The Conquering Sword of Conan Robert E Howard

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Appendices

HYBORIAN GENESIS PART III

Notes on the Creation of the Conan Stories
by Patrice Louinet

As he was completing A Witch Shall Be Born, Robert E. Howard probably felt that he could sell almost any Conan story he submitted to Weird Tales. By 1934, after several years of hardship, including two years early in his career during which he did not sell a single story, Howard had become one of the stars of the magazine. Witch was, according to editor Farnsworth Wright, the “best” of the Conan stories submitted to date; praise for Howard and his Conan stories could be found in the letter column of almost every issue of Weird Tales, and, by far the most revealing factor, the Texan was present in ten of the twelve issues published in 1934, eight of these featuring Conan, with the last four winning cover privilege, an impressive record.

Howard had been immersed in Conan for months: People of the Black Circle had been written in February and March; The Hour of the Dragon was begun just afterward and sent to its intended British publisher on May 20; and A Witch Shall Be Born had been completed by early June. Howard’s sole respite during those months was the short visit of his colleague E. Hoffmann Price in April. Early in June, then, Howard took his first vacation in a long time. He later informed his correspondent August Derleth that he had “completed several weeks of steady work,” and told him that “a friend and I took a brief trip into southern New Mexico and extreme western Texas; saw the Carlsbad Caverns, a spectacle not to [be] duplicated on this planet, and spent a short time in El Paso. First time I’d ever been there. . . .”

The friend in question was Truett Vinson, one of Howard’s best friends since high school, about whom more later. The two men left Cross Plains, Howard’s hometown, in early June and were gone for a week. That the trip proved enjoyable is attested by mentions of it in almost all of Howard’s letters of the following weeks, with the visit to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico as the high point of the short holidays. Howard was particularly impressed by these natural wonders and waxed at length about them to his correspondents, notably H. P. Lovecraft:

I can not describe the fantastic wonders of that great cavern. You must see it yourself to appreciate it. It lies high up among the mountains, and I never saw skies so blue and clear as those that arch titanically above those winding trails up which the traveller must labor to reach the entrance of the Cavern. They are of a peculiarly deep hue beggaring attempts at description. The entrance of the Cavern is gigantic, but it is dwarfed by the dimensions of the interior. One descends seemingly endlessly by winding ramps, for some seven hundred feet. We entered at ten thirty o’clock, and emerged about four. The English language is too weak to describe the Cavern. The pictures do not give a good idea; for one thing they exaggerate the colors; the coloring is really subdued, somber rather than sparkling. But they do not give a proper idea of the size, of the intricate patterns carved in the limestone throughout the millenniums…. In the Cavern natural laws seem suspended; it is Nature gone mad in a riot of fantasy. Hundreds of feet above arched the great stone roof, smoky in the mist that eternally rises. Huge stalactites hung from the roof in every conceivable shape, in shafts, in domes, in translucent sheets, like tapestries of ice. Water dripped, building gigantic columns through the ages, pools of water gleamed green and weird here and there. . . . We moved through a wonderland of fantastic giants whose immemorial antiquity was appalling to contemplate.

Shortly upon his return to Cross Plains, Howard set out to write yet another Conan story, The Servants of Bit-Yakin. The story is not a particularly memorable one, with a rather unconvincing plot and insipid heroine, but it has a setting markedly different from the other Conan tales, taking place entirely in a vast natural wonder, filled with caves and subterranean rivers, which was evidently greatly inspired by Howard’s visit to the Carlsbad Caverns. As he concluded to Lovecraft: “God, what a story you could write after such an exploration! . . . Anything seemed possible in that monstrous twilight underworld, seven hundred and fifty feet below the earth. If some animate monster had risen horrifically from among the dimness of the columns and spread his taloned anthropomorphic hands above the throng, I do not believe that anyone would have been particularly surprized.” Howard probably decided he could write the tale himself, after all.

The result is not quite satisfying, but it was paving the way for greater things to come: for the first time in the series, Howard was weaving elements of his own country into his Conan tales. It was a timid first step to be sure, but an important one nonetheless. The story is not mentioned in any of the extant Howard letters and no record of submission survives. It was accepted by Farnsworth Wright for $155, payable on publication, and published in the March 1935 issue of Weird Tales. Some confusion exists as to Howard’s original title for the tale. The story first appeared in Weird Tales under the title Jewels of Gwahlur. Howard wrote three drafts: the first is untitled, while the second and third are titled The Servants of Bit-Yakin. The third draft has come to us as a carbon of the version sent to Weird Tales, hence the definitive one. A third title, Teeth of Gwahlur, appears in a listing found among Howard’s papers long after his death (from which the information on the price paid by the magazine comes). This listing was not prepared by Howard himself, though evidently derived from either an original Howard document or series of documents. From internal evidence, it appears that this page was prepared well after the story was published and was very probably intended as a listing of stories sold to Weird Tales to establish what was owed to Howard’s estate by the magazine, following his death. In his listings of sales, Howard, as a general rule, would always give the published version’s title rather than his own, which is the case in this document (The Slithering Shadow over Xuthal of the Dusk, Shadows in the Moonlight over Iron Shadows in the Moon). It seems quite probable, then, that Teeth was simply an error: perhaps Howard himself, in giving the title, was remembering the name of the necklace in the story, and the later transcription carried forward the error.

