Clark Ashton Smith (1893 - 1961)

Clark Ashton Smith (13 January 1893 – 14 August 1961) was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Ambrose Bierce, Joaquin Miller, Sterling, Nora May French, and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith was one of "the big three of [pulp magazine] Weird Tales, along with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft," where some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions.