to have remained in limbo until late 1938. It was at this time that Smith received a letter from an unexpected source: John W. Campbell:

  It has been a good many months since you appeared in Astounding, largely, I believe, because you have felt that fantasy wasn’t too welcome here, and science didn’t fit your style.

  At any rate, I hope there has been no other reason. For recently, readers have shown a definite and growing interest in fantasy, and I’d like very much to see some of your newer work. I’d like particularly the type that involves human reactions, fairly normal human characters against a background that is fantastic, or involved in some tangled action that is not explained or explainable, perhaps, but still is real to the characters.

  The kind I’d like to see would involve the humanness of the stories I’ve been trying to get in Astounding during the past year… but against a background of pure fantasy rather than science.9

  Campbell was actually soliciting contributions for Unknown. Smith sent him “The Coming of the White Worm,” which received the following response: “This story does not involve the inter-relations of human beings in an atmosphere of fantasy. It is the latter type that I would rather see from you. This material is so entirely without human reactions that I am afraid it would be unsuitable for Unknown.”10 If Smith had been following what Campbell was doing in Astounding, he would not have been greatly surprised by the rejection. Nonetheless, he would still try later on to write something that Campbell might find acceptable. It is a shame that CAS did not submit a rewritten version of “The Voyage of King Euvoran” to Campbell. E. Hoffmann Price, Smith’s friend and collaborator, describes in his memoirs how he preferred Smith’s stories “because he presented credible human beings more frequently than did [HPL and Robert E. Howard]…. In Averoigne and in such tales as ‘The Voyage of King Euvoran,’ he portrayed human beings, not two dimensional and unconvincing simulacra which all too often rode unsteadily on a ‘mood’.”11 (We would suggest that Campbell might also have found “The Last Hieroglyph” to his tastes had Wright not already published it.) Smith at his best was probably capable of writing a story that would pass muster with Campbell, but by the time Unknown arrived on the scene he was finding that his heart was no longer in fiction writing, but more in the writing of poetry, his first love, and in the carving of his marvelously outré figurines from native minerals found at a quarry owned by his uncle, Edwin C. Gaylord.

  Farnsworth Wright wrote to Smith on November 23, 1938: “Since we are using your story, ‘The Double Shadow’, in our February issue, we are left without any manuscripts of yours on hand. This should not be.”12 By this time myriad rejections of his best work, ignorant criticisms by hostile science fiction fans, the loss of Lovecraft, his most appreciative reader, and the deaths of his parents, which removed the captives to fortune that motivated much of his story production, had taken their toll, and Smith had not completed a new story since July 1937. He had already placed slightly revised versions of two stories from The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies with Wright, and 1939 would see the publication of two more from that collection. Although no correspondence exists, it appears that Wright capitulated and accepted a pruned-down version of “The Coming of the White Worm.” But once again Smith played fortune’s fool.

  Late in 1938 Weird Tales was purchased by a New York businessman, William J. Delaney, who already published the highly successful pulp Short Stories. Delaney relocated the operation to New York City. Wright was kept on as editor and made the move, but was let go with the March 1940 issue. An interview with Delaney appeared in a fanzine at the time of Wright’s dismissal that boded ill for Smith. After promising that Weird Tales would continue to publish “all types of weird and fantasy fiction,” the interview went on to add:

  There is one rule, however: Weird Tales does not want stories which center about sheer repulsiveness, stories which leave an impression not to be described by any other word than “nasty”. This is not to imply that the “grim” story, or the tale which leaves the reader gasping at the verge of the unknown, is eliminated. Mr. Delaney believes that the story which leaves a sickish feeling in the reader is not truly weird and has no place in Weird Tales.… And, finally, stories wherein the characters are continually talking in French, German, Latin, etc. will be frowned upon, as well as stories wherein the reader must constantly consult an unabridged dictionary
.13

  The interviewer was Robert A. W. Lowndes, who shed some light on this in a letter published years later:

  Delaney, who was a pleasant and cultured man, was very fond of weird stories, but he was also a strict Catholic.… He also found some of the Clark Ashton Smith stories on the ‘disgusting’ side and told me that he had returned one that Wright had in his inventory when he left. It was about a monstrous worm which, when attacked and pierced, shed forth rivers of slime. Later in 1940, when Donald A. Wollheim was starting Stirring Science Stories, Smith sent him “The Coming of the White Worm” and Don used it. When I read it, there was no doubt that this was the story Delaney had been talking about.… Concerned about the magazine’s slipping circulation, he felt that the “more esoteric” type of story was a handicap, so this was mostly cut out.14

  Smith wrote a letter around the time of Wright’s dismissal that listed Weird Tales’ remaining inventory of his material at two stories and four poems.15 Only one story, “The Enchantress of Sylaire” (Weird Tales July 1941) appeared between the date of that letter and the acceptance of Smith’s next WT story, “The Epiphany of Death,” early in 1942,16 so it would appear that one story was returned.

  Further corroboration of these events may be found in the memoirs of E. Hoffmann Price, which illustrate just how frustrated and upset Smith was with magazine publishing. When Price visited him early in 1940, Smith presented him with the typescripts of two unpublished stories, “The House of the Monoceros” and “Dawn of Discord,” and told Price to do whatever he wanted with them: “Scrap the god-damn things if after all you don’t like them. The less I hear of them—.” Price interpreted this to mean that Smith realized “his stories did not fit into the publisher’s new pattern. Clark, fed up with adverse criticism or outright rejection, rejected the rejector, and gave me the scripts.”17