In the weeks that followed, Howard once again decided to experiment with his Conan stories. The attempt itself did not result in a complete story, but it led to a major evolution in the series. If The Servants of Bit-Yakin timidly borrowed from a place Howard had visited, this time the Texan opted for a definitely American setting, at the price of an eviction of the Cimmerian himself from his Hyborian world.

In the second part of 1934, it was possible to detect a growing distancing of Howard from his Cimmerian creation, notably in the conversations he had with Novalyne Price, whom he began dating in August. In October, he confided to her that he was “getting a little tired of Conan. . . . This country needs to be written about. There are all kinds of stories around here.”

The author to whom Howard looked when it came to finding inspiration for this new tale was one of his favorites: Robert W. Chambers. Howard’s library included three of this author’s novels dealing with the American Revolution: The Maid-at-Arms (1902), The Little Red Foot (1921) and America, or the Sacrifice (1924). These novels were to provide the background and inspiration for Howard’s next tale of the Hyborian Age, Wolves Beyond the Border. A lot of confusing and erroneous information on Howard’s use of the Chambers material had appeared over the years until Howard scholar Rusty Burke set the record straight. All the conclusions on the exact degree of that influence originate with Burke’s research or are derived from his pioneering efforts.

As he had done in 1932 when he made the decision to write The Hyborian Age to give more coherence to his Hyborian world, Howard first proceeded to jot down a series of notes that would help him feel more at ease with the events and locale he was to write about (see page 285). There can be no doubt at all that Chambers’ novels were very much in Howard’s mind when he wrote this. Almost all the names are taken nearly verbatim from the novels: Schohira for Schoharie, Oriskany for Oriskonie, Caughnawaga for Conawaga, etc. The situation and events Howard describes in his document also clearly evoke Chambers’ dramatization of the American Revolution. More names derived from Chambers would find their way into Wolves Beyond the Border.

Wolves is one of the most intriguing Conan fragments precisely because it is not, strictly speaking, a Conan story. It was not the first time Howard had attempted to do something different with Conan and, as we are about to see, not the first time he experimented with another character because he was starting to feel “out of contact” with one of his creations.

Shortly before he wrote his novel The Hour of the Dragon, Howard had attempted another story in which Conan is only an off-stage presence for a significant part of the tale. In that case, however, Conan’s absence was confined to the first chapters of a story which was envisioned as a novel; as the synopsis for the complete story attests, the Cimmerian was intended as a prominent character, if not actually the protagonist of the story. The situation can be seen as a parallel to that of A Witch Shall Be Born, in which the Cimmerian acts mostly off-stage. But in the case of Wolves Beyond the Border, the situation is markedly different, most notably due to the fact that this is a first-person narrative, in which Conan makes no appearance, though he is mentioned several times in the course of the story.

A very similar situation had arisen a few years earlier in Howard’s career, and makes for an interesting comparison. In 1926, Howard created Kull the Atlantean, his first epic fantasy character, about whom the Texan wrote or began a dozen tales. In 1928, however, Howard apparently started to lose interest in his character. He then began – but never completed – a very intriguing fragment in which the major character was not Kull, who was relegated to a minor role, but his friend Brule, the Pictish warrior, whose characteristics were markedly different in that tale than in his previous appearances. Kull was apparently becoming merely a supporting character in his own series, in quite the same fashion Conan seems to be in Wolves Beyond the Border. Howard never completed the fragment, but from that moment on the character of Kull underwent a drastic evolution. It is quite striking to see that in those two fragments, the off-stage characters are barbarians who have become or are becoming kings of civilized countries. And in both fragments, the sentiments of the new protagonists when it comes to politics are about the same. Compare the following:

The people of Conajohara scattered throughout the Westermarck, in Schohira, Conawaga, or Oriskawny, but many of them went southward and settled near Fort Thandara. . . . There they were later joined by other settlers for whom the older provinces were too thickly inhabited, and presently there grew up the district known as the Free Province of Thandara, because it was not like the other provinces, royal grants to great lords east of the marches and settled by them, but cut out of the wilderness by the pioneers themselves without aid of the Aquilonian nobility. We paid no taxes to any baron. Our governor was not appointed by any lord, but we elected him ourselves, from our own people, and he was responsible only to the king. We manned and built our forts ourselves, and sustained ourselves in war as in peace. And Mitra knows war was a constant state of affairs, for there was never peace between us and our savage neighbors, the wild Panther, Alligator and Otter tribes of Picts. (from Wolves Beyond the Border)

