Donald Sidney-Fryer (September 8, 1934 – May 2, 2026) was an American poet, critic, literary historian, ballet historian and performer. Edmund Spenser and Clark Ashton Smith were his “two poetic mentors.”Quotation of Sidney-Fryer in Nick Glover, “Elizabethan Poet at MTSU: The Days of Dragons and Knights Visited,” Accent v. 3, n. 29 (April 15, 1979), pp. 12-13. Sidney-Fryer saw his poetry as part of a "Modern Romanticism" tradition along with Ashton Smith, Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, and other poets he calls the “California Romantics”.Donald Sidney-Fryer, "Foreword/Forward in a Phantastic Mode," in The Golden State Phantastics: The California Romantics and Related Subjects first edition (Los Angeles: Phosphor Lantern Press, 2011); second edition (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2012); p. 5. Poet Richard L. Tierney said Sidney-Fryer's poems "make us see ... the ideals that moved us when we were less 'secure' and more human: adventure, love of life, and above all, the intricate beauty of a world long vanished—yet not vanished, if only we had eyes to see."The Atlantis Fragments dust jacket (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2008). Sidney-Fryer was a pioneering literary historian and critic focusing on California literature and writers. He was called "the pre-eminent scholar of [Clark Ashton Smith]’s work”,David E. Schultz and Scott Connors, eds., Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith (Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 2003), p. 384. who “... not only established the foundations for all future scholarship in this field, but he also wrote some of the most insightful and valuable evaluations of Smith's oeuvre ever written.”Scott Connors, “Introduction,” The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2006), p. 9. His five-volume history of Romantic Ballet and the career of ballet composer Cesare Pugni, The Case of the Light Fantastic Toe, was described as "deserv[ing] to be in every college music library."Virginia Musician (March 9, 2019). Sidney-Fryer also promoted poets and poetry by writing and starring in one-man shows throughout the United States and Great Britain, often appearing in an Elizabethan English costume and billing himself as "the last of the courtly poets.""Courtly Poet to Appear," Murfreesboro TN Daily News Journal (October 12, 1976), p.8.
Marine Corps service and education Sidney-Fryer was born and raised in the Atlantic coastal city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was originally named Donald Sidney Fryer, Junior, but early in life dropped the "Junior," and in 1970 or early 1971 added a hyphen between his middle and last names.Donald Sidney-Fryer, "Biography of Donald Sidney-Fryer", Nyctalops, v. 2 nos. 4/5, whole nos. 11/12 (April 1976), p. 57. Date of hyphen: The front cover art for Sidney-Fryer's 1971 book Songs and Sonnets Atlantean gives his name as "Donald S. Fryer," but when he created pre-publication promotional bookmarks for his book he called himself "Donald Sidney-Fryer." See Don Herron, "Rediscovered: Arcane Arkham Arch-Collectors Corner No. 3" (May 4, 2020).
After graduating from high school, Sidney-Fryer could not afford to go to college. He knew the United States G. I. Bill would pay for college after military service, so to further his education he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in October 1953.Sidney-Fryer, Hobgoblin Apollo: The Autobiography of Donald Sidney-Fryer (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016), pp. 82-83. In the Marines' three libraries at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, Sidney-Fryer first began reading science fiction.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 90, 92. Then he was transferred to the Marine Air Station at Opa-locka (today the Coast Guard Air Station Miami).Hobgoblin Apollo, p. 90. At the Opa-locka base library, Sidney-Fryer first read the works of Arthur C. Clarke, August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. He was especially affected by Smith's story “The City of the Singing Flame”: Emotionally and spiritually this last narrative, written in quite a remarkable and highly poetic prose, the like of which I had never encountered before, bowled me over and knocked me down, not just because of the colorful, vivid, and intense imagination that had shaped the story but equally because of the uncommon vocabulary without which the story could not have come into existence. Because I had studied Latin, French, and English each for four years in high school, particularly Latin, the vocabulary per se gave me no real problem. However, I had almost never before encountered such uncommon words, obviously Latinate, employed in a piece of fiction ...Hobgoblin Apollo, p. 93. On September 5, 1955, Sidney-Fryer was transferred to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County, California.Hobgoblin Apollo, p. 98. In the base library there, he was impressed by The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce.Hobgoblin Apollo, p. 99.
In September 1956, Sidney-Fryer began studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He initially majored in theatre arts and minored in French. In the evenings he studied ballet under Tatiana Riabouchinska, formerly with the Ballets Russes, and her husband David Lichine. He had performing in mind: “Even if I could not have become a ballet dancer at twenty or twenty-one, I knew the value of rigorous dance training in shaping a capable all-around performer.” After two years, he changed his major to French and minor to Spanish, thinking he would become a teacher of languages.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 106, 108-109.
1956–1971: Early literary work Sidney-Fryer used the libraries of UCLA to investigate the history and creators of Romantic Ballet, which flourished from 1827 to the late 1800s. He took note of composer Cesare Pugni, who wrote symphonies, ten operas, forty masses, and more than three hundred ballet scores. Little had been published about Pugni and his works. Sidney-Fryer began compiling the names of Pugni's ballet scores and data about them. In addition to his own research, he hired researchers in London and Milan to uncover more information. Sidney-Fryer assembled the information as Cesare Pugni, 180?-1870: Checklist of Ballets and self-published a limited number of copies. A publisher in Italy then paid Sidney-Fryer to include his checklist in volume seven of its Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo in 1961.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 112-114. Vittoria Ottolenghi, “Principali balletti con mus. Di P. e loro principali riprese,” in Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo v. 7 (Rome: Casa Editrice Le Maschere, 1961), pp. 587-589.
