REH Bookshelf - S

compiled by Rusty Burke

Sabatini, Rafael

(1875-1950)

The Snare

New York: Grosset & Dunlap, n.d. [1925]. 30665; PQ4; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

Inscribed on both sides of front free endpaper: "Merry Xmas | - Bob - | -from Clyde - | [line drawn across page] | Say, Bob, you remember that | little passage about "wrecking | the jail" and the shocking | language which was also | included - shocking to a Puritan - | by the way you and I have | never had any love for Puritans - | well I sent this excerpt to | Klatt, and told him that he | would probably break conventions | in that manner, But I guess | if any of it ever comes true, | it will be flat ly, as Sand- | burg said it: that is, if it | comes true for you and me. | I only hope that we don't | [to verso of front free endpaper]: to break out any time | within the near | future, as I have | other things on my | mind. | And so we will be | suffering while Klatt is | raising h--- on | the out side, by the | way."

The Saga of Burnt Nial

REH to Harry Bates, 1 June 1931: [In submitting "Spears of Clontarf" for Clayton Publications' Torchlights of History]: "In gathering material for this story I have drawn on such sources as... 'The Saga of Burnt Nial'..."

[It is likely that Howard’s true source for material from this saga was P.W. Joyce’s A Short History of Gaelic Ireland, in which chapters on “The Danish Wars” and, in particular, “The Battle of Clontarf,” make extensive use of “The Saga or Story of Burnt Nial, translated by Sir George Webbe Dasent.” This would be The Story of Burnt Njal; from the Icelandic of the Njal’s Saga. Translated by Sir George Webb Dasent (1817-1896), originally published 1861.]

Sampson, Emma Speed

(1868-1947)

Billy and the Major

Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co., 1918. 30803; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Miss Minerva's Baby

Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1920. 30659; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Miss Minerva Broadcasts Billy

Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1925. 30732; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Miss Minerva on the Old Plantation

Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1923. 30710; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Sandburg, Carl

(1878-1967)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 16 July 1925 [SL 1 #3, portion omitted, follows "I'm writing this on the new typewriter."] "In Carl S.'s style:" [poem "And Dempsey climbed into the ring and the crowd sneered"].

The American Songbag

New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. November 1932 [SL 2 #65]: "I used to correspond with one R.W. Gordon who was collecting old songs for an anthology -- though I never got the chance of examining the completed work. The best thing of its kind I ever saw was an anthology compiled by Carl Sandburg, in which I found numbers of old songs I knew by heart but had never seen in print."

"To a Contemporary Bunkshooter."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 6 August 1925: "Say, it's asking a lot, but I wish sometime when you have plenty of time you'd copy off that poem of Sandburg's about 'The Contemporary Bunk-slinger' something or other and send it to me." [He says he is having some arguments with a friend who expresses narrowly conservative religious ideas and he is "slinging all the radical stuff I could find his way."] "But he's a good fellow after all. Merely, like all Christians of that type the idea that there isn't any hell for them to relegate their enemies to with smug satisfaction, is disagreeable. So I want to give him Sandburg's idea. He has never read S. and I want to hear him say Carl is a damn fool. Which he will."

[Sandburg's poem appears in his collection, Chicago Poems (New York: Henry Holt, 1916).]

San Martin

Only this title is given on the accessions list, number 30847. Not included in PQ, GL or TDB listings. I have located only two English-language books on José de San Martin published before 1936: The Emancipation of South America, being a condensed translation by William Pilling of the History of San Martin, by General Don Bartolomé Mitre (London: Chapman & Hall, 1893); and Don José de San Martin, 1778-1850, A Study of His Career, by Anna Schoellkopf (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1924). The story of this South American liberator seems likely to have appealed to Howard, given that among his commanders were the Irishmen Michael Brown and Bernardo O'Higgins, and a Scotsman, Lord Cochrane.

Santayana, George

(1863-1952)

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. May-June 1933 [SL 2 #67]: "My tastes and habits are simple; I am neither erudite nor sophisticated. I prefer jazz to classical music, musical burlesques to Greek tragedy, A. Conan Doyle to Balzac, Bob Service's verse to Santayana's writing, a prize fight to a lecture on art."

[H.P. Lovecraft to Kenneth Sterling, 14 December 1935 (H.P. Lovecraft Selected Letters V.817): "Two-Gun is interesting because he has refused to let his thoughts & feelings be standardized. He remains himself. He couldn't -- today -- solve a quadratic equation, & probably thinks that Santayana is a brand of coffee..."]

Sappho

(ca. 6th c. B.C.)

REH to Harold Preece, ca. December 1928 [SL 1 #20]: "Sappho: doubtless the greatest women poet who ever lived; certainly one of the greatest of all time. The direct incentive of the lyric age of Greece, the age that for pure beauty, surpasses all others. How shall a pen like mine sing of the beauties of Sappho, of the golden streams which flowed from her pen, of her voice which was fairer than the song of a dark star, of the fragrance of her hair and shimmering loveliness of her body? Has it been proved that she was a Lesbian in the generally accepted sense of the word? Who ever accused her but the early Christian -- ignorant monks and monastery swine who were set on breaking all the old golden idols; and Daudet, a libertine, a grovelling ape who could see no good in anything; Mure, a drunkard and a blatant braggart, whose word I hold of less weight than a feather drifting before a south wind. May the saints preserve Comparetti, who was man enough to uphold pure womanhood, and scholar enough to prove what he said. No prude was Sappho, but a full-blooded woman, passionate and open-hearted, with a golden song and a soul large enough to enfold the whole world." [He quotes a number of lines from Sappho.] "The translation is weak and pallid in comparison with the 'winged words' of the original Greek. But even so, we catch the haunting melody, the wistful yet powerful, almost overcoming, beauty of the songs of Sappho. God be with her -- gone to the dust twenty-five hundred years ago -- more than two thousand years ago." [He quotes a verse from Swinburne's "Anactoria."]

[I am of the opinion that Howard took most of this from the chapter on Sappho in Mitchell Carroll, Greek Women, Volume I of Woman; in all ages and in all countries (q.v. under series title). All the quotations REH uses are to be found in precisely the same form on pp. 123-125 of that book, the only exception being that Howard's second quotation ("Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving king") omits the second line ("The bitter-sweet, impracticable thing"). Even the quotation from Swinburne's "Anactoria" is identical to that on p. 127 of the book. Daudet, Mure, and Comparetti are discussed on pp. 114-115, though the judgments Howard pronounces are his own.]

Sassoon, Siegfried

(1886-1967)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, n.d. (prps. late 1928): "If what you write merits a lot of supercilious question marks after it, the the good Lord knows Shelley and Sassoon are sitting on paper thrones." Mentioned in Howard's untitled parody (" 'Hatrack!' a voice came to me dimly…"), included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929, as "Siegfried Jazzoon."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: Sassoon is listed among a number of poets Howard likes.

[Howard's copy of Robert W. Service's The Pretender (q.v.) bore the inscription, on the front free endpaper: "My dear Sassoon: | See the cuckoo in | the tree | And when you | see him think of me | Rupert Brooke." In my opinion, the handwriting is that of Clyde Smith.]

Saturday Evening Post

See Armour, J. Ogden; Byrne, Donn; Corbett, James J.; Lorimer, George Horace.

Saxon, Lyle

(1891-1946)

Howard's poem, "To Lyle Saxon," is dedicated to this Louisiana author (Fabulous New Orleans [1928], Old Louisiana [1929], Lafitte the Pirate [1930], etc.)

Sayers, Dorothy

(1893-1957) (ed.).

