Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres.
His mother had been ill with tuberculosis her entire life, and upon learning she had entered a coma from which she was not expected to wake, he walked out to his car and shot himself in the head. == Biography == === Early years === Howard was born January 22, 1906 in Peaster, Texas, the only son of a traveling country physician, Dr.
He may have been inspired in the creation of his setting by Thomas Bulfinch's 1913 edition of his Bulfinch's Mythology called The Outline of Mythology, which contained stories from history and legend, including many which were direct influences on Howard's work.
Howard was considered by friends to be eidetic, and astounded them with his ability to memorize lengthy reams of poetry with ease after one or two readings. In 1919, when Howard was thirteen, Dr.
That same year, sitting in a library in New Orleans while his father took medical courses at a nearby college, Howard discovered a book concerned with the scant fact and abundant legends surrounding an indigenous culture in ancient Scotland called the Picts. In 1920, on February 17, the Vestal Well within the limits of Cross Plains struck oil and Cross Plains became an oil boomtown.
The 1920s version was a treasure-hunting adventurer but the 1930s version, first seen in "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" in the December 1934 issue of Top-Notch, was a grim gun-fighter keeping the peace after having gone native in Afghanistan.
Rejections piled up, and with no mentors or instructions of any kind to aid him, Howard became a writing autodidact, methodically studying the markets and tailoring his stories and style to each. In the fall of 1922, when Howard was sixteen, he temporarily moved to a boarding house in the nearby city of Brownwood to complete his senior year of high school, accompanied by his mother.
The December 1922 issue featured two stories, "'Golden Hope Christmas" and "West is West," which won gold and silver prizes respectively. Howard graduated from high school in May 1923 and moved back to Cross Plains.
The December 1922 issue featured two stories, "'Golden Hope Christmas" and "West is West," which won gold and silver prizes respectively. Howard graduated from high school in May 1923 and moved back to Cross Plains.
Howard was also a practitioner and fan of boxing, as well as an avid weightlifter. == Writing == Howard's first published poem was The Sea, in an early 1923 issue of local newspaper The Baylor United Statement.
In 1924, 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.
His first published story was "Spear and Fang", sold in late November 1924 and published in the July 1925 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
It was not until July 1925 that Howard received payment for his first printed story.
His first published story was "Spear and Fang", sold in late November 1924 and published in the July 1925 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
These matches became an important part of his life; the combination of boxing and writing provided an outlet for his frustrations and anger. === Sword and sorcery === In August 1926, Howard quit his exhausting job at the drug store and, in September, returned to Brownwood to complete his bookkeeping course.
This story and the elements it uses would also be important in Howard's literary future. In May 1927, after having to return home due to contracting measles and then being forced to retake the course, Howard passed his exams.
He shared this enthusiasm with Harold Preece, a friend made in Austin in the summer of 1927; Howard's letters to both Preece and Clyde Smith contain much Irish-related material and discussion.
The novel was finished in 1928, but not published until long after his death. Weird Tales paid on publication, meaning that Howard had no money of his own at this time.
However, all but two were rejected, convincing Howard not to continue the series. In March 1928, Howard salvaged and re-submitted to Weird Tales a story rejected by the more popular pulp Argosy, and the result was "Red Shadows", the first of many stories featuring the vengeful Puritan swashbuckler Solomon Kane.
Appearing in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales, the character was a big hit with readers and this was the first of Howard's characters to sustain a series in print beyond just two stories (seven Kane stories were printed in the 1928–32 period).
Featuring Kull, a barbarian precursor to later Howard heroes such as Conan, the tale hit Weird Tales in August 1929 and received fanfare from readers.
July 1929 saw the debut of Sailor Steve Costigan in the pages of Fight Stories.
However, Howard's first real success was the Sailor Steve Costigan series of humorous boxing stories, beginning with "The Pit of the Serpent" published in the July 1929 issue of the pulp magazine Fight Stories. ===Styles and themes=== Howard's distinctive literary style relies on a combination of existentialism, poetic lyricism, violence, grimness, humour, burlesque, and a degree of hardboiled realism.
With poor sales, and many publishers recoiling from his subject matter, Howard ultimately judged poetry writing a luxury he could not afford, and after 1930 he wrote little verse, instead dedicating his time to short stories and higher-paying markets.
At twenty-three years of age, from the middle of nowhere in Texas, he had become a full-time writer; he was making good money and his father began bragging about his success, not to mention buying multiple copies of his work in the pulps. Howard's "Celtic phase" began in 1930, during which he became fascinated by Celtic themes and his own Irish ancestry.
Turlogh Dubh O'Brien and Cormac Mac Art were created at this time, although he was not able to sell the latter's stories. When Farnsworth Wright started a new pulp in 1930 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.
The magazine eventually ceased publication in 1934 due to the Depression, leaving several of Howard's stories aimed at this market unsold. ===Lovecraft Circle=== In August 1930 Howard wrote a letter to Weird Tales praising a recent reprint of H.
