Robert E. Howard’s death did not mark the end of Conan. The unpublished manuscripts of four completed Conan stories, which had been rejected by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright, were discovered amongst the author’s papers many years after his death. The first of these, ‘The God in the Bowl’, appeared in the September 1952 issue of Space Science Fiction. A combination of murder mystery and magic, it was revised considerably for publication by writer L. Sprague de Camp, who produced yet another version of the story, closer to the original manuscript, for paperback publication fifteen years later.
Another greatly abridged version by de Camp of Howard’s story ‘The Black Stranger’ appeared in the first issue of Fantasy Magazine for February-March, 1953. ‘It was quite an event to discover that a full novelette by [Howard] had never been published,’ wrote editor Lester Del Rey, ‘and we finally got it. It isn’t the sort of a tale you’ll usually find in this magazine – because nobody else can quite recapture the pre-mythical past.’
This 33,000-word short novel had been written around the same time as ‘Beyond the Black River’ and ‘Wolves Beyond the Border’ and mixed Conan with Picts and pirates. When he could not sell it as a Conan adventure, Howard had attempted to rescue the story by turning the hero into the swashbuckling pirate Black Vulmea, but it remained unpublished until 1976, when it appeared in the collection Black Vulmea’s Vengeance under the title ‘Swords of the Red Brotherhood’. The Conan treatment was subsequently republished under the title ‘The Treasure of Tranicos’, and the complete version finally saw print, exactly as Howard wrote it, in Karl Edward Wagner’s 1987 anthology Echoes of Valor.
Originally rejected by Wright in 1932, Howard had submitted a revised draft of ‘The Frost King’s Daughter’, featuring the Conan-like hero Amra of Akbitana, to the amateur journal The Fantasy Fan, which had published the story in the March 1934 issue as ‘Gods of the North’. When Howard’s Conan version appeared in the August 1953 issue of Fantasy Fiction as ‘The Frost-Giant’s Daughter’, it had been extensively rewritten by de Camp, and it was not until 1976 that the author’s original manuscript finally saw print. Although Fantasy Fiction had claimed, ‘Here, for the last time in an original story, the barbarian hero stalks through the strange, magic-ridden lands of the Hyperborean [sic] Age’, another Conan story, ‘The Vale of Lost Women’, eventually appeared in the Spring 1967 issue of Robert A.W. Lowndes’ Magazine of Horror. This story was probably rejected by Wright because of scenes where an older Conan massacred an entire village and the heroine had to barter her virginity in order to be rescued. Reaction to its publication was decidedly mixed: ‘The so-called “Conan” story with its fantasy domino slightly askew is a thinly-masked “porny” of the cheapest sado-sexual variety and doesn’t belong in your pages,’ wrote one reader to the magazine’s letters column, while another was of the opinion: ‘I cannot imagine why “The Vale of Lost Women” was not published during Howard’s lifetime … It is certainly one of Howard’s better works.’
‘The Black Stranger’ appeared in the first issue of Fantasy Magazine for February-March, 1953. Cover by Hannes Bok.
Howard also left behind a number of fragments and brief outlines for never-completed adventures which various authors, including L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, completed and added to in an attempt to fill in the gaps in Conan’s career. Some of these manuscripts were Oriental adventures that the writers then converted into Conan stories by changing names, deleting anachronisms and introducing a supernatural element.
The British hardcover edition of Conan the Conqueror, published by T. V. Boardman & Co. of London in 1954.
In 1953, Ace Books issued Howard’s novel Conan the Conqueror as an ‘Ace Double’ paperback, bound back-to-back with The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett, and the following year the book finally made its British début, exactly twenty years after it had first been submitted by Howard, in a hardcover edition from T.V. Boardman & Co. of London. Unfortunately, the uncredited dust-jacket artist decided to illustrate the same scene that Margaret Brundage had used for her cover of the December 1935 Weird Tales, with equally wretched results.
Between 1950-57 New York’s Gnome Press published seven hardcover volumes of Conan stories, which included several tales either edited by or in collaboration with de Camp, who later explained: ‘Late in 1951, I stumbled upon a cache of Howard’s manuscripts in the apartment of the then literary agent for Howard’s estate … The incomplete state of the Conan saga has tempted me and others to add to it, as Howard might have done had he lived … The reader must judge how successful our posthumous collaboration with Howard has been.’
However, as author and editor Karl Edward Wagner wrote in 1977, ‘The only man who could write a Robert E. Howard story was Robert E. Howard. It is far more than a matter of imitating adjective usage or analysing comma-splices. It is a matter of spirit. Pastiche-Conan is not the same Conan as portrayed by Robert E. Howard. Read such, as it pleases you – but don’t delude yourself into thinking that this is any more Robert E. Howard’s Conan than a Conan story you decided to write yourself. It is this editor’s belief that a Conan collection should contain only Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales, and that no editorial emendations should alter the authenticity of Howard’s creation.’ And this came from one of the better writers of Howard pastiches.
