Sidney-Fryer, Donald
Entry updated 11 May 2026. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.
(1934-2026) US author, poet, critic, literary historian, ballet historian and bibliographer who began to publish verse of genre interest with "Connaissance Fatale" in The Arkham Collector for Winter 1968 (ie. the winter of 1967-1968); this was included in his Songs and Sonnets Atlantean (coll 1971) from Arkham House, many of whose poems are supposedly by poets of ancient Atlantis translated by Sidney-Fryer. He is of particular importance as a scholar of Clark Ashton Smith, publishing the then definitive Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978), which also includes appreciations of its subject by Ray Bradbury, August Derleth, Harlan Ellison, Fritz Leiber and others. A briefer study is Clark Ashton Smith: The Sorcerer Departs (1997 chap).
As editor, Sidney-Fryer assembled the Ambrose Bierce collection A Vision of Doom: Poems by Ambrose Bierce (coll 1980) and Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays of Clark Ashton Smith (coll 1989), the latter in collaboration with Steve Behrends and Rah Hoffman. [DRL]
Donald Sidney Fryer Jr
born New Bedford, Massachusetts: 8 September 1934
died West Chatham, Massachusetts: 2 May 2026
works (selected)
- Songs and Sonnets Atlantean (Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1971) [poetry: coll: hb/Gordon R Barnett]
- Songs and Sonnets Atlantean: The Second Series (Rockville, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2003) [poetry: coll: pb/]
- Songs and Sonnets Atlantean: The Third Series (Los Angeles, California: Phosphor Lantern Press, 2006) [poetry: coll: pb/Cynthia Goldstone]
- The Atlantis Fragments: A Novel (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2008) [hb/]
- Not Quite Atlantis: A Selection of Poems (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing/Stanza, 2010) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/Les Edwards]
- A King Called Arthor and Other Morceaux (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2020) [coll: pb/]
nonfiction
- Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (West Kingston, Rhode Island: Donald M Grant, 1978) [bibliography: with appreciations by various authors: Clark Ashton Smith: hb/Ned Dameron]
- Clark Ashton Smith: The Sorcerer Departs (West Hills, California: Tsathoggua Press, 1997) [nonfiction/bibliography: chap: Clark Ashton Smith: pb/Robert H Knox]
- Random Notes, Random Lines (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2021) [nonfiction: coll: pb/Daniel V Sauer]
works as editor: single-author collections
- Ambrose Bierce. A Vision of Doom: Poems by Ambrose Bierce (West Kingston, Rhode Island: Donald M Grant, 1980) [poetry: coll: hb/Frank Villano]
- Clark Ashton Smith. Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays of Clark Ashton Smith (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) edited with Steve Behrends and Rah Hoffman [coll: fiction and nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
- Clark Ashton Smith. The Devil's Notebook: Collected Epigrams and Pensées (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House, 1990) [nonfiction: coll: chap: pb/Bruce Timm]
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