The Original Conan

"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."-- Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, 1932.Illustration by Mark Schultz.

Robert Howard was a brilliant, yet tortured individual. He was born in 1906 in Parker County, Texas, in a little town called Peaster. He lived most of his child hood in Palo Pinto County. This is the guy who created Conan through the publication of pulpy short stories or novelettes serialized in the weekly publications of the time. The books published as "Conan, the Cimmerian" and "The Bloody Crown of Conan" are the original stories written between 1930 and 1934. Howard was famous for these as Conan captured a large following for the time.

Howard peppers the stories with derisive commentary on modern society. He appears to have admired the barbarian over the civilized man, at least, he found the ways of the barbarian more honest.

"The Cimmerian glared about, embarrassed at the roar of mocking laughter that greeted this remark. He saw no particular humor in it, and was too new to civilization to understand its discourtesies. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: Conan of Cimmeria Volume 1, The Tower of the Elephant.

That was true then, and it is true now.

The stories are very entertaining. You will notice that they do not fall into a logical chronological order. The volume published by Ballantine Books put them in the order that Howard wrote them so long ago.

Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936. Some saw it coming. His father hid all of the guns in the house. Howard waited until after his father's death to go out to his car kill himself. It's too bad he couldn't have lived to contribute more. Can you imagine a 76 year old Robert Howard consulting on the set of "Conan, the Barbarian" in 1982? I think it would have been a better movie.