In fact, Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright had told his readers much the same thing four decades earlier: ‘Sorry to deny your request for some other author to carry on the Conan stories of the late Robert E. Howard. His work was touched with genius, and he had a distinctive style of writing that put the stamp of his personality on every story he wrote. It would hardly be fair to his memory if we allowed Conan to be recreated by another hand, no matter how skilful.’
Amateur publications such as Glenn Lord’s The Howard Collector, George H. Scithers’ Amra and The Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa) rekindled interest in Howard’s fiction during the 1960s and ’70s, and beginning in 1966 Lancer Books in America, and later Sphere Books in Britain, collected the Conan stories into a series of twelve paperbacks, many of which featured distinctive cover paintings by Frank Frazetta. They were edited by L. Sprague de Camp, and once again Howard’s original texts were altered: the series included revisions, posthumous collaborations, fixed-up novels and totally new pastiches. Over a million copies of the Lancer editions were sold during the first few years of publication, ranking Howard second only to J.R.R. Tolkien in the field of fantasy fiction.
In 1957 a Swedish fan named Björn Nyberg had collaborated with L. Sprague de Camp on a new novel entitled The Return of Conan, and with Howard’s renewed popularity, soon other authors were adding original novels to the Conan canon. These included Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson, Andrew J. Offutt, Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts, Steve Perry, Roland Green, Leonard Carpenter and John C. Hocking.
Thirty-five years after his creator’s death, Howard’s mighty Cimmerian had turned into a money-spinning franchise.
In October 1970, Marvel Comics Group launched its hugely successful Conan the Barbarian title, written by Roy Thomas and initially illustrated by artist Barry (Windsor-)Smith. Many issues adapted or were based on Howard’s original stories, and there was even a two-issue cross-over with Michael Moorcock’s character Elric of Melniboné. The following year, Marvel introduced another series of Conan adaptations by Thomas in Savage Tales. Conan the Barbarian King-Size appeared in 1973, and it was followed over the years by such titles as The Savage Sword of Conan, King Conan, Conan the Destroyer and The Conan Saga.
In 1982 director John Milius and co-writer Oliver Stone turned Conan the Barbarian into a multi-million dollar fantasy movie. Austrian bodybuilder and former Mr Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as the sword-wielding hero, pitted against James Earl Jones’ evil shape-changing sorcerer, Thulsa Doom. Two years later Schwarzenegger returned to the screen in Conan the Destroyer for veteran director Richard Fleischer. This time Sarah Douglas’ treacherou
s Queen Taramis sent Conan and his companions on a quest for a magical key to unlock the secret of a mystical horn. Filmed on a lower budget in Mexico, this pulpy sequel was slightly more faithful to the spirit of Howard’s characters, probably because it was based on a story by comic-book writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway.
Schwarzenegger returned as Conan-like warrior Kalidor in Fleischer’s woeful Red Sonja (1985), which starred Brigitte Nielsen as the eponymous swordswoman in a film that barely had any connection to Howard’s work. John Nicolella’s Kull the Conqueror (1997) featured Kevin Sorbo as the future king of Valusia. It was apparently derived from a 1991 script for the third Conan film, a loose adaptation of ‘The Hour of the Dragon’.
Robert E. Howard was not even credited on the 1992-93 half-hour children’s cartoon series Conan the Adventurer, in which the brawny barbarian and his comrades set out to undo the spell of living stone cast upon Conan’s family by driving the evil serpent men back into another dimension. German weightlifter Ralph Moeller took over the role for the 1997-98 live-action television series Conan, produced by Brian Yuzna. The pilot film, The Heart of the Elephant, was loosely based on Howard’s story ‘The Tower of the Elephant’ and featured a bizarre computer-created image of the late Richard Burton as the Cimmerian god Crom.
Even more unexpected was director Dan Ireland’s little 1996 independent film The Whole Wide World, based on Novalyne Price Ellis’ book One Who Walked Alone. Filmed on location in Texas, René Zellweger portrayed the young schoolteacher who befriended eccentric pulp magazine writer Robert E. Howard, played by Vincent D’Onofrio. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect film biography of Howard’s final years.
Howard himself had already hinted in letters that he was planning to move away from fantasy fiction, and there has been much conjecture over the years that, had he lived, he would have made his name as a regional writer, with more mainstream stories or histories set in his native Southwest.
In his Foreword to the 1946 Arkham House collection of Howard’s short fiction, Skull-Face and Others, editor August Derleth supports this view: ‘The late Robert E. Howard was a writer of pulp fiction. He was also more than that. He had in him the promise of becoming an important American regionist, and to that end he had been assimilating the lore and legend, the history and culture patterns of his own corner of Texas.’
We shall never know how Robert E. Howard might have developed as a writer, but had he continued to work in the fantastic field, we can only speculate as to where Howard himself might have taken Conan. In his 1936 letter to P. Schuyler Miller he left behind a number of clues: ‘He was, I think, king of Aquilonia for many years, in a turbulent and unquiet reign, when the Hyborian civilisation had reached its most magnificent high-tide, and every king had imperial ambitions. At first he fought on the defensive, but I am of the opinion that at last he was forced into wars of aggression as matter of self-preservation. Whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide empire, or perished in the attempt, I do not know.
