Lost Worlds

This collection gathers stories set in strange, decaying realms that its author invented. Three settings frame the book: Zothique, a far-future continent where sorcery and dark rites hold sway; Averoigne, a medieval-style French countryside full of superstition and the supernatural; and a third group of tales that stand apart from both.

Zothique is represented by four stories: The Empire of the Necromancers, The Isle of the Torturers, and Necromancy in Naat Xeethra. The Averoigne section contains The Holiness of Azedarac and The Beast of Averoigne. The remaining tales, The Letter from Mohaun Los, The Light from Beyond, The Hunters from Beyond and The Treader of the Dust, sit under the heading Others.

The author, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), was an American writer who also wrote poetry and made sculptures, and he was a regular contributor to the pulp magazine Weird Tales. This edition is illustrated on the cover by Bruce Pennington.