The Omnibus of Crime

Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1929. 30637 (as "Sawyers"); PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

[Contents: "The History of Bel" / "The History of Susanna" / "The Story of Hercules and Cacus" / "The Story of Rhampsinitus" / Mrs. Henry Wood, "The Ebony Box" / Hedley Barker, "The Ace of Trouble" / Edgar Allan Poe, "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" / Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Priory School" / Ernst Brahmah, "The Ghost at Massingham Mansions" / F.A.M. Webster, "The Secret of the Singular Cipher" / Bechhofer Roberts, "The English Filter" / E.C. Bentley, "The Clever Cockatoo" / Eden Philpotts, "Prince Charlie's Dirk" / Robert Barr, "The Absent-minded Coterie" / L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, "The Face in the Dark" / Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace, "Mr. Belton's Immunity" / Anthony Wynne, "The Cyprian Bees" / F. Britten Austin, "Diamond Cut Diamond" / Raymund Allen, "A Happy Solution" / Percival Wilde, "The Adventure of the Fallen Angels" / Victor Whitechurch, "Sir Gilbert Murrell's Picture" / G.K. Chesterton, "The Hammer of God" / H.C. Bailey, "The Long Barrow" / Sir Basil Thomson, "The Hanover Court Murder" / Aldous Huxley, "The Gioconda Smile" / Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, "Her Last Adventure" / E.W. Hornung, "The Wrong House" / Mrs. Oliphant, "The Open Door" / Charles Dickens, "Story of the Bagman's Uncle" / Charles Collins and Charles Dickens, "The Trial for Murder" / M.R. James, "Martin's Close" / Robert Hichens, "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" / Saki, "The Open Window" / Arthur Machen, "The Novel of the Black Seal" / Sax Rohmer, "Tchériapin" / W.W. Jacobs, "The Monkey's Paw" / A.J. Alan, "The Hair" / E.F. Benson, "Mrs. Amworth" / Ambrose Bierce, "Moxon's Master" / Jerome K. Jerome, "The Dancing Partner" / R.L. Stevenson, "Thrawn Janet" / Marjorie Bowen, "The Avenging of Ann Leete" / W.F. Harvey, "August Heat" / Morley Roberts, "The Anticipator" / Joseph Conrad, "The Brute" / May Sinclair, "Where their Fire is Not Quenched" / J.S. LeFanu, "Green Tea" / J.D. Beresford, "The Misanthrope" / John Metcalfe, "The Bad Lands" / A.M. Burrage, "Nobody's House" / A.C. Quiller-Couch, "The Seventh Man" / N. Royde-Smith, "Proof" / Walter de la Mare, "Seaton's Aunt" / Edward Lucas White, "Lukundoo" / Michael Arlen, "The Gentleman from America" / R. Ellis Roberts, "The Narrow Way" / Traditional Tales of the Lowlands, "Sawney Bean" / Bram Stoker, "The Squaw" / Violet Hunt, "The Corsican Sisters" / Barry Pain, "The End of a Show" / H.G. Wells, "The Cone" / Ethel Colburn Mayne, "The Separate Room"]

Sayler, Harry Lincoln

(1863- )

See "Whitney, Elliott."

Scandinavian literature

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 2 November 1932 [SL 2 #65]: "I find the old Scandinavian sagas fascinating, but I can't work up any interest in modern Scandinavian writers. They seem further removed from the pristine Viking type than the English writers.

Schidloff, Berthold, M.D.

Sexual Life of South Sea Natives

In Venus Oceanica; The Sexual Life of South Sea Natives, by Prof. B. Schidloff; Erotic Rituals of Australian Aboriginals by Doctor H. Basedow; Ethnopornographia by Doctor W.E. Roth. Edited by R[onald] Burton. Privately Printed for Subscribers. New York: Oceanica Research Press, 1935.

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. January-February 1935: "For instance Professor B. Schidloff, the noted anthropologist, says in the introduction to one of his most profound books: '-- No thinking person who forms his own opinion on the modern times doubts any longer that civilization is equivalent to moral degeneracy.' If I'd said that I bet you'd have instantly accused me of enmity to progress and enlightenment. But are you going to say that Schidloff is 'an enemy to humanity'?"

[The quoted passage is from p. 37, Schidloff's "Introduction" to his section of the book. This is a translation of his Das Sexualleben der Australier und Ozeanier (1908).]

Schopenhauer, Arthur

(1788-1860)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 February 1928 [SL 1 #10]: "Nietzsche never untwined the human from the cosmic nor did Schopenhauer."

Schorer, Mark

(1908-1977)

See "Derleth, August and Mark Schorer."

Schreiner, Olive

(1855-1920)

The Story of an African Farm

London: Chapman & Hall, 1883.

Harold Preece, "The Last Celt," in The Last Celt, p. 95: "I remember that Bob had bought several books during the trip, and they were in sight.... I had heard of Miss [Nathalia] Crane, but not of Olive Schreiner, whose STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM was also among Bob's purchases."

[The trip mentioned was to Austin, Texas, ca. 22 August 1927, during which he and Preece first met.]

"Visions of the Hunter."

Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, p. 36: "He ["Lars Jansen" = R. Fowler Gafford] had almost memorized by heart Schreiner's Visions, and in repeating them to Steve ["Steve Costigan" = REH] instilled a mystic fire in the telling which caused Steve to thrill more than when he read them."

[Ibid., p. 49]: "He [Jansen] again narrated Olive Schreiner's "Visions of the Hunter," seeming to find in it a great deal of solace."

[A section appended to The Story of an African Farm, titled "Dreams," contains a vignette entitled "The Hunter."]

Schurtz, Heinrich

(1863-1903)

"Spain and Its Conquerors,"

in The Book of History (q.v.), volume 7, pp. 3508ff.

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. September 1933: "I have it on the authority of Professor Heinrich Shurtz, that after the invasion of Spain by the mixed bands of Vandals, Alani and Suevi who overthrew the Roman bureaucracy, the coming of the Visigoths as allies of the Roman governors was not looked upon by the natives as the return of rescuers."

Schurtz wrote (p. 3510): "The German races already settled in Spain were driven into the wild North-west, and Roman governors were reinstated in the provinces.... And it is a strange and significant fact that when the hated barbarians were driven into the Galician mountains, numbers of the natives joined their ranks, preferring to share danger and freedom with the wild sons of the North rather than bow their necks again under the yoke of the Roman military bureaucracy."

Scott, Sir Walter

(1771-1832)

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. November 1932 [SL 2 #65]: "Dumas has a virility lacking in other French writers – I attribute it to his negroid strain – but his historical fiction lacks, at least to me, the gripping vividness of Sir Walter Scott, for instance..."

[Ibid.]: "I wouldn't take anything, though, for my early readings of Scott, Dickens and other English writers."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: Scott is listed among those Howard refers to as "my favorite writers."

Tevis Clyde Smith, "Adventurer in Pulp": Scott was "among his favorite writers...."

Seabrook, William [Buehler]

(1887-1945)

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, 13 May 1936: "You ought to read ... some of Seabrook's travel books if you want to get a realistic view of French colonial policy."

[Adventures in Arabia; Among the Bedouins, Druses, Whirling Dervishes & Yezidee Devil Worshippers (1927); The Magic Island (1929; concerns Haiti); Jungle Ways (1931; concerns French West Africa, Mali, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta); Air Adventure; From Paris to the Sahara Desert and Timbuctoo (1933); The White Monk of Timbuctoo (1934); all New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.]

Seeger, Alan

(1888-1916)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 6 August 1926: "Did you ever read anything by Alan Seeger? I've been thinking about getting some of his poetry."

Service, Robert W[illiam]

(1874-1958)

Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, p. 74: "Steve [Costigan = REH] tried rhymes. He wrote a great deal of jingling, jangling verse on the order of Robert W. Service, for whom he entertained a regard second only to Rudyard Kipling. Clive [Hilton = Tevis Clyde Smith] considered Service the greatest poet of all time, but Steve leaned toward Kipling, because, as he said, Service wrote a few rotten poems, but Kipling never did. The rhymes of Service made Steve freeze and burn inside, and he sought to imitate him."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: Service is listed among a number of poets Howard likes.

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. May-June 1933 [SL 2 #67]: "My tastes and habits are simple; I am neither erudite nor sophisticated. I prefer jazz to classical music, musical burlesques to Greek tragedy, A. Conan Doyle to Balzac, Bob Service's verse to Santayana's writing, a prize fight to a lecture on art."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. September 1933: "If I can enjoy (for instance) both Service and Baudelaire, I see no reason why I should feel inferior to the man who can only enjoy Baudelaire, any more than to the man who can only enjoy Service."

Ballads of a Bohemian

New York: Barse and Hopkins, 1921. 30693; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

The Pretender

a Story of the Latin Quarter. New York: A.L. Burt Co., [n.d.] (1914). 30783; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

Note in PQ1: This book is inscribed on the front free endpaper. "My dear Sassoon: | See the cuckoo in | the tree | And when you | see him think of me | Rupert Brooke." [I am of the opinion that the handwriting of the inscription is Tevis Clyde Smith's.]

Rhymes of a Red-Cross Man

Illustrated by Charles L. Wrenn. New York: Barse and Hopkins, 1916. 30806; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

The book has a two-color (red and black) title page and eight full-color plates.

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1923. 30739 (as "Rolling Stone Rhymes"); PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

"A Rolling Stone."

(1912).