“We of The Islands are all one blood, but of many tribes, and each tribe has customs and traditions peculiar to itself alone. We all acknowledge Nial of the Tatheli as over-king but his rule is loose. He does not interfere with our affairs among ourselves, nor does he levy tribute or taxes.… [H]e takes no toll of my tribe, the Borni, nor of any other tribe. Neither does he interfere when two tribes go to war – unless some tribe encroaches on the three who pay tribute…. And when the Lemurians or the Celts or any foreign nation or band of reavers come against us, he sends forth for all tribes to put aside their quarrels and fight side by side. Which is a good thing. He might be a supreme tyrant if he liked, for his own tribe is very strong, and with the aid of Valusia he might do as he liked – but he knows that though he might, with his tribes and their allies, crush all the other tribes, there would never be peace again….” (from the untitled Kull fragment)

Here are more than passing resemblances. In both instances, the peculiar political turmoil can also be read as a mirror of a similar turmoil taking place in Howard’s psyche, connected to the social situation of his regular protagonists: Kull the king of Valusia and Conan the soon-to-be king of Aquilonia. In both instances, the Picts – only mentioned once so far in the Conan series (in The Phoenix on the Sword) – appear as the necessary catalysts for the change: Brule is a Pict, and the threat they pose to the Aquilonian settlement triggers the events of Wolves Beyond the Border. The Picts – the savages forever present in Howard’s universe – force the Howardian characters to reveal their true nature.

As was the case with the Kull fragment then, Howard did not complete Wolves Beyond the Border. His first draft diminished to part-story, part synopsis, while the second was simply abandoned. The tale was probably at the same time too derivative of Chambers and too much a necessary exercise before Howard could fully tackle this new phase of his character’s evolution.

To say that Beyond the Black River was born on the ashes of Wolves Beyond the Border would be belaboring the obvious. This time, however, Howard got rid almost entirely of the Chambers influence. There is no plot element in Black River which can be traced back to Chambers, and only a few names still show the initial connection (for instance, Conajohara was carried on from Wolves and “Balthus” was derived from the “Baltus” of The Little Red Foot). Beyond the Black River is pure Howard.

The tale was particularly dear to Howard. To August Derleth he remarked that he “wanted to see if [he] could write an interesting Conan yarn without sex interest.” He was a little more explicit with Lovecraft, writing that his latest sale to Weird Tales was “a two-part Conan serial: ‘Beyond the Black River’ – a frontier story… In the Conan story I’ve attempted a new style and setting entirely – abandoned the exotic settings of lost cities, decaying civilizations, golden domes, marble palaces, silk-clad dancing girls, etc., and thrown my story against a back-ground of forests and rivers, log cabins, frontier outposts, buckskin-clad settlers, and painted tribesmen.”

It was to Novalyne Price that Howard fully bared his sentiments toward that story:

Bob began to talk. But he was not berating civilization; instead, he was praising the simple things that civilization had to offer: standing on street corners, talking with friends; walking with the warmth of the sun on your back, a faithful dog by your side; hunting cactus with your best girl.

[…]

“I sold Wright a yarn like that a few months ago.” He turned and looked at me, his eyes turbulent. “I’m damned surprised he took it. It’s different from my other Conan yarns . . . no sex . . . only men fighting against the savagery and bestiality about to engulf them. I want you to read it when it comes out. It’s filled with the important little things of civilization, little things that make men think civilization’s worth living and dying for.”

[…]

He was excited about it because it was about this country and it sold! He had a honing to write more about this country, not an ordinary cowboy yarn, or a wild west shoot ’em up, though God knew this country was alive with yarns like that waiting to be written. But in his heart, he wanted to say more than that. He wanted to tell the simple story of this country and the hardships the settlers had suffered, pitted against a frightened, semi-barbaric people – the Indians, who were trying to hold on to a way of life and a country they loved. . . . But a novel depicting the settlers’ fear as they tried to carve out a new life, and the Indians’ fear as they tried to hold on to a doomed country; why, girl, all that would make the best damn novel ever written about frontier life in the Southwest.

[…]

“I tried that yarn out to see what Wright would do about it. I was afraid he wouldn’t take it, but he did! By God, he took it! ”

Beyond the Black River is considered by many Howard scholars to be his best story, encapsulating the essence of his philosophy: “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. . . . Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

Indeed, all the characters who are not barbarians meet their doom in the tale: Tiberias the merchant, presented as the epitome of civilized decadence, is of course the first example, portrayed with evident scorn as a man unwilling or unable to adjust his civilized ways to life on the Frontier. But even the woodsmen, born to civilization but having lived their lives on the frontier, can not hope to prevail: “They were sons of civilization, reverted to a semi-barbarism. [Conan] was a barbarian of a thousand generations of barbarians. They had acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born to these things. He excelled them even in lithe economy of motion. They were wolves, but he was a tiger.” The frontiersmen, Balthus, and Valannus all died because of this, and Howard’s genius was not to sacrifice his story for the sake of the usual conventions of the genre.

