The Complete Poetry and Translations Books in Order

Smith was a poet before he was widely known as a weird-fiction writer, and this three-volume set treats that fact properly. It does not present the poems as side work. It presents them as the core, the place where his voice, imagery, and love of strange music first took shape.

The first volume gathers the early original poetry, including work from The Star-Treader, Ebony and Crystal, and Sandalwood. This is the Smith of stars, abysses, dreamlands, and long rolling cadences, with The Hashish-Eater standing as the obvious landmark. Even when the verse is youthful, the reach is already enormous.

This is where the stories learned how to sing.

The second volume moves into the later poetry, after the death of George Sterling and after Smith had spent years writing fiction. The range widens. You get elegies, satire, shorter forms, haiku, and poems written in French and Spanish. The later work can feel plainer in spots, but it also feels more flexible and personal.

The third volume turns to translation, especially Baudelaire, but also poets such as Verlaine, Hugo, Gautier, Amado Nervo, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and Jorge Isaacs. That matters because translation was not a side hobby for Smith. It was part of how he trained his ear and sharpened his sense of image, rhythm, and atmosphere.

This is not a narrative series, but it does tell a life in art. If you want to understand why Smith's prose sounds the way it does, or if you simply want the poet without the pulps, this set is the clearest path.