[Included in Rhymes of a Rolling Stone.]

REH to Farnsworth Wright, ca. Summer 1931 [SL 2 #54] quotes lines 53-56 ("In belly-pinch I will pay the price, | But God! let me be free; | For once I know in the long ago | They made a slave of me.").

The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

New York: Barse and Hopkins, 1907. 30762; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

Shakespeare, William

(1564-1616)

"The Dook of Stork" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 7 July 1923), is subtitled "A Dramma by Willie Shakesbeer."

"The Thessalians" (The Yellow Jacket [Howard Payne College], 13 January 1927): "…we played Shakespeare, Marlow, Goethe and some of the moderns."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 February 1928 [SL 1 #10]: "I have carefully gone over, in my mind, the most powerful men – that is, in my opinion – in all of the world's literature and here is my list: Jack London, Leonid Andreyev, Omar Khayyam, Eugene O'Neill, William Shakespeare." In the same letter, in an untitled scenario, the character "Mike" (apparently the REH viewpoint character) says, "What do people know of the men who struggle to amuse them or to educate them? What is Shakespeare but a name, a mass of words, a dusty volume?"

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929: [Following Howard's parodic playlet, "Bastards All"] "I have a feeling that I've unconsciously plagiarized a good deal on this drammer but what the hell. It's very disconnected because my desires wavered between a wish to write straight jovial obscenity and a desire to simply parody Shakespeare and exaggerate and emphasize what I consider show the bastardness of the scut's nature -- the brutal inconsistencies of his characters. I admit that he portrayed human nature that way, but his damnable preachings show his swinishness to my mind. I admit Shakespeare nauseates me quickly. If I might wish for any real power in anything I might write, it would be to write a book proving he wrote all his dramas but making him out such a bastard that it would influence future literature. I can stand all but the ruling class moral tone he puts in from time to time. That isn't an echo of Upty [Upton Sinclair]. I never even read what Upty said about him. He narrates the doings of a bastard, makes you see he is a bastard, then leaves you with the impression that after all, the bastard was morally in the right. Oh, hell, I can't say what I'm trying to... I consider a swing with a mallet an unanswerable argument. At this time, instead of trying to make my friends understand what I can't understand myself, I'd simply seek out a teacher of Shakespeare and slam him with a mallet, thereby exhibiting my contempt for the subject and my stand on the matter as a whole."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 13 July 1932: "Once I tried to write polished verse and prose with the classic touch, and my efforts were merely ridiculous, like Falstaff trying to don the mantle of Pindar."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft , ca. 22 September 1932 [SL 2 #64]: "I notice where a mug named Oliver Herford has decided Shakespeare was Lord Oxford. It must have been a momentus decision, affecting the destiny of the world for Olivero to get his map in the magazines. Personally, I never cared whether the Shakespearian plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, or Lord Oxford-on-Thames or Lord Bitchbelly of Hogwallow-on-the-Tripe. It's a cinch somebody wrote 'em, because I've read 'em myself, unless I was suffering from an optical delusion, and if so, I enjoyed the delusion. Although there's only one character of Shakespeare that I have any real attachment to, and that's Sir John Falstaff. I have a sincere affection for that old bastard."

[H.P. Lovecraft to REH, 7 October 1932: "As for the authorship of the Shakespearian plays and poems -- I can't take very seriously the various attempts to attribute them to persons other than W.S. of Stratford and London. All the evidence given in such claims seems to me very thin and forced, while a great deal of evidence on the other side exists. Many seem to think that no one with Shakespeare's limited education and commonplace background could have written the existing works -- yet on the other hand I don't believe that they could have been written by anyone without a limited education and commonplace background. The historical and other errors in the plays are numerous and often absurd -- and cannot be explained away as common attributes of the Elizabethan age. Not one of the men -- Bacon, Oxford, etc. -- to whom people have tried to credit the plays could have made such mistakes. Ben Jonson's 'Sejanus' and 'Catiline' shew the exactness of the scholarship prevailing among the really educated men of Shakespeare's time. There is also in Shakespeare a sort of fawning affection for royalty and nobility which eloquently bespeaks the emulous plebian rather than the actual nobleman. To me, the plays and poems seem just about what would naturally be written by a man of prodigious natural genius in the position of William Shakespeare of Stratford. Some are obviously collaborated, but a certain thread of unity runs through them all. I don't for a moment believe that anyone but W.S. is primarily responsible for them."]

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. November 1932 [SL 2 #65]: "I don't doubt that you're right about Shakespeare. I never paid much attention to the anti-Shakespeare theory myself."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. September 1933: "I quite agree with your estimate of the average newspaper, and do not differ radically with your opinion of radio programs. And yet it would be erroneous to say that all radio programs are entirely without cultural value... I have heard, among other things, such plays as... a number of Shakespearean plays. Of course I had rather see these things on the stage, but as my chances of doing that are so slim they are practically non-existant, I was grateful for the opportunity of hearing them over the air."

Tevis Clyde Smith, "Adventurer in Pulp": "...Shakespeare was his favorite playwright..."

Tevis Clyde Smith, "Report on a Writing Man": "'Shakespeare,' he would say, 'had perspective. That is why he is so great, why he continues to live. It is something so few have. He probably had it more than any man.'"

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

(ca. 1601).

One Who Walked Alone, p. 204: [During a discussion of whether or not Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays (in which Howard seems to be suggesting he did)] "'The thinking in those essays [Bacon's] could very well have been in Shakespeare's plays. Read Hamlet. In it, you get something that was bothering the Elizabethans. Bacon especially. They still held to the old belief in blood revenge. You kill my father, and I'll kill your father.... Another idea was growing too, the idea of the responsibility of the State.... Can't you just see those old Elizabethans sitting around talking, trying to decide whether revenge should be done by the next of kin or by the State? Bacon was especially interested in things like that. That's why he wrote his essay on revenge.... You read that essay and then read Hamlet.... See if you don't think that was one of Hamlet's problems."

King Henry the Fifth

(ca. 1599).

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1932: [Howard was apparently extremely drunk] "You know, Cladye, I have been reading Shajepshere lately and thinjk Prince Henry which was Henry the ¢Fifghth was a dirty swine to turn off Good old Sir John Falstifaff, the on.y human chatacte Shakeperezes ever creaged. If I mete King Henry in hell I will swinge his hides."

Macbeth

(ca. 1606).

Tevis Clyde Smith, "Report on a Writing Man": "He was equally at home in discussing Macbeth and Jack Harkaway."

In One Who Walked Alone, Howard is quoted several times using the phrase "sere and yellow leaf," generally to refer to his own feeling of being old. On page 301, Ellis relates her discovery that the line is from Macbeth. It is from Act V, scene 3, Macbeth's fourth speech.

The Merchant of Venice

(ca. 1595).

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 6 March 1933: "I was much interested in what you said about the cat-phobia. A most peculiar phenomenon, and one that seems absolutely inexplicable to me... I reckon it's a phobia of long standing. Seems like I remember Shakespeare making some sort of a crack about."

[The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene 1, Shylock's first speech: "Some men there are love not a gaping pig; | Some, that are mad if they behold a cat; | and others, when the bag-pipe sings i' th' nose, | cannot contain their urine..."]

Titus Andronicus

(ca. 1594).

"Graveyard Rats": "I’ve seen you poring over Aaron’s lines in ‘Titus Andronicus’: "‘Oft have I digg’d up dead men / from their graves, / And set them upright at their / dear friends’ doors!’"

[These lines are from Act V, Scene I.]

Shaw, George Bernard

(1856-1950)

Mentioned in "King Hootus" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1928).

Mentioned in "A Fable for Critics." REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. October 1928 [SL 1 #15]: "No one judges George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, or Jack London by what they wrote in their early youth when they were struggling up the long ladder..."

Mentioned in "Lives and Crimes of Notable Artists" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. July 1930).

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: "I've never read any of G.B. Shaw's muck, either; he's probably a genius. He's also a poser, an egomaniac, and a jackass. I see he's coming to America at last. Very condescending on his part. If I had my way, he'd be met on the wharf by a committee of welcome in top-hats and ivory-headed canes who would tender him the keys of the city, and pull all his whiskers out, hair by hair."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, 6 March 1933: "...even the superior Mr. Shaw was once a clever boxer."

One Who Walked Alone, p. 119: "Then I very innocently said that I thought the play 'Candida' by George Bernard Shaw was great. He exploded. Apparently, Bob doesn't think the man has a brain in his head."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

(1792-1822)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, n.d. (prps. late 1928): "If what you write merits a lot of supercilious question marks after it, the the good Lord knows Shelley and Sassoon are sitting on paper thrones."