Howard initially deferred to Lovecraft but gradually asserted his own views, even coming to deride Lovecraft's opinions. In 1930, 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.
The 1920s version was a treasure-hunting adventurer but the 1930s version, first seen in "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" in the December 1934 issue of Top-Notch, was a grim gun-fighter keeping the peace after having gone native in Afghanistan.
Howard Foundation Press published a three volume set (1923–1929, 1930–1932, and 1933–1936) titled The Collected Letters of Robert E.
Stories sold to Fight Stories provided Howard with a market just as stable as Weird Tales. Due to his success in Fight Stories, Howard was contacted by the publisher Street & Smith in February 1931 with a request to move the Steve Costigan stories to their own pulp Sport Story Magazine.
Howard was further hit when his savings were wiped out in 1931 when the Farmer's National Bank failed, and again, after transferring to another bank, when that one failed as well. === Conan === Early 1932 saw Howard taking one of his frequent trips around Texas.
Later, in 1935, 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." However, the character actually took nine months to develop. Howard had originally used the name "Conan" for a Gael reaver in a past-life-themed story he completed in October 1931, which was published in the magazine Strange Tales in June 1932.
Much of 1931 was spent by Howard attempting to mimic Lovecraft's style.
Howard: Selected Letters in two volumes (1923–1930 and 1931–1936) edited by Glenn Lord with Rusty Burke, S.
Howard was further hit when his savings were wiped out in 1931 when the Farmer's National Bank failed, and again, after transferring to another bank, when that one failed as well. === Conan === Early 1932 saw Howard taking one of his frequent trips around Texas.
Later, in 1935, 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." However, the character actually took nine months to develop. Howard had originally used the name "Conan" for a Gael reaver in a past-life-themed story he completed in October 1931, which was published in the magazine Strange Tales in June 1932.
Howard supplemented this with two sketched maps and an additional short piece entitled "Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age." In a letter dated March 10, 1932, Farnsworth Wright rejected "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" but noted that "The Phoenix on the Sword" had "points of real excellence" and suggested changes.
Howard had written nine Conan stories before the first saw print. Conan first appeared to the public in Weird Tales in December 1932 and was such a hit that Howard was eventually able to place seventeen Conan stories in the magazine between 1933 and 1936.
Howard continued to sell directly to Weird Tales, however. Howard wrote one of the first "Weird Western" stories ever created, "The Horror from the Mound," published in the May 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
However his main interests were sports and politics, and he would listen to match reports and election results as they came in. After Howard bought a car in 1932, he and his friends took regular excursions across Texas and nearby states.
Howard had written nine Conan stories before the first saw print. Conan first appeared to the public in Weird Tales in December 1932 and was such a hit that Howard was eventually able to place seventeen Conan stories in the magazine between 1933 and 1936.
In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith in October 1933, he wrote that its sequel "The Garden of Fear" was "dealing with one of my various conceptions of the Hyborian and post-Hyborian world." In May 1933, a British publisher, Denis Archer, contacted Howard about publishing a book in the United Kingdom.
Though the publisher was "exceedingly interested" in the stories, the rejection letter explained that there was a "prejudice that is very strong over here just now against collections of short stories." The suggested novel, however, could be published by Pawling and Ness Ltd in a first edition of 5,000 copies for lending libraries. In late 1933 Howard returned to Conan, starting again slightly awkwardly with "The Devil in Iron".
Moore and Fritz Leiber, and over the ensuing decades the genre of sword and sorcery grew up around Howard's masterwork, with dozens of practitioners evoking Howard's creation to one degree or another. === New markets === In spring 1933, Howard started to place work with Otis Adelbert Kline, a former pulp writer, as his agent.
More successfully, in late 1933 Howard took a character conceived in his youth, El Borak, and began using him in mature, professional tales of World War I-era Middle Eastern adventure that landed in Top Notch, Complete Stories, and Thrilling Adventures.
The author therefore stopped writing weird fiction and turned his attentions to this steadily growing passion. The first of Howard's most commercially successful series (within his own lifetime) was started in July 1933.
She first met Howard in spring 1933 when Howard was visiting Smith after driving his mother to a Brownwood clinic.
Howard Foundation Press published a three volume set (1923–1929, 1930–1932, and 1933–1936) titled The Collected Letters of Robert E.
Additionally, in 2009, Hippocampus Press published two volumes (1930–1932 and 1933–1936) of Howard's correspondence with H.
His greatest success occurred after his death. Although a Conan novel was nearly published in 1934, Howard's stories were never collected during his lifetime.
The magazine eventually ceased publication in 1934 due to the Depression, leaving several of Howard's stories aimed at this market unsold. ===Lovecraft Circle=== In August 1930 Howard wrote a letter to Weird Tales praising a recent reprint of H.
In January 1934 the publisher rejected the collection but suggested a novel instead.