On August 26 and 27, 1958, Sidney-Fryer visited his literary hero Clark Ashton Smith and Smith's wife Carol in their home in Pacific Grove, California. Sidney-Fryer recalled, “when I asked him what poet meant to him what [Smith] meant to me, he turned around to a bookcase behind him and picked out a volume that had a dark blue Art Nouveau cover with a pictorial design and printing etched in silver: The House of Orchids (1911), by George Sterling.”Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 116-117, 122. Sidney-Fryer, “A Memoir of Timeus Gaylord: Reminiscences of Two Visits with Clark Ashton Smith, &c.,” Romanticist n. 2 (1978), pp. 1-19; reprinted in Sidney-Fryer, The Golden State Phantastics: The California Romantics and Related Subjects first edition (Los Angeles: Phosphor Lantern Press, 2011), pp. 123-163; second edition (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2012), pp. 117-155. Sidney-Fryer said Smith "made me appreciate Sterling strongly. To me Sterling was the epitome of Romanticism which strongly influenced my style of Romanticism."Frederick J. Mayer, "An Interview with Donald Sidney-Fryer," Nyctalops v. 2, nos. 4/5, whole numbers 11/12 (April 1976), pp. 58-59.
On Friday, September 5, 1959, he returned to the Smiths’ home in Pacific Grove for a second visit. The first night he stayed at a motel, but the Smiths offered for Sidney-Fryer to stay with them for the remainder of his visit. The two men passionately discussed literature for days. Smith had a copy of an extremely rare bibliography of his fiction, and gave Sidney-Fryer permission to use Smith's own typewriter in his own study to type a copy of the bibliography for Sidney-Fryer's use. Sidney-Fryer left the Smiths on September 9. The bibliography Sidney-Fryer typed was Thomas G. L. Cockcroft's The Tales of Clark Ashton Smith: A Bibliography. Sidney-Fryer corresponded with Cockcroft about Smith's writings. Then Sidney-Fryer began the research to write a bibliography of all of Clark Ashton Smith's writings, a project which would take him years to complete. In the autumn of 1960, he met Forrest J. Ackerman, who helped Sidney-Fryer track down many Smith writings published in fantasy and science fiction fan publications.Donald Sidney-Fryer, Hobgoblin Apollo: Hobgoblin Run Away with the Wreath of Apollo: A Life of My Own. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016, p. 126ff.
In February 1961, Sidney-Fryer met Fritz Leiber and his first wife Jonquil, who became close friends and encouraged his Smith research. Leiber urged Sidney-Fryer to read Edmund Spenser’s epic fantasy poem The Faerie Queene, which changed his life: The Faerie Queene proved a great shock and a great revelation, as great as had the writings of Clark Ashton Smith, but it was the poetry of Spenser that gave me the impetus to write my first poetry since the juvenilia I had composed in late grammar school and early high school. The Leibers encouraged me just as much in my own writing as in my Smith research.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 123, 181; “A Memoir of Timeus Gaylord”; Thomas G. L. Cockcroft, The Tales of Clark Ashton Smith: A Bibliography (Melling, Lower Hutt, New Zealand: self-published, 1951). Inspired by The Faerie Queene, in March 1961 Sidney-Fryer began to write poetry. In September 1964 he received his bachelor's degree in French from UCLA. In addition to English, French, Spanish, and Latin, Sidney-Fryer also learned German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek.Languages: Darrell Schweitzer, "An Interview with Donald Sidney-Fryer," The New York Review of Science Fiction (August 2010); reprinted in Sidney-Fryer, Random Notes, Random Lines: Essays and Miscellanea (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2021), pp. 219-220.
After Clark Ashton Smith's death in 1961, Sidney-Fryer received permission from Smith's widow Carol to research and assemble a collection of Smith's prose poems, which he completed in 1964. For the collection's introduction he wrote a history of prose poems and of Smith's achievements in that field.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 151, 165, 181-182; “A Memoir of Timeus Gaylord”. Sidney-Fryer's introduction, “Clark Ashton Smith: Poet in Prose (1893-1961),” was reprinted in his 2011 book, The Golden State Phantastics: The California Romantics and Related Subjects. In June 1965, Arkham House published Sidney-Fryer's anthology of Smith's prose poems.June date: Donald Sidney-Fryer, Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (West Kingston, Rhode Island: Donald M. Grant, 1978), p. 244. French editor and critic Philippe Gindre called the book "the magnificent Poems in Prose."Philippe Gindre, “Donald Sidney-Fryer, dernier poéte Courtois,” Le Boudoir des Gorgones: Revue de littérature étranger et fantastique n. 7 (October 2003), p. 57; reprinted in Esoteric Order of Dagon: Continuity n. 136 (November 2006), p. 15, translated into English by Donald Sidney-Fryer.
In the middle of 1964, Sidney-Fryer moved to Auburn, California (Clark Ashton Smith's hometown). That year he completed his bibliography of Smith's writings.Hobgoblin Apollo, pp. 126ff, 151, 181-182. In the mid-1960s he found a publisher willing to publish the bibliography, but the publisher would take more than ten years to bring it out.Sidney-Fryer, Hobgoblin Apollo, p. 126.