Much has been written about the exact signification of the last paragraph of the story. Many erroneously credit the statement to Conan, as if it were his sentiment, but it is not Conan but an unnamed forester who utters these words. That the barbarians always ultimately triumph is a simple report of what has just transpired: only Conan and the Picts have survived the ordeal, because it was their nature to survive. That Conan had in fact more in common with the Picts he was fighting than with the Aquilonians had been made clear by Howard earlier in the story:

“But some day a man will rise and unite thirty or forty clans [of the Picts], just as was done among the Cimmerians, when the Gundermen tried to push the border northward, years ago. They tried to colonize the southern marches of Cimmeria: destroyed a few small clans, built a fort-town, Venarium, – you’ve heard the tale.”

“So I have indeed,” replied Balthus, wincing. . . . “My uncle was at Venarium when the Cimmerians swarmed over the walls. . . . The barbarians swept out of the hills in a ravening horde, without warning, and stormed Venarium with such fury none could stand before them. Men, women and children were butchered. Venarium was reduced to a mass of charred ruins, as it is to this day. The Aquilonians were driven back across the marches, and have never since tried to colonize the Cimmerian country. But you speak of Venarium familiarly. Perhaps you were there?”

“I was,” grunted the other. “I was one of the horde that swarmed over the walls. . . .”

[…]

“Then you, too, are a barbarian!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

The other nodded, without taking offense.

“I am Conan, a Cimmerian.”

The import of this passage was not merely to give some additional biographical information on the Cimmerian, but rather to make explicit the connection between Conan and the Picts. Conan is a barbarian “as ferocious as the Picts, and much more intelligent” and this is why he will survive. The insistence on Conan’s elemental nature, much more marked than in any of the previous tales of the Cimmerian, very probably provoked the emergence of Balthus as the character readers – and Howard himself – could relate to. Critic George Scithers once noted that Howard had undoubtedly projected himself and his dog Patches into this story under the guise of Balthus and Slasher. As a civilized man himself, Howard could no more hope to prevail in the Hyborian Age than his civilized characters.

It was a rare thing indeed in pulp fiction to see a tale concluding with so bleak an ending, in which most of the characters die and the situation is worse at the end of the story than it was at its beginning. Howard was here trying to deliver a message much more than to simply add another Conan story to his bibliography.

Beyond the Black River was bought by Farnsworth Wright in early October 1934. It was published as a serial in the May and June 1935 issues of Weird Tales, but without the honors of the cover. Either Wright wanted to add some variety to his covers (he hadn’t granted The Servants of Bit-Yakin cover privilege either), or the lack of a semi-naked heroine prevented him from doing that. The cover for the May 1935 issue did not feature an undressed woman, though, so that question must remain unanswered.

In the months of October and November 1934 Howard was apparently too much occupied with his romance with Novalyne Price to devote any time to writing new Conan tales. At about the time Beyond the Black River was accepted, though, Howard received bad news from England: “Just got a letter informing me that the English company which had promised to bring out my book [the Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon] had gone into the hands of the receiver. Just my luck. The yarn’s in the hands of the company which bought up the assets, but I haven’t heard from them.” The novel was, however, soon returned. Howard very probably touched it up very slightly, sent it to Weird Tales later in the year, and soon received news that it was accepted, probably in early January 1935. Wright was apparently satisfied that Howard was returning to less experimental tales: “Wright says it’s my best Conan story so far.”

In December, as he was informing Lovecraft of the sale of Beyond the Black River and commenting on its unusual tone, he added: “Some day I’m going to try my hand at a longer yarn of the same style, a serial of four or five parts.”

It appears that Howard didn’t wait very long before writing this serial. The Black Stranger is one of those Howard stories for which we have no information regarding composition, but the writing date can be estimated around January and/or February 1935 thanks to the partial drafts of other stories found on the backs of the pages of several drafts. On the back of The Black Stranger are found several pages for stories composed in December 1934 and early 1935. It seems reasonable enough to suppose that Howard began work on that serial after his revision – and the acceptance – of The Hour of the Dragon.

The Black Stranger was evidently conceived as a follow-up of sorts to Beyond the Black River featuring once again Conan opposed to the Picts, and once again it was a very experimental tale, as the Cimmerian isn’t introduced until halfway through the novelette-length story. (He is, of course, featured in the first chapter, but his identity is not revealed to the reader.)