"Ozymandias."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 6 August 1926: "Say, Weird Tales is publishing some fine poetry, reprints, you know. This last issue they published 'Ozymandias' by Shelley..."

Sinclair, Upton [Beall]

(1878-1968)

Mentioned in "King Hootus" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1928) as "Upanddown Sinclarified."

Mentioned in "The Rump of Swift" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. June 1928).

Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, p. 36, named as a writer Lars [Jansen = Fowler Gafford] "had never heard of..."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. October 1928 [SL 1 #15]: "No one judges George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, or Jack London by what they wrote in their early youth when they were struggling up the long ladder..."

Mentioned in untitled parody ("'Hatrack!' a voice came to me dimly…") (included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929).

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929: (re: William Shakespeare's "ruling class moral tone") "That isn't an echo of Upty. I never even read what Upty said about him."

Mentioned in "A Fable for Critics" (also his books: "The Goose Step," "King Coal," "The Money Changers"): "Tremble ye tyrants, flee with leaps and bounds! | For every book he writes weighs forty pounds! | Ye who but laugh at poets' rhymes and rages | 'Ware the statistics in these deadly pages!"

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: "As for American writers, I think yourself and Jim Tully are the only ones whose work will endure; among the writers now living, I mean. Upton Sinclair may get by because of the pictures of economic and social life he draws."

The Jungle

New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906.

The Right Hook, vol. 1, no. 1: "Read Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'."

Letters To Judd

An American Workingman. Pasadena, CA: Author, 1925.

Truett Vinson to REH, ca. fall 1925: "Upton has a new book now -- 'Letters to Judd' is the title of it. I'll send you a paper bound copy this week. Be sure to read it."

Howard's copy of this paperbound book was found among his papers.

Mammonart

An Essay in Economic Interpretation. Pasadena: Published by the Author, 1925.

The Right Hook, vol. 1, no. 1: (Under heading "Bookmen and Books") "Upton Sinclair has written a new book, 'Mammonart'. It is just as good as his previous works, though in a different style. It is a complete anyalysis of the world of literature. Upton Sinclair is a great man. The only foremost writer of today who dares lay bare the smut and slime and sin that, hidden by a smooth mask of sham, thrives all over the world. So. The great American commonwealth approaches Upton circumspectly. Perhaps he is a new brand of oats! Then, 'He is a SOCIALIST!' someone brays. That is enough to send the great American commonwealth away a full gallop, flapping their ears in holy horror. We are not a Socialist, personally. We think Socialism has its faults; but we do seek to uphold common sense."

Oil!

A Novel. Long Beach, California: Published by the Author, 1927. 30760; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

Note in PQ2: "There are many pencil underlinings in this book. On p. 346, is the penciled statement: 'We Jews have learned not to go where we're new.'"

The Profits of Religion

A Study of Supernaturalism as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. Pasadena: Upton Sinclair, 1918; New York: Vanguard Press, 1918.

            REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 February 1928 [SL 1 #10]: I've just been reading 'The Profits of Religion'. Upton bids all 'real thinkers' shun the 'morasses' of cosmic thinking. He, in his omnipotence, relegates to the limbo of intellectual oblivion such men as Haeckel, Spencer and the Yogis. Not being quite ready to set Upton on the throne of the Almighty and kow-tow I beg to differ with him... I am disappointed; I thought Upton Sinclair a stronger man than that."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1928 [SL 1 #11]: "The only reason for writing this letter is to retract some statements I made in my previous letter, relative to Upton Sinclair and his 'Profits of Religion.' I find on careful perusal that, far from being an idealist propoganda, that the book is undoubtedly the most powerful upholder and exponent of material science I have yet encountered... Glancing over the book for the first time, I came upon an isolated remark dealing with Haeckel and I believe failed to interpret it in its true light... Upton did not fling reflections upon Haeckel as a man nor upon his followers, but simply warned against his material monism... his warning was against all metaphysics in general."

[Ibid.]: "For all human ideas are finite and relative, while the All or One or Unknowable is infinite and absolute. Upton appears to agree perfectly and gives the Yogis great respect. In fact, Upton is more of an occultist than I thought -- he leans more strongly toward the existence of the occult than I... Upton says, in effect, that a man is foolish to deny that which he cannot conceive simply because he cannot conceive it."

Siringo, Charles A.

(1855-1928)

Riata and Spurs

the Story of a Lifetime Spent in the Saddle as Cowboy and Ranger. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1931. 30690; PQ1; GL; TDB. Still in HPU holdings.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. April 1932 [SL 2 #62]: "Where did you get the Siringo book, and how much did it cost? If not too much, I think I'll get a copy. I'm interested in the bold buccaleeros of early days."

REH to August W. Derleth, ca. March 1933: "Yet such an absolutely authentic work as Charles Siringo's autobiography contain repeated references to murders and homicides."

[Stamped on bottom of title page, 'A.F. Von Blon | Rare Book Dealer | Waco, Texas.'] This would be the revised edition. The first edition of the book was published in 1927 by the same company. According to J. Frank Dobie, Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1952), "Because of a threatened lawsuit, half of it had to be cut and additional material provided for a 'Revised Edition.'"

Skeyhill, Tom [Thomas John]

(1896-1932)

Sergeant York

Last of the Long Hunters. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1930. 30652 (as "Sergeant York," no subtitle given); PQ4; GL; TDB.

Skeyhill also edited Sergeant York; His own life story and war diary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928).

Slavonic literature

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 2 November 1932 [SL 2 #65]: "Some Slavonic tales are gripping by their sheer somberness, but taken as a whole their literature fails to arouse my enthusiasm. That phrase -- taken as a whole -- is misleading, seeming to indicate that I was deeply familiar with that literature. I'm not, of course. What I meant was that part of the literature which I have read."

Smith, Clark Ashton

(1893-1961)

"The Charnel God." | "The Colossus of Ylourgne." | "The Dark Eidolon." | "The Death of Malygris." | "Demon of the Flower." | "Dominion." | The Double Shadow and Other Stories | "A Dream of the Abyss." | Ebony and Crystal | "Ennui." | "The Flower Women." | "The Hashish-Eater." | "The Holiness of Azedarac." | "The Ice-Demon." | "The Isle of the Torturers." | "The Kingdom of the Worm." | "The Last Heiroglyph." | "The Monster of the Prophecy." | "The Return of the Sorcerer." | "Revenant." | "The Seed From the Sepulchre." | "Ubbo-Sathla." | "The Weaver in the Vault." | "Winter Moonlight."

General Mentions

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. August 1930 [SL 1 #41]: "And I am highly honored to know that Mr. Long and Mr. Clark Ashton Smith have noticed my efforts. Both are writers and poets whose work I very much admire, having carefully preserved all of their poems (as well as all of your's) that have appeared in Weird Tales since I first made my acquaintance with the magazine."

[Smith's poems in Weird Tales prior to this date were: "The Red Moon," July/August 1923; "The Garden of Evil," July/August 1923; "Solution," January 1924; "The Melancholy Pool," March 1924; "A Fable," July 1927; "Interrogation," September 1927; "The Saturnienne," December 1927; "Warning," October 1928; "Sonnet," April 1929; "Nyctalops," October 1929; "The Nightmare Tarn," November 1929; "Fantaisie d'Antan," December 1929; "Ougabalys," January 1930; "Shadows," February 1930.]

REH to Charles D. Hornig, 1 November 1933: "Thanks for the copy of The Fantasy Fan... I am glad to see that you announce a poem by Smith in the next issue. He is a poet second to none."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. January 1934 [SL 2 #72]: "I hope Wright will let you do a lot of illustrating for Weird Tales, for other stories as well as your own. I'll certainly be glad to see your Zothique stories collected in book form."

"The Charnel God."

Weird Tales, March 1934.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. March 1934 [SL 2 #73]: "I was glad to see your illustration of your really magnificent 'Charnel God.' That story is really a tremendously powerful thing, sinister figures moving mysteriously against a black background of subtle horror. I don't know when I've read anything I admired more."

REH to Clark Aston Smith, ca. 21 May 1934 [SL 2 #74]: "Yes, I certainly did like the 'The Charnel God' and its fine illustration..."

"The Colossus of Ylourgne."

Weird Tales, June 1934.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. March 1934 [SL 2 #73]: "I look forward to... 'The Colossus of Ylourgne.'."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 21 May 1934 [SL 2 #74]: "I haven't yet obtained the June Weird Tales, but I look forward to reading your 'Colossus of Ylourgne.' That advance notice sure caught my fancy."

