Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith was a science fiction and horror author from Long Valley California. He was born in 1893 and developed an interest in storytelling from a very young age that by the time he was eleven, he was already writing. Apart from the first five years he spent in grammar school, he was an autodidact whose intellectual prowess is clear in his sculptures, verse, painting, and prose.

The best place to start is The Averoigne Chronicles series, the earliest of Clark Ashton Smith's multi-book series: it opens with A Rendezvous in Averoigne (1931) and runs to 4 books across 1931–2009, ending with The Colossus of Ylourgne (2009). Clark Ashton Smith's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Clark Ashton Smith has 190 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1667 and 2026. 117 of them belong to 8 named series — the largest being the Tales of Zothique series with 7 books — and 73 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Clark Ashton Smith's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are The Averoigne Chronicles (1931–2009, 4 books), The Book of Hyperborea (1932–2009, 2 books) and Tales of Zothique (1934–2014, 7 books), plus 4 more.

This guide splits Clark Ashton Smith's 190 books into 8 named series and 73 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Tales of Zothique (7 books, 1934–2014); The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (5 books, 1981–2008); The Averoigne Chronicles (4 books, 1931–2009); Renegade Swords (4 books, 2020–2026); The Complete Poetry and Translations of (3 books, 2008), plus 3 further series.