‘He travelled widely, not only before his kingship, but after he was king. He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former. He even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. How much of this roaming will get into print, I can not foretell with any accuracy.’
Tragically, because of Howard’s suicide, none of it ever did.
As we celebrate the centenary of Robert E. Howard’s birth, it is worth noting that these stories – often written for less than a cent per word and published in disposable magazines printed on cheap pulp paper – have remained with us over the decades. Today, through films, television and comic books, Howard’s name is more widely known than it ever was during his lifetime. His most famous creation, Conan the Cimmerian, has outlived his creator and, with the exception of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, is possibly the best-known character in modern fantasy fiction.
In 1998, independent British publishing imprint Wandering Star began an ambitious programme of reprinting Howard’s fiction in beautifully designed and illustrated limited editions aimed at the collector’s market. The publisher began issuing a series of complete Conan stories in 2003, lovingly illustrated by artists such as Mark Schultz and Gary Gianni.
That same year, Dark Horse Books started The Chronicles of Conan, a series of graphic volumes reprinting the original Marvel Comics series from the 1970s with fascinating new Afterwords by writer/editor Roy Thomas and remastered artwork from Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Neal Adams and others. In 2004, Dark Horse launched its own Conan comic, billed as ‘A faithful return to Robert E. Howard’s original version’ and featuring adaptations of ‘The Frost-Giant’s Daughter’, ‘The God in the Bowl’ and ‘The Jewels of Gwahlur’.
Towards the end of 2000, it was announced that Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee had purchased the film rights to Conan. However, the project became stalled when Lee’s company suspended operations less than three months later, after bridging financing fell through. An attempt by Wachowski brothers Larry and Andy (The Matrix, etc.) to develop a movie entitled King Conan for Warner Bros., with John Milius once again attached to write and direct, also collapsed in early 2004 over creative differences. The rights to the character are currently held by a Swedish media company, but any talk about a new Conan movie appears premature at this time.
However, those who only know the barbarian through his media incarnations have not experienced the real Conan. At his best, Robert E. Howard could sweep the reader away on a red tide of bloodlust to lost cities, unexplored jungles and savage pirate galleons, where all a brave man needed was a sharp sword in his hand and a beautiful woman by his side to face whatever hideous horror or supernatural menace confronted him.
These, then, are the original tales of Conan, as fresh, atmospheric and vibrant today as when they were first published around seventy years ago in the pages of Weird Tales and elsewhere.
As H.P. Lovecraft accurately observed: ‘It is hard to describe precisely what made Mr Howard’s stories stand out so sharply; but the real secret is that he himself is in every one of them … He was greater than any profit-making policy he could adopt – for even when he outwardly made concessions to Mammon-guided editors and commercial critics, he had an internal force and sincerity which broke through the surface and put the imprint of his personality on everything he wrote. Before he concluded with it, it always took on some tinge of vitality and reality in spite of popular editorial policy – always drew something from his own experience and knowledge of life instead of from the sterile herbarium of desiccated pulpish standby. Not only did he excel in pictures of strife and slaughter, but he was almost alone in his ability to create real emotions of spectral fear and dread suspense. No author – even in the humblest fields – can truly excel unless he takes his work very seriously; and Mr Howard did just that even in cases where he consciously thought he did not.’
For the discerning reader of fantasy fiction, Robert E. Howard’s talent and tragedy will continue to live on through these authentic adventures of his greatest creation, Conan the Cimmerian.
Stephen Jones
London, England
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ALSO BY ROBERT E. HOWARD
Novels
Conan the Conqueror (1950)
Almuric (1964)
The Hour of the Dragon (1977)
Post Oaks and Sand Roughs (1990)
Short Story Collections
A Gent from Bear Creek (1937)
The Hyborian Age (1938)
Skull-Face and Others (1946)
The S
word of Conan (1952)
King Conan (1953)
The Coming of Conan (1953)
The Challenge from Beyond (1954) with C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long, Jr
Conan the Barbarian (1954)
Tales of Conan (1955) with L. Sprague de Camp
The Dark Man and Others (1963)
The Pride of Bear Creek (1966)
Conan the Adventurer (1966) with L. Sprague de Camp
Conan the Warrior (1967) with L. Sprague de Camp
Conan the Usurper (1967) with L. Sprague de Camp
King Kull (1967) with Lin Carter
Conan (1967) with L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Wolfshead (1968)
Red Shadows (1968)
Conan the Freebooter (1968) with L. Sprague de Camp
Conan the Wanderer (1968) with L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Conan of Cimmeria (1969) with L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Bran Mak Morn (1969)
The Moon of Skulls (1969)
The Hand of Kane (1970)
Solomon Kane (1971)
Red Blades of Black Cathay (1971) with Tevis Clyde Smith