Editing Jack Vance (section)

=== Literary influences ===
[[File:Amazing stories 196208.jpg|thumb|right|Vance's novella "Gateway to Strangeness" was the cover story in the August 1962 issue of ''[[Amazing Stories]]'', illustrated by [[Alex Schomburg]]. Under the title "Dust of Far Suns", it became the title piece in a Vance story collection in 1981]]
When asked about literary influences, Vance most often cited [[Jeffery Farnol]], a writer of adventure books, whose style of "high" language he mentions (the Farnol title ''Guyfford of Weare'' being a typical instance); [[P. G. Wodehouse]], an influence apparent in Vance's taste for overbearing aunts; and [[L. Frank Baum]], whose fantasy elements were directly borrowed by Vance (see ''The Emerald City of Oz'').<ref>articles in ''Cosmopolis''{{full citation needed |date=June 2012}}</ref> In the introduction to Dowling and Strahan's ''The Jack Vance Treasury'', Vance mentions that his childhood reading including [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], [[Jules Verne]], [[Robert W. Chambers]], science fiction published by [[Edward Stratemeyer]], the magazines ''[[Weird Tales]]'' and ''[[Amazing Stories]]'', and [[Lord Dunsany]].<ref name="BioSketch"/> According to pulp editor Sam Merwin, Vance's earliest magazine submissions in the 1940s were heavily influenced by the style of [[James Branch Cabell]].<ref>Lin Carter, ''[[Imaginary Worlds – the Art of Fantasy|Imaginary Worlds: the Art of Fantasy]]'', New York: Ballantine Books, 1973, p. 151. SBN 345-03309-4-125. {{USD|1.25}}. {{ISBN|0-345-03309-4}}.</ref> Fantasy historian Lin Carter notes several probable lasting influences of Cabell on Vance's work, and suggests that the early "pseudo-Cabell" experiments bore fruit in ''The Dying Earth'' (1950).<ref>Carter, pp. 151–53.</ref>  Science fiction critic Don Herron<ref>''Jack Vance'', ''Writers of the 21st Century'' series, New York: Taplinger, 1980, p. 87 ff.</ref> cites [[Clark Ashton Smith]] as an influence on Vance's style and characters' names.