However, this was followed with the beginning of the latter group of Conan stories which "carry the most intellectual punch," starting with "The People of the Black Circle". Howard probably began to work on the novel in February 1934, starting to write Almuric (a non-Conan, sword and planet science fiction novel) but abandoned it half way.
The third attempt at writing the novel was more successful, resulting in Howard's only Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon, which was probably started on or around March 17, 1934.
Howard sent his final draft to Denis Archer on May 20, 1934.
However, the publisher went into receivership in late 1934, before it could print the novel.
It was later printed in Weird Tales as a serial over five months, beginning with the December 1935 issue. Howard may have begun losing interest in Conan in late 1934, with a growing desire to write westerns.
The 1920s version was a treasure-hunting adventurer but the 1930s version, first seen in "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" in the December 1934 issue of Top-Notch, was a grim gun-fighter keeping the peace after having gone native in Afghanistan.
By 1934 some of the markets killed off by the Depression had come back, and Weird Tales was over $1500 behind on payments to Howard.
Written as tall tales in the vein of Texas "Tall Lying" stories, the story first appeared in the March–April 1934 issue of Action Stories and was so successful that other magazines asked Howard for similar characters.
He was not dressed as I thought a writer should dress." They parted after a drive and would not see each other again for over a year. In late 1934 Price got a job as a schoolteacher in Cross Plains High School through her cousin, the Head of the English department.
Hoffmann Price wrote that when he first met Howard in 1934 he "was busy trying to combine two images, that of the actual man, and that of the man who loomed up in those stirring yarns.
Later, in 1935, 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." However, the character actually took nine months to develop. Howard had originally used the name "Conan" for a Gael reaver in a past-life-themed story he completed in October 1931, which was published in the magazine Strange Tales in June 1932.
It was later printed in Weird Tales as a serial over five months, beginning with the December 1935 issue. Howard may have begun losing interest in Conan in late 1934, with a growing desire to write westerns.
Several times in 1935–36, whenever his mother's health had declined, he made veiled allusions to his father about planning suicide, which his father did not understand at the time.
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres.
Howard had written nine Conan stories before the first saw print. Conan first appeared to the public in Weird Tales in December 1932 and was such a hit that Howard was eventually able to place seventeen Conan stories in the magazine between 1933 and 1936.
It is possible that Breckinridge Elkins and the other characters in his stories were too close to home for Howard to be entirely comfortable discussing them. In the spring of 1936, Howard sold a series of "spicy" stories to Spicy-Adventure Stories.
The relationship between the couple was irrevocably scarred, but they continued visiting with each other as friends until May 1936, when Price left Cross Plains for Louisiana State University to get a graduate degree.
This was useful years later when she wrote of their relationship in a book called One Who Walked Alone, which was the basis for the 1996 film The Whole Wide World starring Vincent D'Onofrio as Howard and Renée Zellweger as Price. === Death === By 1936, almost all of Howard's fiction writing was being devoted to westerns.
The words sounded familiar to her, but it was only in early June 1936 that she found the source in Macbeth: In the weeks before his suicide, Howard wrote to Kline giving his agent instructions of what to do in case of his death, he wrote his last will and testament, and he borrowed a .380 Colt Automatic from his friend Lindsey Tyson.
It is possible that Howard thought his father would join him in ending their lives together as a family. In June 1936, as Hester Howard slipped into her final coma, her son maintained a death vigil with his father and friends of the family, getting little sleep, drinking huge amounts of coffee, and growing more despondent.
On the morning of June 11, 1936, Howard asked one of his mother's nurses, a Mrs.
On June 14, 1936 a double funeral service was held at Cross Plains First Baptist Church, and both were buried in Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood, Texas. ==Health== Robert E.
Howard's legacy extended after his death in 1936.
When she closed the agency in 1965, a new agent was required.
He became responsible for the non-Conan works and later restored, textually-pure versions of the Conan stories themselves. In 1966, 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.
He became responsible for the non-Conan works and later restored, textually-pure versions of the Conan stories themselves. In 1966, 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.
Howard have been adapted into multiple media, such as the two Conan films released in the 1980s starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 1989 and 1991, Necronomicon Press published Robert E.
In the late 1990s and early 21st century, the "Second Howard Boom" occurred.
In 1989 and 1991, Necronomicon Press published Robert E.
This was useful years later when she wrote of their relationship in a book called One Who Walked Alone, which was the basis for the 1996 film The Whole Wide World starring Vincent D'Onofrio as Howard and Renée Zellweger as Price. === Death === By 1936, almost all of Howard's fiction writing was being devoted to westerns.
Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" published in the Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2005, Stephen King implies that Howard did not work at his craft and was merely pastiching Lovecraft.
Also in 2006, a charity, Robert E.
In 2007 and 2008, The Robert E.
In 2007 and 2008, The Robert E.
Additionally, in 2009, Hippocampus Press published two volumes (1930–1932 and 1933–1936) of Howard's correspondence with H.
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