Robert E. Howard

(January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936)

Robert Ervin Howard, a Texas pro writer, wrote pulp fiction in a wide range of genres. He is probably best known for his Heroic Fantasy character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of sword and sorcery.

He wrote for many of the pulps, but his best market was Weird Tales in which appeared Conan, Kull, Cormac Mac Art, Almuric, Bran Mac Morn, and Solomon Kane. In the early 1930s, he became a member of the Lovecraft Circle and he wrote a number of stories set in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Howard’s work continues to be popular.

One of Howard's favorite authors was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Howard owned a copy of Doyle's SF novel, The Poison Belt, and of course, named his most famous character (Conan, the Barbarian) after Doyle.

Howard was born and raised in Texas, living most of his life in Cross Plains. He killed himself in 1936 after a short but prolific career. One biography of Howard is Dark Valley Destiny by L. Sprague de Camp.

• Official website.
• Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Bibliography.
• Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Fanzines about Howard

There have been a large number of Howard-related fanzines, including:

• Amra
• Barbarian Scroll
• Chronicler of Cross Plains
• The Conan Companion
• The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies
• The Howard Collector
• The Howard Review
• REHUPA
• REH: Lone Star Fictioneer
• REH: Two-Gun Raconteur
• Robert E. Howard Companion

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1973 — British Fantasy Awards Special Award for Marches of Valhalla.

Conan

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Conan – Easily the most indomitable of fantasy heroes, in R. E. Howard's series built around him this redoubtable barbarian from Cimmeria adventures around the world of the Hyborian Age and in the process raises himself from a blacksmith's son to a king. Unlike the Lensman, Barsoom, and Oz sagas relatively few characters and place-names from the Conan stories have entered general fannish mythology. On the other hand, it has given rise to the Hyborian Legion, a group rather like the Sherlock Holmes fans' Baker Street Irregulars and not quite comparable to anything else in fandom. This group, including Marty Greenberg, Sprague Decamp, Dave Kyle, Poul Anderson, George Scithers and others, celebrates the exploits of their hero and subjects their canonical literature to exhaustive analysis.

Conan has been adapted to books, comics, films, television programs (cartoon and live-action), video games, role-playing games, and other media.

"The Hyborian Age," an essay by Howard, pertains to the fictional setting of his stories about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published during Howard's lifetime. Its purpose was to maintain consistency within his fictional setting.

Aquilonia is a kingdom in the Conan world.

See also: Heroic Fantasy.

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Person

1906—1936

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