Robert E. Howard Page 5

Back when I was preparing the Collected Letters volumes for the REH Foundation, I was in fairly regular contact with Glenn Lord. Besides pestering him for copies of Howard’s letters, I was also after issues of The Junto, the amateur press/Lone Scout paper that Howard contributed to from 1928 to 1930. In one of his…

The Swordsmanship of Robert E. Howard Just as in medieval times most men carried swords but the majority were neither duelists nor skilled fencers. (CL2.103) Given Robert E. Howard’s lack of access to fencing instructors (CL3.242), never having entered the military or other occupation where he could receive weapons training, and the general absence of…

1“DEAD! ” is the title of the newspaper article that features the historical, very first picture of a woman being executed in the electric chair. The picture was taken by Tom Howard using his smuggled ankle camera that is now held in the Smithsonian Museum. The woman was Ruth Snyder, wife to Albert Snyder whom…

In 1955, L. Sprague de Camp published a posthumous collaboration with Robert E. Howard, Tales of Conan, consisting of four non-Conan stories written by Howard that were rewritten by de Camp as Conan stories.   This was followed by Conan the Adventurer in 1966 which contained 3 stories by Howard (edited by de Camp) and…

“Spear and Fang” is certainly not one of Howard’s best tales, but it is with this story that the young Texan became professionally published, in the July 1925 issue of a then fairly recent pulp magazine, Weird Tales. Weird Tales, which had begun publication in March 1923, claimed to be the first magazine entirely devoted…

Part I: The Empowered Woman The October 1873 issue of Brownson’s Quarterly Review printed “The Woman in Question.” Written by Brownson himself, it set forth the role of women in society: We do not believe women, unless we acknowledge individual exceptions, are fit to have their own head. The most degraded of the savage tribes are…

Anti-miscegenation laws were strictly enforced to keep the races segregated so it is especially interesting to view Howard’s quite different viecrovwpoints here. “Day Breaks Over Simla” (undated) is a poem about an interracial love affair between what sounds like a young woman from India and a member of the British Consul stationed there. The beautiful…

The February 15, 1923 issue of Brownwood High School’s student newspaper, The Tattler, introduced readers to one of Robert E. Howard’s very first (maybe, the first) series characters, Hawkshaw the Detective. With the Colonel, his blundering sidekick, Hawkshaw appeared in three stories: “Unhand Me, Villain!” “Aha! or The Mystery of the Queen’s Necklace,” and “Halt!…

In his essay “Tevis Clyde Smith, Jr.,” Howard scholar Rusty Burke tackles the issue of Howard’s racism head on: Both Clyde and Bob were confirmed, unabashed racists. Bob seemed to be able to “give any man his due,” judging individuals on merit – this was probably true of Clyde, as well. But both men were…

It has become fashionable to regard Robert E. Howard’s Steve Harrison as the author’s lone failure. Much is made of what Howard expressed in letters about disliking hardboiled detective stories as both an author and a reader. Emphasis is placed on the fact that very few of the Steve Harrison stories found a market in…