The Black Stranger has never received the critical attention it is due, primarily because it was not published in its original form until 1987, when Karl Edward Wagner included it in an anthology. In all its previous appearances, the story had been mercilessly butchered. The tale is simple enough on its surface, mixing elements of piratical adventure and Indian warfare, but should definitely not be dismissed in a cavalier way, as has been done sometimes. The Black Stranger is an extremely complex tale once one has understood that it is replete, consciously or unconsciously, with autobiographical elements, much more so than any of the stories Howard had written to date.

The story is set on the coasts of the Hyborian Age’s equivalent of the United States, at a time which would roughly correspond to our seventeenth century. It is the tale of early settlers – of a sort – on a continent that is still largely dominated by wild tribes, the Hyborian Age equivalent of Native Americans. A child is prominently featured, a rare occurrence in a Howard tale. Tina is quite a mystery to the reader: she is presented as a “pitiful waif . . . taken away from a brutal master encountered on that long voyage up from the southern coasts.” What few children appear in Howard’s fiction all share an unhappy youth; all are orphans or have been abandoned by their parents, and Tina is no exception. In this case, however, Belesa has apparently adopted the child as her own. A mysterious Black Man is hiding in the forest around the settlers’ stockade.

“Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?” asks the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter of her husband, Roger Chillingworth. Hawthorne’s novel, published in 1850, presents points of remarkable resemblance to Howard’s tale. Both stories are centered around a woman and her child (real or adopted), forced to live in a hostile environment, victims of the scorn of the men around them. The time frame and settings are remarkably similar, and Pearl, the young heroine of Hawthorne’s novel, is a child as strange and fey as Tina. In both stories, the child is frightened by a mysterious Black Man almost always offstage. There is too much similarity to consider this a simple matter of coincidence. Hawthorne was not represented in Howard’s library, and he is never mentioned by Howard in any of the surviving papers. That he had read Hawthorne, perhaps as part of his schooling, seems more than probable, though: The Scarlet Letter seems to have furnished a lot of background for The Black Stranger, even though the events themselves have nothing in common.

All this invites a different reading of the tale, in which Tina may be seen as a fatherless child, particularly sensitive to the presence of the Black Man. Readers familiar with Howard’s biography will be even more startled, for in Hawthorne’s novel Pearl’s mother is named Hester, and the father she does not know, counterpart to Tina’s Black Man, is the blue-eyed physician Roger Chillingworth. Howard’s mother’s name was Hester, and she was married to a blue-eyed physician.

The Black Stranger apparently failed to sell to Weird Tales, though no record for this survives. Wright was perhaps irritated by Howard’s experimental forays, and, probably around February or March 1935, for the first time in many months rejected a Conan tale. Howard decided to salvage what he could, and rewrote the story. He invented a new character – Terence Vulmea, an Irish pirate – to replace Conan, got rid of all the Hyborian references, and submitted the new story, rechristened Swords of the Red Brotherhood, to his agent Otis Adelbert Kline in late May 1935. The new version was circulated for several years, and was sold in 1938, but the magazine which was to publish it folded, so this version didn’t see print until 1976.

The next Conan tale would be anything but experimental. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula was apparently written around March 1935, judging from the stories found on the back of the draft pages. It is a routine Conan story, similar in quality to those Howard had been forced to write when he was in dire need of money. Surrounded by such masterpieces as Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger and the future Red Nails, it more than pales in comparison. It seems that Howard borrowed the settings from the various Middle Eastern adventures he was writing at the same time (featuring his characters Kirby O’Donnell and Francis Xavier Gordon), while borrowing some of the premises of an unsold detective story, Guests of the Hoodoo Room, which very likely preceded the Conan story by a few months. Guests also featured cannibals capturing poor wretches by way of a rigged hotel room. The plot is rather unconvincing, but Howard probably knew this wouldn’t prevent Wright from accepting the story. The scene in which Zabibi/Nafertari dances naked amid the snakes seems to have been written with only one goal to mind: to win the cover spot. Brundage’s cover illustration for that story is indeed a remarkable one. That it does not feature the Cimmerian was something Howard was growing accustomed to: of the nine Weird Tales covers illustrating a Conan story, the Cimmerian himself was portrayed in only three.

On December 22, 1934, Howard presented Novalyne Price with a most surprising Christmas present: expecting a history book, she was presented instead with a copy of The Complete Works of Pierre Louÿs:

“A history?” I asked bewildered.

He shifted his weight in his chair and grinned. “Well, . . . Yeah. It’s a kind of history.”

[...]

Then Bob said the book described very vividly our “rotting civilization.”

[...]

After Bob left, I sat down, unwrapped the book, and began to look at it very carefully. I read the inscription again, trying to make sense out of it : “The French have one gift – the ability to guild decay and change the maggots of corruption to the humming birds of poetry – as demonstrated by this volume.”