"The Dark Eidolon."

Weird Tales, January 1935.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 15 March 1933: "I shall look forward with eager anticipation for 'The Dark Eidolon' and the other stories you mentioned to be published in Weird Tales."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, 23 July 1935: "I very much enjoyed 'The Dark Eidolon'..."

"The Death of Malygris."

Weird Tales, April 1934.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. March 1934 [SL 2 #73]: "I look forward to 'Malygris,' not only the story itself, but your illustration also..."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 21 May 1934 [SL 2 #74]: "...the Malygris story came up to expectations splendidly. In some ways I liked the illustration even better than that of 'The Charnel God,' though both were fine."

"Demon of the Flower."

Astounding, December 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. October 1933 [SL 2 #68]: "Glad you made the Astounding Story market."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 14 December 1933 [SL 2 #70]: "I enjoyed your 'Demon in the Flower' very much and am sorry that Astounding is closed to stories of the weird nature."

"Dominion."

Weird Tales, June 1935.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, 23 July 1935: "I very much enjoyed... the splendid poem: 'Dominion'. I am not exaggerating when I say that I do not consider that I ever read a finer poem than that. I'd give my trigger-finger for the ability to make words flame and burn as you do."

The Double Shadow and Other Stories

Privately printed collection, 1933.

[According to Donald Sidney Fryer, Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, 1978), this was a 30-page, 8-5/8" by 11-1/2" paperbound booklet, printed by The Auburn [CA] Journal Press, February through June 1933. Contents: "The Voyage of King Eurovan"; "The Maze of the Enchanter"; "The Double Shadow"; "The Night in Malneant"; "The Devotee of Evil"; "The Willow Landscape"]

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 15 March 1933: "I hardly know how to thank you for the copy of The Double Shadow. I have read the stories with the most intense interest and appreciation, and hardly know which I like the best. All are magnificent, splendid examples of that poetic prose which is so characteristic of your work. I envy you your rich and vivid style.... Thanking you again for the magnificent Double Shadow..."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft , ca. September 1933: "Yes, I got both Smith's brochure [The Double Shadow] and his book of poems [Ebony and Crystal]. Both were splendid, as I told him."

"A Dream of the Abyss."

The Fantasy Fan, November 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 14 December 1933 [SL 2 #70]: "I also enjoyed your poem in the Fantasy Fan and have urged the editor to publish more of your poetry."

Ebony and Crystal

Auburn, California: Privately printed, 1922. 30624; PQ4; GL; TDB. Inscribed to REH from Clark Ashton Smith.

[PQ4 notes that this book was given to Glenn Lord by a former Howard Payne librarian.]

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 15 March 1933: "I am enclosing a check for Ebony and Crystal and would feel most honored if you would write your autograph on the fly page."

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 22 July 1933: "I can hardly find words to express the pleasure -- I might even say ecstasy -- with which I have read, and re-read, your magnificent 'Ebony and Crystal.' Every line in it is a gem. I could dip into the pages and pick at random, anywhere in the book, images of clarity and depth unsurpassed. I haven't the words to express what I feel, my vocabulary being disgustingly small. But so many of your images stir feeling of such unusual depth and intensity, and bring back half forgotten instincts and emotions with such crystal clearness. ¶ For instance, the stanza containing the line: ¶ 'The pines are ebony' ¶ A memory springs up with startling clearness of a starlit glade wherein I stood, years ago and hundreds of miles distant, a glade bordered with pine trees that rose like a solid wall of blackness. 'Ebony.' I have never encountered a darkness like that of a pine-forest at midnight. ¶ And again, 'Winter Moonlight' and the line: ¶ 'Carven of steel or fretted stone' ¶ It limns a picture of last winter when I was struck with the weird and somber imagery of a tall mesquite tree etched against a snowy land and the dimly gleaming steel of a cloudy winter sky. ¶ But I could go on indefinitely. I will not seek to express my appreciation of 'The Hashish-Eater.' I lack the words. I have read it many times already; I hope to read it many more times."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft , ca. September 1933: "Yes, I got both Smith's brochure [The Double Shadow] and his book of poems [Ebony and Crystal]. Both were splendid, as I told him."

"Ennui."

Weird Tales, May 1936.

REH to August W. Derleth, 9 May 1936: "I did like Smith's poem..."

[in May Weird Tales].

"The Flower Women."

Weird Tales, May 1935.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, 23 July 1935: "I very much enjoyed... 'The Flower Women'..."

"The Hashish-Eater."

[See Ebony and Crystal].

"The Holiness of Azedarac."

Weird Tales, November 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 1 November 1933: "...haven't gotten the November copy yet, but look forward to reading your 'Holiness of Azedarac.'."

"The Ice-Demon."

Weird Tales, April 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 15 March 1933: "Incidentally, your story in the current Weird Tales is splendid."

[This could be in reference to "The Isle of the Torturers," March 1933, but seems more likely to be this story.]

"The Isle of the Torturers."

Weird Tales, March 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 15 March 1933: "Incidentally, your story in the current Weird Tales is splendid."

[This could be in reference to "The Isle of the Torturers," but seems more likely to be "The Ice-Demon," April 1933.]

"The Kingdom of the Worm."

The Fantasy Fan, October 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. October 1933 [SL 2 #68]: "I enjoyed very much your 'Kingdom of the Worm.' It is an awesome and magnificent and somber word picture you have drawn of the haunted land of Antchar."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft , ca. November 1933 [SL 2 #69]: "I've read a copy of Fantasy Fan... I enjoyed Smith's tale..."

"The Last Heiroglyph."

Weird Tales, April 1935.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, 23 July 1935: "I very much enjoyed... 'The Last Hieroglyph'..."

"The Monster of the Prophecy."

Weird Tales, January 1932.

REH to The Eyrie, March 1932: "...the stories [in the January issue] by Smith, Long, Hurst and Jacobi could scarcely be excelled... Smith's sweep of imagination and fantasy is enthralling, but what captivates me most is the subtle, satiric humour that threads its delicate way through so much of his work -- a sly humour that equals the more subtle touches of Rabelais and Petronius."

"The Return of the Sorcerer."

Strange Tales, September 1931.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. October 1933 [SL 2 #68]: "I envy you your knack of making the fantastic seem real. I particularly remember your remarkable 'Return of the Sorcerer' in Strange Tales. That was no story for one with weak nerves. The horror you evoked was almost unbearable. I have read and written weird stuff for more years than I like to remember, and it takes a regular literary earthquake to touch my callous soul. But it is the honest truth that my hair stood up when I read that story. Poe never wrote anything that congealed my blood like that did. I wrote the editor to that effect."

"Revenant."

The Fantasy Fan, March 1934.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca July 1933: "First let me thank you very much indeed for the magnificent poem 'Revenant' which is as splendid as anything of its kind that I ever read, and which I have placed among my most treasured possessions. It is indeed an honor to receive an addressed and signed copy of such a poem. How I envy your superb gift of conjuring up images of wizardry and wonder, like clouds rising from the ocean."

REH to The Fantasy Fan, May 1934: "Smith's poem in the March issue was splendid, as always. By all means, publish as many of his poems as possible; I would like to see more by Lumley and it would be a fine thing if you could get some of Lovecraft's poetry."

"The Seed From the Sepulchre."

Weird Tales, October 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. October 1933 [SL 2 #68]: "I enjoyed your story in the October Weird Tales, as always..."

REH to August W. Derleth, ca. October 1933: "I got a big kick out of Lovecraft's story, as well as those of Smith, Long etc."

"Ubbo-Sathla."

Weird Tales, July 1933.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. 22 July 1933: "That is a fine story you have in the current Weird Tales. I mean 'Ubbo Sathla'; short as it is, it has a really epochal sweep that is almost dizzying in the vistas it opens of awful and incredible antiquity."

REH to August W. Derleth, ca. July 1933: "Smith's yarn [in Weird Tales, July 1933] was first class, too."

"The Weaver in the Vault."

Weird Tales, January 1934.

REH to Clark Ashton Smith, ca. January 1934 [SL 2 #72]: "I liked your story in the current Weird Tales very much indeed; it had that smooth beauty of narration and sense of remote antiquity that characterizes all your work; poetic prose in the finest sense. And the illustration was splendid."

"Winter Moonlight."

[See Ebony and Crystal.]

