The Devotee of Evil by Clark Ashton Smith

From Classic Ghost Stories by Tony Walker

May 29, 2026 · 1h 10m

About this episode

The episode explores Clark Ashton Smith's story 'The Devotee of Evil', focusing on themes of cosmic evil and human nature.

There is a house in Auburn, California, with a tragic history and a new tenant. Jean Averaud has come from New Orleans with money, with books, with a beautiful mute woman who watches him with eyes full of something between devotion and dread. He has come with a theory about evil — not the Devil, not sin, not the ordinary darkness of human nature, but evil as a cosmic force, a radiation from a black sun somewhere in the depths of space. And he has come with a purpose. In the old Larcom house, with its history of sorrow and disaster, he has found exactly the conditions he needs. His neighbour, a novelist, finds himself drawn into Averaud's orbit. Clark Ashton Smith's The Devotee of Evil is a quiet story. It does not rush. It thinks. And what it thinks about has been troubling philosophers and theologians for two thousand years. The Devotee of Evil was first published in Smith's self-produced chapbook The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies in 1933, after failing to find a commercial publisher. It reappeared in Stirring Science Stories in February 1941. Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) was a California poet, painter, sculptor and writer of weird fiction, one of the central figures of…

People in this episode

Host: Tony Walker

Topics covered

cosmic evil
weird fiction
philosophy
historical narrative
supernatural

Keywords

Clark Ashton Smith
The Devotee of Evil
cosmic force
Auburn California
weird fiction
philosophers
theologians

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Devotee of Evil, The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies, Stirring Science Stories

Places: Auburn, California, New Orleans