![[August 26, 1970] The Return of the Dark Bard of the Weird: <i>Zothique</i> by Clark Ashton Smith](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/81rnXx6vuBL._SL1358_-672x372.jpg)
by Cora Buhlert
The Best of Fantasy Past and Present
I have sung the praises of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and the commitment of editor Lin Carter and publisher Betty Ballantine to bring the best fantasy of yesteryear back into print before. In fact, not quite two weeks ago, I reviewed Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz, the first new original novel to appear in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, in these very pages.
However, the bread and butter of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is still reprinting fantasy works from the first half of the century in affordable paperback editions and making these often hard-to-find books available to modern readers.
Today I want to take a look at one of these reprint volumes, Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith.