Some time later, Novalyne was questioning Howard about this very peculiar present:

“Bob, why did you give me that book by Pierre Louÿs?”

He whirled and looked at me. “Didn’t you like it?”

“It was a little too strong for my blood,” I said defensively. “I didn’t read too much of it.”

“Read it. . . . You lead a sheltered life. You don’t know what’s going on in the world.”

That irritated me. “I don’t care to know things like that,” I said hotly. “It seems to me knowing about them doesn’t make the world a better place; it only makes you a silent partner.”

“You’re a silent partner, whether you like it or not.” He was getting warmed up now. “You see, girl, when a civilization begins to decay and die, the only thing men or women think about is the gratification of their body’s desires. They become preoccupied with sex. It colors their thinking, their laws, their religion – every aspect of their lives.

[...]

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you girl. Men quit reading fiction, because they only want true stories of men’s sexual exploits. . . . A few years ago, I had a hard time selling yarns . . . about sex. Now, I’m going to have to work to catch up with the market. . . . Damn it to hell, girl, sex will be in everything you see and hear. It’s the way it was when Rome fell.”

[...]

“Girl, I’m working on a yarn like that now – a Conan yarn. Listen to me. When you have a dying civilization, the normal, accepted life style ain’t strong enough to satisfy the damned insatiable appetites of the courtesans and, finally, of all the people. They turn to Lesbianism and things like that to satisfy their desires. . . . I am going to call it “The Red Flame of Passion.”

The Red Flame of Passion was quite evidently the story that was to become Red Nails, but Howard wasn’t yet ready to commit his idea to paper. A few months later, around late April or May 1935, Howard had another conversation on the subject with Novalyne:

Bob volunteered that he wasn’t through writing Conan stories. I was sorry about that, for I don’t care much for Conan, what little I’ve scanned through.

Bob said he had an idea for a Conan yarn that was about to jell. Hadn’t got to the place where he was ready to write it. All he’d done so far was make a few notes, put it aside to let it lie there in his subconsciousness till it was fully built up.

“What’s this one about?” I asked.

“I think this time I’m going to make it one of the sexiest, goriest yarns I’ve ever written. I don’t think you’d care for it.”

“Not if it’s gory.” I looked at him a little puzzled. “What do you mean ‘sexy stories’?”

“My God. My Conan yarns are filled with sex.”

[…]

I couldn’t see that the Conan yarns Bob had brought me to read had any sex in them. Gore, yes. Sex, no.

“You have sex in the Conan yarns?” I said unbelievingly.

“Hell, yes. That’s what he did – drinking, whoring, fighting. What else was there in life?”

Red Nails was still not to be written for another few weeks, though.

One reason was Weird Tales’ shaky financial situation. On May 6, 1935, Howard wrote to Farnsworth Wright: “I always hate to write a letter like this, but dire necessity forces me to. It is, in short, an urgent plea for money.… As you know it has been six months since The People of the Black Circle (the story the check for which is now due me) appeared in Weird Tales. Weird Tales owes me over eight hundred dollars for stories already published and supposed to be paid for on publication – enough to pay all my debts and get me back on my feet again if I could receive it all at once. Perhaps this is impossible. I have no wish to be unreasonable; I know times are hard for everybody. But I don’t believe I am being unreasonable in asking you to pay me a check each month until the accounts are squared. Honestly, at the rate we’re going now, I’ll be an old man before I get paid up! And my need for money now is urgent.” Howard’s need for money was real, as his mother’s health was declining at an alarming rate and the medical expenses to care for her were soaring.

It took yet another serious incident in Howard’s life to make the story jell: early in the summer, Novalyne Price began dating one of Howard’s best friends, Truett Vinson, without telling him. Howard discovered this a few weeks later, just as he and Truett were about to take a trip together to New Mexico. Vinson and Howard were gone a week, and we can only imagine Howard’s state of mind during those few days.

The high-point of the visit was Lincoln, home of the famous “Bloody Lincoln County War.” It was during this visit that Howard found the last elements he needed to write Red Nails: for all their pseudo-Aztec names, Xuchotl and its inhabitants found their origin not in Lake Zuad, but in the little New Mexican town. The following passage from Howard’s July 23,1935, letter to Lovecraft is a lengthy one, but it is indispensable to understanding what Howard was trying to do in Red Nails.

[Vinson and I] came to the ancient village of Lincoln, dreaming amidst its gaunt mountains like the ghost of a blood-stained past. Of Lincoln Walter Noble Burns, author of The Saga of Billy the Kid has said: “The village went to sleep at the close of Lincoln County war and has never awakened again. If a railroad never comes to link it with the far-away world, it may slumber on for a thousand years. You will find Lincoln now just as it was when Murphy and McSween and Billy the Kid knew it. The village is an anachronism, a sort of mummy town. . . .”

I can offer no better description. A mummy town. Nowhere have I ever come face to face with the past more vividly; nowhere has that past become so realistic, so understandable. It was like stepping out of my own age, into the fragment of an elder age, that has somehow survived…. Lincoln is a haunted place; it is a dead town; yet it lives with a life that died fifty years ago…. The descendants of old enemies live peacefully side by side in the little village; yet I found myself wondering if the old feud were really dead, or if the embers only smoldered, and might be blown to flame by a careless breath.

[...]

I have never felt anywhere the exact sensations Lincoln aroused in me – a sort of horror predominating. If there is a haunted spot on this hemisphere, then Lincoln is haunted. I felt that if I slept the night there, the ghosts of the slain would stalk through my dreams. The town itself seemed like a bleached, grinning skull. There was a feel of skeletons in the earth underfoot. And that, I understand, is no flight of fancy. Every now and then somebody ploughs up a human skull. So many men died in Lincoln.

[...]

Lincoln is a haunted town – yet it is not merely the fact of knowing so many men died there that makes it haunted, to me. I have visited many spots where death was dealt whole-sale. . . . But none of these places ever affected me just as Lincoln did. My conception of them was not tinged with a definite horror as in Lincoln. I think I know why. Burns, in his splendid book that narrates the feud, missed one dominant element entirely; and this is the geographical, or perhaps I should say topographical effect on the inhabitants. I think geography is the reason for the unusually savage and bloodthirsty manner in which the feud was fought out, a savagery that has impressed everyone who has ever made an intelligent study of the feud and the psychology behind it. The valley in which Lincoln lies is isolated from the rest of the world. Vast expanses of desert and mountains separate it from the rest of humanity – deserts too barren to support human life. The people in Lincoln lost touch with the world. Isolated as they were, their own affairs, their relationship with one another, took on an importance and significance out of proportion to their actual meaning. Thrown together too much, jealousies and resentments rankled and grew, feeding upon themselves, until they reached monstrous proportions and culminated in those bloody atrocities which startled even the tough West of that day. Visualize that narrow valley, hidden away among the barren hills, isolated from the world, where its inhabitants inescapably dwelt side by side, hated and being hated, and at last killing and being killed. In such restricted, isolated spots, human passions smolder and burn, feeding on the impulses which give them birth, until they reached a point that can hardly be conceived by dwellers in more fortunate spots. It was with a horror I frankly confess that I visualized the reign of terror that stalked that blood-drenched valley; day and night was a tense waiting, waiting until the thunder of the sudden guns broke the tension for a moment and men died like flies – and then silence followed, and the tension shut down again. No man who valued his life dared speak; when a shot rang out at night and a human being cried out in agony, no one dared open the door and see who had fallen. I visualized people caught together like rats, fighting in terror and agony and bloodshed; going about their work by day with a shut mouth and an averted eye, momentarily expecting a bullet in the back; and at night lying shuddering behind locked doors, trembling in expectation of the stealthy footstep, the hand on the bolt, the sudden blast of lead through the windows. Feuds in Texas were generally fought out in the open, over wide expanses of country. But the nature of the Bonito Valley determined the nature of the feud – narrow, concentrated, horrible. I have heard of people going mad in isolated places; I believe the Lincoln County War was tinged with madness.

Upon returning to Cross Plains, in late June 1935, Howard at last sat down to write the story which had been germinating in his mind for so many months. If the Bloody Lincoln County War, his handling of sex in the Conan stories, the particularly strained situation between Novalyne, Vinson and himself, and his mother’s rapidly deteriorating health furnished the immediate background to the new Conan story, several prototypes also helped give form to the tale.

More than two years earlier, he had completed the Conan story Xuthal of the Dusk, which has justly been considered a precursor of sorts to Red Nails. The arrival of Conan and a woman in a city cut off from the rest of the Hyborian world, in which they have to face an evil woman and decadent inhabitants, is the basic framework common to both stories. Xuthal of the Dusk is a rather inferior Conan tale, probably because Howard was not yet an accomplished enough writer to give it the treatment he felt it deserved. The heroine was insipid and the story was clearly exploitative. However, Howard commented to Clark Ashton Smith that “it really isn’t as exclusively devoted to sword-slashing as the announcement might seem to imply.”

Among Howard’s papers was also found a synopsis for a Steve Harrison detective story that bears strong similarities to the Conan tale. The synopsis is undated, but was probably written only a few months before the Conan story: “[T]here had been an old feud between the Wiltshaws and the Richardsons, of which the present sets were the last of each line. Another family, the Barwells, had been mixed up in the feud until, harried by both Richardsons and Wiltshaws, the last of that line, a grim, gaunt woman, had gone away with her infant son, thirty-five years before, swearing vengeance on both clans. . . . Eventually [Harrison] discovered that Doctor Ellis was really Joe Barwell, who had returned and lived in the town ten years to consummate his vengeance. . . .”

