Editing Clark Ashton Smith (section)

===Later life, marriage and death===
In 1953, Smith suffered a coronary attack. Aged 61, he married Carol(yn) Jones Dorman on November 10, 1954. Dorman had much experience in Hollywood and radio public relations. After honeymooning at the Smith cabin, they moved to [[Pacific Grove, California]], where he set up a household including her three children from a previous marriage. For several years he alternated between the house on Indian Ridge and their house in Pacific Grove. Smith having sold most of his father's tract, in 1957 the old house burned – the Smiths believed by arson, others said by accident.

Smith now reluctantly did gardening for other residents at Pacific Grove, and grew a goatee. He spent much time shopping and walking near the seafront but despite Derleth's badgering, resisted the writing of more fiction.<ref>Haefele 2010, p.170</ref> In 1961 he suffered a series of strokes and in August 1961 he quietly died in his sleep, aged 68. After Smith's death, Carol remarried (becoming Carolyn Wakefield) and subsequently died of cancer.

The poet's ashes were buried beside, or beneath, a boulder to the immediate west of where his childhood home (destroyed by fire in 1957) stood; some were also scattered in a stand of blue oaks near the boulder. There was no marker. Plaques recognizing Smith have been erected at the Auburn Placer County Library in 1985 and in Bicentennial Park in Auburn in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://alangullette.com/lit/smith/sorcerer.htm|title=Clark Ashton Smith: The Sorcerer of Auburn|website=alangullette.com|access-date=June 2, 2018|archive-date=September 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170926021004/http://alangullette.com/lit/smith/sorcerer.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

Bookseller Roy A. Squires was appointed Smith's "west coast executor", with [[Jack L. Chalker]] as his "east coast executor".<ref>Haefele 2010, p.172</ref> Squires published many letterpress editions of individual Smith poems.

Smith's literary estate is represented by his stepson, Prof William Dorman, director of CASiana Literary Enterprises. [[Arkham House]] owns the copyright to many Smith stories, though some are now in the public domain.

For 'posthumous collaborations' of Smith (stories completed by Lin Carter), see the entry on [[Lin Carter]].