“Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness...”
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Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author, known for writing pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
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culture · American pulp fiction writer (1906–1936) · writer · novelist · screenwriter · science fiction writer · poet · short story writer · also Robert E. Howard, Robert Ervin Howard, REH, Robert Howard, Two-Gun Bob, Bob Howard
Born 22 January 1906 · Died 11 June 1936 · Q207640
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2026· 5 entries
“I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you tempt me!”
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“The sea-road is good for wanderers and landless men. There is quenching of thirst on the grey paths of the winds, and the flying clouds to still the sting of lost dreams.”
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“...Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!”
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Locus Online: Robert E. Howard Awards Winners
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2009· 2 entries
Hippocampus Press published two volumes (1930–1932 and 1933–1936) of Howard's correspondence with H
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Published “<i>OLEX2</i> : a complete structure solution, refinement and analysis program” in Journal of Applied Crystallography — cited 31,668 times.
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1989· 1 entry
And 1991, Necronomicon Press published Robert E
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1983· 1 entry
“No wonder a few people in Cross Plains don’t like him. They don’t understand him. His preoccupation with history and with writing instead of the price of corn and cotton is something they could not understand Could I? I liked to talk about books. . . History. . . Writing. Well, this was an opportunity to listen to a very interesting storyteller!”
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1967· 1 entry
“The King is only a slave like yourself, locked with heavier chains.”
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1966· 1 entry
De Camp made a deal with Lancer Books to republish the Conan series, which led to the "First Howard Boom" of the 1970s; their popularity was enhanced by the cover artwork of Frank Frazetta on most of the volumes
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1953· 1 entry
“Seek for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for a cobra; follow a mist that steals out of the swamp at midnight.”
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1938· 1 entry
“Poor devils, they'll wake up in hell without knowing how they got there.”
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1936· 3 entries
A double funeral service was held at Cross Plains First Baptist Church, and both were buried in Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood, Texas
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Died 1936-06-11.
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“Os homens civilizados são mais descorteses do que os selvagens porque sabem que podem ser impolidos sem ter o crânio quebrado.”
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1935· 1 entry
Howard claimed in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith that Conan "simply grew up in my mind a few years ago when I was stopping in a little border town on the lower Rio Grande
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1934· 3 entries
Howard's stories were never collected during his lifetime
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"was busy trying to combine two images, that of the actual man, and that of the man who loomed up in those stirring yarns
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Due to the Depression, leaving several of Howard's stories aimed at this market unsold
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1933· 1 entry
“By Crom, I do not like this place, where dead men rise, and sleeping men vanish into the bellies of shadows!”
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1932· 1 entry
And his friends took regular excursions across Texas and nearby states
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1931· 1 entry
When the Farmer's National Bank failed, and again, after transferring to another bank, when that one failed as well
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1930· 4 entries
With his interest in Solomon Kane dwindling and his Kull stories not catching on, Howard applied his new sword-and-sorcery and horror experience to one of his first loves: the Picts
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During which he became fascinated by Celtic themes and his own Irish ancestry
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Called Oriental Stories, Howard was overjoyed—here was a venue where he could run riot through favorite themes of history and battle and exotic mysticism
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“Eons ago when your ancestors were defending their caves against the tiger and the mammoth, with crude spears of flint, the gold spires of my people split the stars! They are gone and forgotten, and the world is a waste of barbarians, white and black. Let me, too, pass as a dream that is forgotten in the mists of the ages...”
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1929· 1 entry
“For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune.”
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1928· 1 entry
But not published until long after his death
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1924· 1 entry
Howard returned to Brownwood to take a stenography course at Howard Payne College, this time boarding with his friend Lindsey Tyson instead of his mother
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1920· 1 entry
The Vestal Well within the limits of Cross Plains struck oil causing the Cross Plains to become an oil boomtown
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1919· 1 entry
When Howard was thirteen, Dr
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1906· 1 entry
Born 1906-01-22.
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