Smith, Langdon

(1858-1908)

Evolution

A Fantasy. "When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish." Boston: John W. Luce & Co., 1909.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 4 November 1923: "Did you ever read any of Langdon Smith's poetry? Here's some of it. [quotes stanza VII, ll. 5-8] Rather shuddersome, some of the poetry. Here's some more. [quotes stanza IX, ll. 1-4] And some of the poetry is different. [quotes stanza XII, ll. 1-4] And: [quotes stanza V, ll. 1-8] How do you like Langdon Smith's poetry? And who or what do you suppose the verses refer to?"

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 6 August 1926: "I've ordered...a volume of Langdon Smith's poems."

Howard's humorous boxing poem, "When you were a set-up and I was a ham," seems to be a parody of Smith's poem.

The poem is included in Little Blue Book 71, Poems of Evolution.

Smith, Tevis Clyde

(1908-1984)

"Aellening the Wolf." | Frontier's Generation | "Hope." | "Pristine." | "Retraction." | Unidentified poem | Unnamed "duelling" story | Unnamed story

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 24 May 1925: "Your poetry's all right. Gets better all the time."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 9 October 1925: "Say, bo, you're developing into a real poet. That poem of yours was sure great."

Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, pp. 86-89: "He [Clive Hilton = Tevis Clyde Smith] was becoming interested in poetry, and abjured Robert W. Service. Clive had always scribbled verse to some extent, and Steve, to follow the bidding of his peculiar code of courtesy, had always lavishly praised them. But he had wondered at the mistakes in scansion and meter which Clive had made.... [Steve Costigan = REH] rhymed by instinct, and while some of his verse was irregular in the number of feet, it would scan and, at least in meter, violated no great poetic principles. ¶ Clive seemed to lack this instinct, yet at times some chance phrase or knack of wording in his verse would cause Steve to start with a sudden thrill, as he seemed to sense dreaming deeps, unguessed even by the author. ¶ .... As for Clive, a change had come over him. He looked back on Service and shuddered. He wrote nothing but sonnets, working entire weeks on one, and pouring out sweat and blood on them.... ¶ Clive sent Steve most of his work, and it was borne upon him that the blond youth was a real poet. If he did not have the metric instinct as Steve had, he had what was greater -- the real poetic fire. he had a knack of phrasing, a gift of imagery, a choice of wording, which Steve knew he could never hope to equal or even approach. ¶ .... There were lines which made him freeze and burn, which caused goose flesh to rise all over him, and made him want to weep and laugh with the beauty and glory of the thing. Some of Clive's verse had this quality, and Steve was glad and proud to have been the first to recognize the powers latent in the youth.... he praised Clive and encouraged him, seeking new words to express the greatness of his friend's poetry."

[Ibid., p. 135]: "He sensed in the blond youth's [i.e., Clive Hilton/Tevis Clyde Smith's] poetry, a depth and beauty surpassing any American verse ever written, strength and virility surpassing the poetry of Europe."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1928 [SL 1 #8]: "I predicted to him [Harold Preece] as to about a thousand others, that you were the next foremost poet of America."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1928 [SL 1 #9]: "I read your verse again and again. You are a poet and owe it to yourself to cultivate your talent."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. November 1928 [SL 1 #17]: "I'll swear you're the only galoot I ever heard of who allied the highest and most artistic instinct for the beautiful and fantastic, with the brutal materialism of a Middle Ages baron. You're a mixture of Aristophanes and Diogenes, of Wilde and Dean Swift. The laughter of your works is like the brine of the Atlantic and beneath your most humorous sentences runs a deep vein of bitter satire that cuts like a keen-edged dagger. The nearest approach to you was Dean Swift and he was rather too heavy and cumbersome. Your satire is like the thrust of a rapier with a piledriver behind it. When you strike your stride, people will forget there ever was a Mencken. ¶ The description of battle and death was the most terrible thing I ever read and to my mind the most vital and poignant thing you've ever written. You used plain, clear concise language, made no attempt at far flown imagery, and succeeded in drawing a picture so vivid, so real and so naturally dramatic that it gripped like iron fingers and turned my guts a deep saffron. God, what an image. Ever line, every word throbbed and pulsed with life and reality, with all the lost hopes and vanished dreams, the heart hurts and the soul beats of humanity. That's art -- that is real art, which so many seek to attain and never accomplish. There was but one idealistic touch and that was my ending -- I'll never reach such heights when my time comes. I'll likely go out like a yellow rat. Thanks, anyhow. The poem was great, of course. ¶ You're a strange and powerful combination -- your work is beautiful and yet rippingly powerful -- delicate as golden lace, yet if need be, brutal as a blood-stained battle mace. You break down dark hidden doors with a rose for a battering ram and cleave skulls with a golden sword."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. November 1928: "There's only one man today who is Voltaire reincarnated and you're he."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, n.d. (prob. ca. late 1928): "Listen you goddamn so forth and so on, I notice a cynicism stealing into your remarks that I resent. You say you are sending me poetry and then put a lot of question marks after the word poetry. If I catch you defaming your art again that way I'll steal on you unaware, kick your pants up around your neck, light on your face with both feet, crucify you and wind up by punching you in the nose. If what you write merits a lot of supercilious question marks after it, then the good Lord knows Shelley and Sassoon are sitting on paper thrones. Each man of character has only one excuse for existence -- your poetry is yours. It don't do for a man to take himself too seriously but it don't do for him to belittle himself either. ¶ The poem you sent me was as fiery and virile as anything you've ever written -- or anybody else, for that matter. Especially the second part went to my brain like the flaming liquor of insanity. No one besides Jack London has the power to move me just that way. Your free verse was great too, stirring me in another manner. You know it takes rhyme to set me wild, but the free verse had the proper touch of mysticism which free verse is supposed to have, but which so few can instill therein."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1929: "I think that two of the poems are about as fine as you have ever written. As in all your poetry there is a certain undefinable something, a haunting melody and imagery, hinting at dreaming deeps, unguessed, even by yourself, I believe. Your poetry intrigues me as no other writer's has ever done. Throughout the weave of your verse, a chance word, a rhyme scheme, a trick of phrasing, betrays the true artistic genius. I have said very often before and now repeat that you have it in you to become the greatest poet that America has ever produced. I do not say this because of any friendship which may exist between use, but simply because it is my sincere belief."

REH to TCS, ca. June 1929 [SL 1 #25]: "I've re-read your poem again and again. I think it's a master-piece. All the poems contained in that letter I like. But hell, you never wrote a line of verse that I didn't like. Your poetry glows and burns with passionate life, no matter what the subject -- fierce revolt -- savage beauty -- and beauty cold and heartless as a frozen queen -- and wild and terrible as the death of a heathen king. Golden tom-toms -- they throb forever in your lines, and they will throb down all the ages, to freeze and burn the hearts of men as long as the wild geese wing southward or the gulls cry over the magic ocean."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. September 1930 [SL 1 #44]: "...I'm going to write a history of early Texan days some time... You won't have any objection to me using your articles as instances of Texas romance, will you? Of course, I'll give you full credit and cite your news stories as references."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1931: "I read your article on the moody settlers of early Texas. It was very well written indeed, and as far as I know, unique. If anyone else ever dwelt specially on that subject, I never heard of it."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. October 1931: "Your poem was magnificent. It's the first bit of verse which has made goose-flesh on me in the Devil knows how long. I'm going to quote some of it to Lovecraft in my next letter. I can't praise it enough; it has the ring and the swing, the throb and the pulse and the thunder." [There is no quotation from a Smith poem in Howard's letter to Lovecraft, ca. 4 October 1931.]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1932: "But if a discerning critic like Lovecraft likes my stuff, then the world will certainly be enriched by our book, because both your poems and Lenore [Preece]'s are superior to mine. (I say this not in mock humility but because it's true.)"

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 6 March 1933: "You know, the finest poets the Southwest has ever produced are absolutely unknown, and are not even listed in the Texas Almanac.... They are my very good friend Tevis Clyde Smith Jr., of Brownwood, and the sister of another friend, Lenore Preece of Austin. Clyde is the lad who collaborated with me on that yarn 'Red Blades of Black Cathay' which appeared in the old Oriental Stories, and which Whitehead was kind enough to praise.... He's a college graduate; had a fling at the writing game, during which time he wrote some of the finest poetry I ever read. None of it was ever published, but if I ever have the opportunity I intend to bring it all out in book form.... But even if he doesn't [return to literary work], he's accomplished more in the way of real poetry, than many a widely-known scibbler ever does."

