Robert E. Howard Page 3

Defendants A country; particularly the United States, legal infrastructure is a key factor in the media’s ability to fulfill their “watchdog” function. However, most of the 1990s had completely lacked a legal base that would allow non-governmental media to defend their newfound abilities to present alternative and often critical points of view. New legal rulings…

Writing to Clyde Smith on May 9, 1931, Howard mentions two new pulps, Strange Tales and Soldiers of Fortune, and states he will be submitting stories to both of them and suggests Smith write something for Soldiers of Fortune, a historical story magazine: I see where the Claytons are bringing out a new magazine dealing with weird…

This year at Howard Days, I talked to a couple of people about my obsession with the minutia of Robert E. Howard’s life. While I am a firm believer that the more we know, the clearer the picture of the writer from Cross Plains will become, I still think some of the things that intrigue…

Why a New Manifesto?  In the past twelve months, I’ve seen several rounds of speculation from various bloggers lately, two of which were the equivalent of Internet train wreaks that ended rather badly, despite everyone’s avowed intentions. In the interest of using the Internet as an actual research tool, I have written this manifesto on…

As usual, I used part of my holiday break to travel to Texas with my dad. And, while the primary focus of our research this time was not Robert E. Howard or his immediate family, we did find a Howard-related document in Coke County that everyone knew should exist, but no one, to the best…

In Part One, I detailed my discovery of the 1923 Little Blue Book (or LBB), Theosophy in Outline, by Frederick Willis and how it appeared to be source for Howard’s use of theosophical themes in some of his early works, like “Men of the Shadows,” rather than the previously proposed source, W. Scott-Elliot’s book The…

We’ve all heard the story of how Isaac M. Howard (above) ended up in Texas and got his start in the medical field. For those that don’t remember, here’s L. Sprague de Camp in Dark Valley Destiny: The stable organization of the Howard family was disrupted by the death of James Henry [Isaac Howard’s maternal grandfather]…

For a long time Truett Vinson was kind of a shadowy character to me, never speaking up as Clyde did, and not saving his correspondence with Robert E. Howard. All I really knew, at first, was that he and Bob went to school together, contributed to The Junto, and, later, had dated Novalyne Price—thereby causing…

It would seem the never ending hunt is indeed never ending.  Despite the recentflurry of Howard publishing, a number of Howard characters are either out-of-printor impossible to find in one or two books.  Some of these include Francis X. Gordon, Kirby O’Donnell, Steve Harrison, Dark Agnes and Wild Bill Clanton. For example, the Steve Harrison…

Last evening I was one of a select few to get a sneak preview of the completed Barbarian Days film. Principal photography of the film was done at the 2008 Howard Days; the stars of the film are Rusty Burke as the “Godfather of Howard Days,” Mark Finn as the “Guest of Honor,” Bill Cavalier as…