The Ninth Skeleton
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The Ninth Skeleton
"The Ninth Skeleton" is a short story by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was first published in the September 1928 issue of ''Weird Tales''.'' The Ninth Skeleton''
publication history at the It was his first story for ''Weird Tales''.


Plot

The story tells of the experience of a man, Herbert, on his way to meet his girlfriend Guenevere, who experiences what seems to be a macabre vision of various skeletons, each of whom advances with a skeleton child in its arms. The ninth skeleton (of the title) has no infant skeleton, but is still in the grave, and attempts to pull the narrator ...
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Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ...
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Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures". Smith was one of "the big three of ''Weird Tales'', with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft", but some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. The fantasy critic L. Sprague de Camp said of him th ...
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1928 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1928. Events *January **The Soviet magazine '' Oktyabr'' begins publishing Mikhail Sholokhov's novel ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' («Тихий Дон», ''Tikhiy Don'') in instalments. **Ford Madox Ford publishes ''Last Post'' in the U.K., as the last in his World War I tetralogy ''Parade's End'', which has been appearing since 1924. *January 16 – The English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy's ashes are interred in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, London. Pallbearers include Stanley Baldwin, J. M. Barrie, John Galsworthy, Edmund Gosse, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Ramsay MacDonald and George Bernard Shaw. Meanwhile, Hardy's heart is interred where he wished to be buried, in the grave of his first wife, Emma, in the churchyard of his parish of birth, Stinsford ("Mellstock") in Dorset. Later in the year, his widow Florence publishes the first part of a biography, ''The Early Life of Thomas H ...
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Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced ''Weird Tales'', with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright's control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories first appeared in ''Weird Tales'', starti ...
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Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB is a volunteer effort, with the database being open for moderated editing and user contributions, and a wiki that allows the database editors to coordinate with each other. the site had catalogued 2,002,324 story titles from 232,816 authors. The code for the site has been used in books and tutorials as examples of database schema and organizing content. The ISFDB database and code are available under Creative Commons licensing. The site won the Wooden Rocket Award in the Best Directory Site category in 2005. Purpose The ISFDB database indexes speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history) authors, novels, short fiction, essays, publishers, awards, and magazines in print, electronic, and audio formats. ...
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The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. The first issue was titled ''The Magazine of Fantasy'', but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. ''F&SF'' was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set ''F&SF'' apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine". ''F&SF'' qu ...
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Mercury Publications
{{short description, American publisher of fiction periodicals Mercury Publications (a.k.a. Mercury Press) was a magazine publishing company,initially owned and operated by Lawrence E. Spivak, which mainly published genre fiction in digest-sized formats. The focus of Spivak's line was on detective and mystery stories and novels, but it also included magazines about humor, fantasy, and true crime. The offices were located at 570 Lexington Avenue in New York, N.Y. (in later years in Cornwall, Connecticut). Spivak entered publishing in 1933 as the business manager of ''The American Mercury'', and two years later, he became the magazine's publisher, expanding his operations in the late 1930s with additional titles. His subsidiary companies included Mystery House and Fantasy House. Two Mercury series were Mercury Library and Mercury Books. Other Mercury imprints and titles included: *Bestseller Mystery Books (a.k.a. Bestseller Library) *''Bestsellers'' magazine (beginning 1945), subti ...
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Auburn, California
Auburn is a city in and the county seat of Placer County, California, United States. Its population was 13,776 during the 2020 census. Auburn is known for its California Gold Rush history and is registered as a California Historical Landmark. Auburn is part of the Sacramento metropolitan area. History Archaeological finds place the southwestern border for the prehistoric Martis people in the Auburn area. The indigenous Nisenan, an offshoot of the Maidu, were the first to establish a permanent settlement in the Auburn area. In the spring of 1848, a group of French gold miners arrived and camped in what would later be known as the Auburn Ravine. This group was on its way to the gold fields in Coloma, California, and it included Francois Gendron, Philibert Courteau, and Claude Chana. The young Chana discovered gold on May 16, 1848. After finding the gold deposits in the soil, the trio decided to stay for more prospecting and mining. Placer mining in the Auburn area was very goo ...
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Genius Loci And Other Tales
''Genius Loci and Other Tales'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1948 and was the author's third book published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 3,047 copies. The stories were written between 1930 and 1935. The collection contains stories from Smith's major story cycles of Averoigne and Zothique. Contents ''Genius Loci and Other Tales'' contains the following stories: *"Genius Loci" *"The Willow Landscape" *" The Ninth Skeleton" *"The Phantoms of the Fire" *"The Eternal World" *"Vulthoom" *"A Star-Change" *"The Primal City" *"The Disinterment of Venus" * "The Colossus of Ylourgne" * "The Satyr" *"The Garden of Adompha" *"The Charnel God" * "The Black Abbot of Puthuum" * "The Weaver in the Vault" See also * Clark Ashton Smith bibliography The following is a list of works by Clark Ashton Smith. __TOC__ Short fiction Prose poems Novel * ''The Black Diamonds'', ...
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1983 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1983. Events *April – The Russian samizdat poet Irina Ratushinskaya is sentenced to imprisonment in a labor camp for dissident activity. While there she continues to write poetry clandestinely. *June 2 – The Francophone Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor becomes the first black African writer elected as a member of the Académie française. *July – Barbara Cartland, who reaches the age of 82, writes 23 romantic novels this year. *November – Bruce Bethke's short story ''Cyberpunk'', written in 1980, is published in ''Amazing Stories'' magazine in the United States and as a novel online, giving a name to the entire science fiction subgenre of cyberpunk. *''unknown date'' – ''Salvage for the Saint'' by Peter Bloxsom and John Kruse is published, as the final book in a series of novels, novellas and short stories featuring the Leslie Charteris creation "The Saint", which sta ...
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The Charnel God
"The Charnel God" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Zothique cycle, and first published in the March 1934 issue of ''Weird Tales''. Plot The innkeeper tells Phariom, an outlander from Xylac traveling with his bride Elaith to Yoros, about the god of Zul-Bha-Sair, Mordiggian. Mordiggian devours all the dead in Zul-Bha-Sair. However, Phariom points out that Elaith is not dead but suffers from a malady that renders its victim near deathlike. Despite this, the innkeeper already informed the priests as they prepare to deliver her to the temple. Phariom tries to defend Elaith but is quickly matched by the priests in his defences. Phariom pays the innkeeper for his stay and decides to try to find where Elaith is kept. He learns from merchants in the bazaar that she is in the temple of Mordiggian. On his way to the temple, he notices a beautiful but dead woman is being delivered to the temple. He learns that the victim is princess Arctela. Planning on stea ...
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Short Stories By Clark Ashton Smith
Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as the Short Arts, entertainment, and media * Short film, a cinema format (also called film short or short subject) * Short story, prose generally readable in one sitting * ''The Short-Timers'', a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford, about military short-timers in Vietnam Brands and enterprises * Short Brothers, a British aerospace company * Short Brothers of Sunderland, former English shipbuilder Computing and technology * Short circuit, an accidental connection between two nodes of an electrical circuit * Short integer, a computer datatype Finance * Short (finance), stock-trading position * Short snorter, a banknote signed by fellow travelers, common during World War II Foodstuffs * Short pastry, one which is rich in butte ...
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