"Aellening the Wolf."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1928 [SL 1 #12]: "Glad you're writing these days. Good stuff, 'Ellening the Wolf' was great, especially."

Frontier's Generation

the Pioneer History of Brown County with Sidelights on the Surrounding Territory. Brownwood, Texas: Published by the author, 1931.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 4 March 1931: "Congratulations on your history book. I'm sure glad you've decided to put it out and believe you'll make some money on it. Let me have the honor of buying the first copy, autographed. Who's going to do the printing?" [The book was printed by Greenwood Press, Brownwood.]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1931: "Too bad about your typewriter breaking down when you were winding up the history, but the old machine has lasted mighty well. When do you expect to get the history out?"

[Tevis Clyde Smith to REH, ca. 14 March 1931: "It will be at least a month or six weeks, I suppose, before the job is completed -- the history, I mean. It isn't a gigantic task, but the printer has so much else to do that it will keep him humping to get it out. I am sending you a proof of the first page of the manuscript."]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 14 March 1931: "Your history looks great and from what I read, has a remarkably vivid and entertainingly ironic style. By the way, do you want me to return the proof-sheet?"

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 May 1931: "Wish you'd get me a Frontier Times and keep it till I see you; I want to see my reprint, also the review they gave your book."

[Frontier Times, June 1931, reprinted Howard's "The Ghost of Camp Colorado" (The Texaco Star, April 1931), and contains the notice, under "Books Received": "We are in receipt of a valuable booklet of 63 pages recently written and published by Tevis Clyde Smith of Brownwood, under the title of 'Frontier's Generation, the Pioneer History of Brown County, with Sidelights on the Surrounding Territory.' The book contains much interesting and worth-while history of early days, and sells for fifty cents per copy."]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. May 1931: "Thanks very much for the Frontier Times. Bozo gave you a pretty nice write-up about your bookel, but he should have devoted more space to it."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. September 1931 [SL 2 #56]: "I'm glad to hear the G.M.C. are going to review your book, and I appreciate your attitude in not sending them the book and scathing them with rebukal, knowing how distasteful vulgar publicity is to youse."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. May 1932 [SL 2 #61]: "Glad you got a write-up in the Southwestern. I'd like to have a copy, if you've a spare one; if not, I'd like for you to quote the write-up in a letter." [J. Evetts Haley reviewed Frontier's Generation in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, April 1932.]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. April 1932 [SL 2 #62]: "Haley gave you a nice write-up, but no more than you deserved. I hope his boost will cause you to sell some more of your books."

REH to August W. Derleth, ca. February 1933: "I'm sending you, under separate cover, an interesting item, 'Frontier's Generation', by my friend, Tevis Clyde Smith Jr. It's a history of Brown County, and to a certain extent, the surrounding counties... Clyde was well qualified for the job of writing the history, having been born and raised in Brownwood, and absorbed the atmosphere, as it were. The stuff contained in the book is as authentic as a chronicle can be. I make that remark, mainly, lest some of the details of that early life seem too melodramatic and gory.... ¶ ...For obvious reasons many lurid incidents, not actually vital to the chronicle of the county's history, but nevertheless full of drama and interest, were omitted. In this country, frontier days were yesterday. The country is full of men who are sons of those who enacted such dramas -- some of the men themselves still live. ¶ For the same reason several myths and legends, popular thereabouts, were omitted -- particularly that concerning Henry Ford, whose writings furnished much of the material for the book, and whose picture you will see opposite page 43.... ¶ ...Naturally the size of the book limits its details, but it is as good a mirror of life in early Texas, and especially in Brown County, as can be found anywhere."

REH to August W. Derleth, ca. March 1933: "I should have told you that I meant you to keep the copy of 'Frontier's Generation'. I have several other copies. If you like it, you are more than welcome to it."

[August W. Derleth to REH, 13 March 1933: "Many thanks for FRONTIER'S GENERATION, which I did enjoy very much indeed. I realize that the gore is an essential of the frontier, and must appear in its chronicling, and certainly did not feel anything wrong with its being spattered about the book."]

"Hope."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, n.d.: "Again glancing over your last letter, (as clever a piece of work as I ever hope to see) I re-read your poem, 'Hope.' I'm memorizing it and intend to deliver it on every occasion possible. I think it's one of the best things you ever wrote, which means one of the best things anybody ever wrote."

"Pristine."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 6 August 1926: "That 'Pristine' poem of yours was great; wonderful; the sonnets too. 'Pristine' put into words what I've often thought. You have the knack, (which I haven't) of putting your exact thoughts into print."

"Retraction."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. late summer 1932: "I don't know when I've enjoyed a pome like I enjoyed yours. I got an especial whang out of the line, ¶ 'I gave a laugh and I gave him the knife' ¶ It has the simple, unaffected ferocity I dote on. We should be the start of a new school of realism. You have -- and I think I have to some extent -- the ability to be savage without obvious effort. It seems to come natural. When the average egg tries to be brutal, the effort is apparent and falls short."

Unidentified poem.

"People of the Black Coast": "Did you ever read Tevis Clyde Smith's poem—'The long black coasts of death'—something?"

Unnamed "duelling" story

Dallas News.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. September 1930 [SL 1 #44]: "I hope you'll sell the duelling story. Thanks for the addition to my already long list of notable relatives. Admittedly, Uncle Terence was something of a family scape-goat, but he redeemed himself at Shiloh; even my great-aunts admitted there must have been some good in the lousy sonofabitch. But he shouldn't have taken part in the battle at all; he was too drunk to duck."

REH to TCS, ca. 5 December 1930: "I read the duel article in the Dallas News and am thinking of sending it to Lovecraft, to show him what a hell-ripper Uncle Terence was."

Unnamed story

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, n.d. (ca. 1930?): "Well, Fear Finn, I read your story and enjoyed it even more than I did when I read it in manuscript form; I want you to autgraph it for me the first chance we get. It has power and drive about it that makes it stand out clear cut and distinct from the goo and slop dripped on the public from the sex-saturated pens of most writers. It touches pungently on the basic uselessness of life, and the drag of satiety, of empty needs which cannot be satisfied no matter how much they may be glutted -- all this it expounds and creates without the use of the superlatives and canting mouthings employed so much by the half-baked school of tin-can sophisticates."

Smith, Thomas Robert

(1880-1942) (ed.).

Poetica Erotica

A Collection of Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1921, 1927. 30600; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Sophocles

(496-406 B.C.).

Antigone

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. September 1933: "I quite agree with your estimate of the average newspaper, and do not differ radically with your opinion of radio programs. And yet it would be erroneous to say that all radio programs are entirely without cultural value. I have heard, among other things, such plays as... 'Antigone'... Of course I had rather see these things on the stage, but as my chances of doing that are so slim they are practically non-existant, I was grateful for the opportunity of hearing them over the air."

Spencer, Herbert

(1820-1903)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 February 1928 [SL 1 #10]: "He [Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion], in his omnipotence, relegates to the limbo of intellectual oblivion such men as Haeckel, Spencer and the Yogis... [Discussing men who "look beyond the human" to the cosmic] "Haeckel did and Spencer and Huxley and Darwin.... Perfection? Spencer plainly shows that perfection is impossible."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1928 [SL 1 #11]: "I suppose I am engaged in what seems to be a childish task, that of seeking to compromise Haeckel's principle with the theories of Spencer -- no, not compromise -- I detest that word, it suggests surrender and evasion -- what I am seeking to do is to find a common viewpoint. I think that the teachings of Yogi Ramacharaka come nearer to doing this than any other. Haeckel argues in one direction, Spencer in another; the Yogis argue in both directions and seem, in the Gnani Yoga at least, to cover both fields of speculation, physical and spiritual. Haeckel's theory is simply of matter, Spencer's of relative appearance; the Yogis take up both questions, agree with Haeckel that matter or the appearance of matter is solidity insofar as human life is concerned, and agree with Spencer that there is an Unknowable, an underlying principle beneath all outward appearances. They agree with Spencer that the All is Unknowable, because It so far transcends human experience that the human finds no thought by which to formulate the idea. For all human ideas are finite and relative, while the All or One or Unknowable is infinite and absolute."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1928: "The war at present between physical and metaphysical seems to point toward victory for the theologians but truth must triumph and Haeckel, Spencer, spinoza and such men are surely more right than J. Frank Norris and Billy Sunday."

REH to The Eyrie, May 1928: [Re: Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu"] "Herbert Spencer may have been right when he said that it was beyond the human mind to grasp the Unknowable, but Mr. Lovecraft is in a fair way of disproving that theory, I think." "Spectres in the Dark": "...he was explaining Spencer's principles, the deeper phases of them."

