Category Archives: Robert E. Howard

Remembering Karl

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It is December 12 as I write this. I’m trying to get final exams graded, but I’m taking a break to observe the birthday of Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994). I think it’s that important ot acknowledge his achievements.

Karl Edward Wagner probably needs no introduction to anyone who reads this blog. He was one of the greatest writers of sword and sorcery and dark fantasy/horror of the Twentieth Century. We’ve not seen his like since, in my opinion.

Four fourteen years, he also edited The Year’s Best Horror Stories for DAW books. He took over the reins with volume VIII in 1980. The series ended with volume XXII with Karl’s death. Wagner didn’t limit his selections to top genre publications. He read all sorts of obscure publication to find the best horror stories each year.

If you can find copies, which is getting harder and harder to do, grab them. Not onlyl are they an excellent survey of horror in the eighteis and early nineties, but reading them is a great informal course in how to write effective horror. You’ll recognize many of the authors Wagner included, many before they became famous. Others will be new to you. Continue reading →

“And There Was Bob Lee and the Peacocks” – A Guest Post by John Bullard

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“And there was Bob Lee and the Peacocks”:
One of Robert E. Howard’s Favorite Texas Feuds

Robert E. Howard loved the history of Texas and the Southwest. He used it in writing many of
his stories. Famously, he wrote the last Conan tale, “Red Nails”, after his 1935 trip to New
Mexico, where he got the chance to see the sleepy town of Lincoln and walk its streets reveling
in the history of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid, an incident from history that he loved.

His story tells of the long-running feud between the inhabitants of the fabled city of Xuchotl,
where red and black nails were pounded into a post to keep score of which side’s followers had
been killed by the other. Howard was inspired by his knowledge of the Lincoln County War and
recent trip, as well as some other bloody feuds that had occurred in Texas to write this bloody
tale. Some of the Texas feuds Howard talks about in his letters are the Mason County Hoodoo
War between the German Unionist settlers and the Texan Confederate sympathizers, and the
Taylor-Sutton feud, which took place between two families over control of DeWitt county.

However, one of Howard’s favorite Texas feuds that may also have helped in his creating “Red
Nails”, is the Lee-Peacock feud, which was the bloodiest feud in Texas history, and perhaps the
second bloodiest in the United States. Continue reading →

The Cowboy and the Contest: A Guest Post by John Bullard

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The Cowboy and the Contest:

Teel James Glenn’s Latest Bob Howard Adventure

I was looking for something to read, and checked to see if Teel James Glenn had written anything new in his “Adventures of (Robert E.) Bob Howard” series where  an alternate universe Howard didn’t kill himself and went travelin’. He has written a third one, The Cowboy and the Contest, and it is a novella that is very different from the first two books in the series: A Cowboy in Carpathia , and The Cowboy and the Conqueror. Those two previous books were definitely set in the “new pulp” style of world-threatening adventures by first having Bob Howard fighting Dracula, and then taking on an evil cult trying to bring Lovecraftian horrors in to the world. They were action-fests from practically the first word on. This third story is shorter, quieter, and very enchanting. And, while it has its action scenes, they aren’t of a world-threatening nature, but more “down-to-earth” so-to-speak, (or actually write), within the story’s setting. Continue reading →

Novalyne

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Novalyeb Price Ellis (1908-1999) was born today, March 9. She was a school teacher in Cross Plains when she met Robert E. Howard. They dated off and on for the two years preceding his death in 1936.

She turned her diaries from that time into the memoir One Who Walked Alone in 1986. She supposedly wrote the book in response to L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Howard, Dark Vally Destiny. My understanding is that she did not appreciate the way de Camp portrayed Howard. She was not alone in that.

But I digress. Continue reading →

A Little Bronze Book of Weird Tales by Robert E. Howard

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A Little Bronze Book of Weird Tales
Robert E. Howard
Borderlands Press $32.50 Sold Out

This one sold out fast. You pretty much need to preorder the Little Books from Borderlands Press if you want to get one. Even then, it’s not a guarantee. I missed the Joe Hill volume because I waited until the evening to preorder.

But I digress.

Borderlands Press has been publishing these small collections for quite a while. I believe they are on the  fourth series of them. They are currently $32.50 and run about 130 pages.  They are nice little hardbacks and are signed and numbered.

Their current series is looking at classic authors of the weird and fantastic. Previous authors include Arthur Machen, Henry S. Whitehead, Ambrose Bierce, and J. Sheridan LeFanu. I’m enjoying the heck out of them.

I don’t know about the current series, but at least some of the older titles are available in ebook for only a few bucks if  you don’t want to shell out the cash for the print edition.

