This week’s bit of weird fiction being discussed by the Deep Ones over at LibraryThing is a Clark Ashton Smith story I haven’t reviewed before.
Review: “A Vintage from Atlantis”, Clark Ashton Smith, 1933.
Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, in their notes for this story in A Vintage from Atlantis, state that several of Smith’s stories for Weird Tales were specifically written as “fillers”, usually less than 3,000 words in length, between longer stories.
This is one though Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright rejected it twice before finally printing it.
It has a simple plot.
Recounted by a Stephen Magbane – oddly enough, a Puritan, it’s a tale of pirates and not set in one of Smith’s fictional worlds of the past or future.
On an island ideally suited to keep their vast loot, the crew of Captain Barnaby Dwale notice a peculiar large jar – seemingly something like an ancient amphora – that has washed up on shore. Dwale is a man of some learning and notes its similarity between old earthen wine jars and pronounces it a “rare vintage” from Atlantis.
He decides to sample it.
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