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”.