Spenser, Edmund

(1552?-1599)

A View of the Present State of Ireland

(written ca. 1595, published 1633).

REH to Harry Bates, 1 June 1931: [In submitting "Spears of Clontarf" for Clayton Publications' proposed Torchlights of History magazine] "In gathering material for this story I have drawn on such sources as... Spenser's 'View of the State of Ireland'..."

[It is likely that Howard’s true source for this was P.W. Joyce’s A Short History of Gaelic Ireland [q.v.], which quotes from Spenser’s book (regarding, for example, Irish soldiers, p. 116) and which uses the same unusual variant of the title cited by Howard.]

Spinoza, Baruch

(1632-1677)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1928: "The war at present between physical and metaphysical seems to point toward victory for the theologians but truth must triumph and Haeckel, Spencer, spinoza and such men are surely more right than J. Frank Norris and Billy Sunday."

[Norris was pastor of one of the largest churches in Texas; Billy Sunday was a nationally known evangelist.]

Stanley, Sir Henry Morton

(1841-1904)

See "Northrop, Henry Davenport, Wonders of the Tropics."

Steele, Joel Dorman

(1836-1886) and Esther Baker Steele (1835-1911)

A Brief History of the United States. New York: American Book Co., 1885. 30728; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Earlier editions under this title were by Joel Dorman Steele as sole author.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

(1850-1894)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 7 July 1923, in a listing of parodic book titles is "'Dr. Jerkall and Mr. Hideall,' by R.L. Stevenson" [Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886].

Treasure Island. 1883.

REH’s verse, “Flint’s Passing,” appears to be a homage, with "Flint" and "Silver" mentioned by name.

Stewart, Frank M[ann]

and Joseph L. Clark

[The Constitution and Government of Texas]

Boston: D.C. Heath, 1930. TDB (as "Barlow, Robert H. and Clark Stewart").

TDB notes that, according to Glenn Lord, REH quoted from the Texas constitution in a letter to H.P. Lovecraft. Actually, in a letter 31 May 1935, REH quotes from the Texas Declaration of Independence, for which this book may not have been the source, and thus this book may not belong in this listing. Also, this title immediately precedes, on the accessions list, the listing of multi-volume sets with which I believe the cataloging of the REH collection begins.

Stewart, Solon K.

(1883- )

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. March 1931: "He [Harold Preece] also wanted to take me around and introduce me to Solon Stewart, the solitary writer, but I didn't have the energy."

Stoker, Bram

(1847-1912)

Dracula

(1896). 30763 (title as "International Adventure Library"); PQ4 (same as accessions listing); GL (author's name as "Stokes," title same as accessions listing].

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 5 October 1923: "I've had two cousins visiting me, whom I hadn't seen for fifteen years. They'd read the International Adventure Library and from what they said, 'Dracula' is a humdinger. I'm going to order the set right away." [See "International Adventure Library"].

The Story of the Inquisition

What It Was and What It Did; To which is appended an Account of Persecutions by Protestants, Persecutions of Witches, and the War between Religion and Science. New York: Freethought Press, 1928. 30607; PQ4; GL; TDB.

Stratton-Porter, Gene

(1863-1924)

Freckles

Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, 1904. Still in HPU holdings.

This title did not appear in previous listings of Howard's library, nor on the accessions list, but has the bookplate. It is inscribed on the front free endpaper: "Robert Howard | from | Grandmother | Dec 1913 | Please return"

Stribling, T[homas] S[igismund]

(1881-1965)

Fombombo

New York: The Century Co., 1923.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 5 October 1928: "T.S. Stribling is pretty good. 'Fombombo' was a fine satire."

[Fombombo was serialized in Adventure in four parts: 20 August, 30 August, 10 September and 20 September, 1923.]

Sturlason, Snorri

(1178-1241)

The Heimskringla

or The Sagas of the Norse Kings from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason by Samuel Laing. London: J.M. Dent & Sons / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1930 (Everyman's Library). Still in HPU holdings.

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. 25 July 1935: "By the way, I recently got hold of a book that ought to be read by all writers who strive after realism, and by every man with a drop of Nordic blood in his veins -- the 'Heimskringla' of Snorre Sturlason. Reading his sagas of the Norse people, I felt more strongly than ever my instinctive kinship with them, and the kinship between them and frontier people of American. In many ways the Norsemen figuring in this history more resemble the American pioneers of the West more than any other European people I have ever read about. The main difference, as far as I could see, was that the Norsemen were more prone to break their pledged word than were the frontiersmen."

Sweet, Alfred Henry

(1890-1950)

History of England

Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1931. PQ4 (author as "Swest [?]")

Swift, Jonathan

(1667-1745)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. June 1928: includes a parodic sketch, "The Rump of Swift," in which Swift is a main character.

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. November 1928: "You're a mixture of Aristophanes and Diogenes, of Wilde and Dean Swift. The laughter of your works is like the brine of the Atlantic and beneath your most humorous sentences runs a deep vein of bitter satire that cuts like a keen-edged dagger. The nearest approach to you was Dean Swift and he was rather too heavy and cumbersome."

[Swift was Dean of St.Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin from 1713.]

Swinburne, Algernon Charles

(1837-1901)

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 23 June 1926: "Swinburne was a moral pervert and Oscar Wilde's life was a long struggle against his bi-sexuality. For Wilde was a moralist, secretly. Whereas Swinburne was unashamed in his perversion. ¶ According to George Sylvester Viereck: 'Love in its spiritual aspect he (Swinburne) knows not. His amorous fancy feeds upon the esoteric, things "monstrous and fruitless." The ordinary relation between sexes engages him only when it is sadistic.' And again, quoting Viereck: 'Modern science has divested perversion of its evil glamor. Freud has taught us that perversity is an essential phase in the evolution of childhood.... occuring at all times in a fairly constant percentage of human beings. Swinburne adds a new complexity. He does not turn toward his own sex. His passion goes out to woman, but he loves woman, not with the passion of a man for a maid, but with the hectic craving of Lesbian woman for her own sex.'"

[The quoted matter from George Sylvester Viereck is from his introduction to Swinburne's Poems and Ballads (Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Co., 1925; Little Blue Book No. 791).]

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 21 August 1926: "And speaking of poetry, I fail to understand how I have gone through life in abysmal ignorance of the fact of Swinburne's greatness. He's a wonder... Only think; Swinburne held the title along about 1860 and here I am only lately discovering that he was a wonder of the age; of any age.... Swinburne was a pervert; 'The Isles of Lesbos' were his favorite theme.'"

"The Fastidious Fooey Mancucu" (parody, included in REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. October 1927): "…that classic which won Swinburne his first fame: 'If life was a thing that money would buy | 'The Jews would live and the Irish would die.'"

Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, p. 87: "Steve [Costigan = REH] discovered Wilde, Swinburne, and Viereck."

REH to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932: Swinburne is listed among a number of poets Howard likes.

REH to Emil Petaja July 23, 1935: "Glad you like the bits of verse I sometimes use for chapter headings. They are mine, except where due credit is given to the author—in the past I have used quotations from Chesterton, Kipling, Poe, Swinburne, and possibly others which I do not at present recall."

"Anactoria."

REH to Harold Preece, ca. December 1928 [SL 1 #20]: "Let us sigh with Swinburne:" [Quotes lines 276-280; the quotation is repeated at the end of the letter. The quotation is found also in Greek Women, vol. I of Woman; in all ages and in all countries; see the discussion of "Sappho."]

"Felise."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 21 August 1926: "If you've read 'Felise' and 'Hertha' read it again, and if you haven't, hasten and read it, having first handed yourself a kick in the pants for not having read it before."

"A Forsaken Garden."

"Skull-Face": lines 77-80 used as heading for Chapter 20.

"The Garden of Proserpine."

"Skull-Face": lines 37-40 used as heading for Chapter 21.

"Hertha."

REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, 21 August 1926: "If you've read 'Felise' and 'Hertha' read it again, and if you haven't, hasten and read it, having first handed yourself a kick in the pants for not having read it before."

Symonds, John Addington

(1840-1893) (tr.).

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

[See "Cellini."]

REHupa Home Page

REH Bookshelf - S

Miss Minerva's Baby

Miss Minerva Broadcasts Billy

Riata and Spurs

General Mentions

"The Monster of the Prophecy."

Treasure Island. 1883.

[The Constitution and Government of Texas]

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini