H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) are two pillars in the New World Gothic castle of fantastic fiction. They are especially interesting in their surprising aspects. They both died young, they both lived sheltered and geographically-constricted lives, they both absorbed influences from wide and deep sources which they then used to create wonderfully complex and vast universes that they have shared with writers long after their passing, and they both lived for sharing their creative energies with other writers through letters and encouraging words, including each other.
Lovecraft the New Englander drew from Poe, Machen, and Dunsany to fashion the crucible from which his Cthulhu Mythos emerged, the indifferent and destructive universe of what humans would call monsters from beyond space and time. He was a master at delineating the gulf between what terrible fate was suggested and why it could not be described in all its horror.
Robert E. Howard the Texan connected to semi-mythic history and the existential journey of one determined man through all the dangers of men and beasts. He is the father of an American sword and sorcery, a juxtaposition of power that seems illogical but also somehow inevitable, almost an allegory of the wars of the 20th Century -- what you cannot see may kill you from afar, and what you can see may kill you up close. The survivor must be ready and skilled and wary at all times.
The legacies of these two writers last and grow to this day in literature, art, and film, even language. We stock their writings and associated contemporary writers as well as some of the more interesting and provocative writers working with the generous heritage that Lovecraft and Howard bequeathed to an increasingly uneasy world.
The Bloody Crown of Conan
The Bloody Crown of Conan
In his hugely influential and tempestuous career, Robert E. Howard created the genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery–and brought to life one of fantasy’s boldest and most enduring figures: Conan the Cimmerian–reaver, slayer, barbarian, king
This lavishly illustrated volume gathers together three of Howard’s longest and most famous Conan stories–two of them printed for the first time directly from Howard’s typescript–along with a collection of the author’s previously unpublished and rarely seen outlines, notes, and drafts. Longtime fans and new readers alike will agree that The Bloody Crown of Conan merits a place of honor on every fantasy lover’s bookshelf.
Robert E. Howard was born January 22, 1906, southwest of Fort Worth. His father, a country physician, moved the family around Texas before settling in the small town of Cross Plains in 1919. While in high school, Howard began submitting stories to magazines, and Weird Tales magazine accepted Spear and Fang. Solomon Kane was the first of his continuing characters to see print; others included King Kull and Bran Mak Morn. Howard tried detective fiction, horror, and Paul Bunyanesque tales, then in 1933, Weird Tales introduced Conan the Cimmerian. In 1935 his mother was admitted to the King's Daughters Hospital. Told she would never recover, he committed suicide in 1936.