Editing Clark Ashton Smith (section)

===Mid-late career: return to poetry and sculpture===
In September 1935, Smith's mother Fanny died. Smith spent the next two years nursing his father through his last illness. Timeus died in December 1937. Aged 44, Smith now virtually ceased writing fiction. He had been severely affected by several tragedies occurring in a short period of time: [[Robert E. Howard]]'s death by suicide (1936),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vick |first=Todd B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ed4EEAAAQBAJ |title=Renegades and Rogues: The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Howard |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-4773-2195-9 |location=Austin |pages=130–137 |language=en |doi=10.7560/321959 |oclc=1159658615 |s2cid=241275357}}</ref> Lovecraft's death from cancer (1937)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Faig |first=Kenneth W. |date=August 2012 |title=Lovecraft's 1937 Diary |journal=Lovecraft Annual |issue=6 |pages=153–178 |issn=1935-6102 |jstor=26868456}}</ref> and the deaths of his parents, which left him exhausted. As a result, he withdrew from the scene, marking the end of ''Weird Tales''{{'}}s [[Golden Age]]. He began sculpting and resumed the writing of poetry. However, Smith was visited by many writers at his cabin, including [[Fritz Leiber]], [[Rah Hoffman]], [[Francis T. Laney]] and others.

In 1942, three years after [[August Derleth]] founded [[Arkham House]] for the purpose of preserving the work of H.P. Lovecraft, Derleth published the first of several major collections of Smith's fiction, ''Out of Space and Time'' (1942). This was followed by ''Lost Worlds'' (1944). The books sold slowly, went out of print and became costly rarities. Derleth published five more volumes of Smith's prose and two of his verse, and at his death in 1971 had a large volume of Smith's poems in press.