So, what does the Robert E. Howard volume look like? Continue reading →

Robert E. Howard, Second of Three

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Born Januarry 22, 1906, Robert E. Howard is the second of three birthdays that fall every other day here in late Janaury. The first is A. Merritt, whom I wrote about two days ago.

I’ve been writing about Howard and doing birthday posts for him for years, so I’m not sure what else I could say. I’d better think of something, though, because I have a REHUPA article due by the end of the month, and it needs to be four pages.

I’ve got time. (Famous Last Words.)

So, today I want to talk about Howard’s work ethic as a writer. Writing practices have been on my mind lately, so I thought I would examine a few of Howard’s. Continue reading →

Clark Ashton Smith and the Ballantines

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Today, as I’m writing this, it’s January 13. Or to put it another way, it’s the birthday of Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). I’ve been on the road since  I got off work  this morning, and only got home about forty-five minutes ago, which is why I’m posting this so late. Most of you probably won’t see it until tomorrow.

I say all that to say that I’ve not had a chance to read anything by Smith today, so I’m going to do something different. I’m going to take a brief look at the four CAS collections Lin Carter put together for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. That’s the Ballantine I reference in the title of the post. I’m not going to put “Adult Fantasy” in the title.

As an aside, do you have any idea what comes up if youtype “Ballantine Adult Fantasy” into a search engine? Hint: Don’t try this at work.

Continue reading →

Jack London

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Today, January 12, is Jack London’s birthday. London (1876-1916) was one of Robert E. Howard’s favorite authors.

I confess, I haven’t read much London. I’m slightly familiar with White Fang and The Call of the Wild because they are so well known.

Of course, decades years ago, I read “To Build a Fire” in one of my high school English classes. I don’t recall which one, nor do I remember much about the story. From what I’ve seen, it’s the obligatory Jack London story to include in high school literature books.

I have read a couple of other Londond stories.

“A Relic of the Pliocene” concerns an encounter with a mammoth. It’s a good adventure story. It’s been quite a while since I read it. I’ll have to give it a reread.

The other story, which I read as a kid and have reread at least once, is “Moon Face”. The details of this one have stuck with me better, maybe because I read it while I was young and the story imprinted itself on my  memory.

One man hates another man. The hated man loves to fish using dynamite. So the man who hates him gets a dog, trains the dog to fetch sticks, then gives the dog to the man he hates. You can probably figure out the rest.

London isn’t a writer you hear a lot about these days. I think that’s a shame, but then I can say the same about a number of writers who have passed from the scene.

I can certainly see how Jack London’s works would have resonated with Robert E. Howard. London’s themes, as I understand them, deal  with man’s survival in a wilderness environment. I have been wantiing to read London, more than the little I have.

So, those of you out there who have read London, what do you reccommend? Where should I start? I’m open to suggestions of short stories or novels.

 

REH and Some Pulp Editor Critiques: A Guest Post by John Bullard

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While working on books for the Robert E. Howard Foundation, I happened to be digging through all of the typescript digital photo copies the Foundation has made from the Glenn Lord Collection. I came across many letters from various Pulp Editors and Publishers to Howard critiquing his stories or giving him advice, or saying why they rejected his submissions. Rob Roehm had published most of the correspondence from Farnsworth Wright and Otis Adelbert Kline to Howard in the wonderful The Complete Letters of Doctor Isaac M. Howard, but most of these other letters have not been published for interested folks to read. I gathered them all and have edited a booklet that may hopefully be published sometime soon. I thought a look at a few of the letters might be interesting for the insights they give into what Robert E. Howard was dealing with in his writing career. Continue reading →

C. L. Moore’s PS – A Guest Post by Will Oliver

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Yesterday was Robert E Howard’s birthday, and tomorrow is C. L. Moore’s. Will Oliver provides another guest post about their correspondence. Thanks will.

C.L. Moore’s P.S.

By Will Oliver

C.L. Moore (Catherine Lucille Moore, January 24, 1911—April 4, 1987) was a fan of Robert E. Howard’s writing. As she once explained to R. H. Barlow in an April 1934 letter, “I’d like to read everything Robert E. Howard has ever written. The first story of his I read was WORMS OF THE EARTH, and I’ve been a fanatic ever since.” Moore had a brief correspondence with Howard toward the end of his life and one of the early extant letters is dated January 29, 1935. She addresses a wide array of topics, praises Howard’s writing, and then signs-off. However, she added an interesting postscript that read:

P.S. I just wanted to remark that

‘We pinned our hope

To a rotten rope

And the Man from Galilee.’

In the faint hope that you’ll recognize it. Those three lines are another of my pet ha’nts, and absolutely anonymous so far as I’m concerned.

Continue reading →