Howard had no problem amalgamating the two Barwells of the Harrison synopsis into Tolkemec. Another character in the Harrison synopsis, Esau, “a tall, gangling man of great awkward strength . . . a neurotic, really strong as a bull,” was a probable inspiration for Olmec, “a giant, with an enormous sweep of breast and the shoulders of a bull,” with the Biblical association of Esau’s name reinforcing the connection to the hairy Olmec.

Red Nails is the counterpart to Beyond the Black River. With the latter, Howard wrote his ultimate “Barbarism versus Civilization” tale, with the conclusion that “barbarism must always ultimately triumph.” He also stated that “Civilization is unnatural.” Red Nails was the story in which he would expand on that theme. In all the stories he had written on the subject, the decadent and decaying phase of his civilizations, kingdoms, countries, or cities was never allowed to be carried out in its entirety: once divided and thus weakened, the civilized people were systematically wiped out by hordes of barbarians waiting at the gates. In Beyond the Black River, the Picts played that part; in The Gods of Bal-Sagoth, a 1930 tale whose construction is quite similar to that of Red Nails, the “red people” carried out the destruction. Red Nails would be different in the sense that no tribe of barbarians would be lurking at the gates of Xuchotl. For the first time in Howard’s fiction, the civilizing process, with its decadent and decaying phases, is carried out to its inevitable end. Xuchotl is an “unnatural” city, in the sense implied in Beyond the Black River. To be civilized is to be entirely removed from nature and its forces. This is the reason why the city is not only cut off from the rest of the Hyborian world and its barbarian tribes, it is also, and equally importantly, cut off from nature itself: Xuchotl is completely paved, walled and roofed; the light is artificial and so is the food: the Xutchotlans eat “fruit which is not planted in soil, but obtains its nourishment out of the air.” As to the Xutchotlans themselves, all – save Tascela – were born in the city. Xuchotl is the epitome of a decayed civilization as Howard conceived it. It is the place where, as he had it, “the abnormal becomes normal.” Given these premises, the outcome of the story is not a surprise. As had been the case with Beyond the Black River, Howard had a message to deliver and he was ready to follow his assigned course right to the end.

Red Nails is so rich a story that we can’t hope to explore it in detail within the scope of this essay; a lot could be said about the relationship between Conan and Valeria, for instance, in which it is quite tempting to see a parallel with that of Howard and Novalyne Price, who had quite a temper; Valeria of the Red Brotherhood is indeed a welcome change from some of Howard’s more passive female characters. (He had, however, portrayed strong and interesting women characters before Valeria, and his meeting with Novalyne, such as Bêlit [in Queen of the Black Coast] and Sonya of Rogatino [in the historical adventure The Shadow of the Vulture].) In Tascela, the female vampire who refuses to die, feeding on younger women, fighting for the attentions of Conan, and thus jealous of Valeria, it is more than tempting to see a fictional representation of Howard’s mother, who always was hostile toward Novalyne Price. Olmec could then be seen as Howard’s father, and the whole story an allegorical tale, in which Howard and Novalyne set foot in the decayed universe that has become the Howard house….

Howard sent Red Nails to Farnsworth Wright on July 22, 1935. The next day he wrote Clark Ashton Smith: “Sent a three-part serial to Wright yesterday: ‘Red Nails,’ which I devoutly hope he’ll like. A Conan yarn, and the grimmest, bloodiest and most merciless story of the series so far. Too much raw meat, maybe, but I merely portrayed what I honestly believe would be the reactions of certain types of people in the situations on which the plot of the story hung.” To Lovecraft, he later commented: “The last yarn I sold to Weird Tales – and it well may be the last fantasy I’ll ever write – was a three-part Conan serial which was the bloodiest and most sexy weird story I ever wrote. I have been dissatisfied with my handling of decaying races in stories, for the reason that degeneracy is so prevalent in such races that even in fiction it can not be ignored as a motive and as a fact if the fiction is to have any claim to realism. I have ignored it in all other stories, as one of the taboos, but I did not ignore it in this story. When, or if, you ever read it, I’d like to know how you like my handling of the subject of lesbianism.” (One wonders if “lesbianism” was indeed the central theme of Red Nails to Howard. The story only touches on the subject because of the vampiric nature of Tascela, but this was nothing new after Le Fanu’s Carmilla.)

As Howard mentions, the story was accepted by Weird Tales, which began its serialization a few days after Howard’s suicide and ended it as news of his death was announced in the magazine. It was the last Conan story.

Howard’s interests – and output – in the last year of his life were increasingly western-oriented, and he didn’t write a fantasy story in that period. A few short weeks before his death, he wrote that he was contemplating writing a fantasy. Two drafts for that unfinished weird story – set in sixteenth-century America – were found among his papers after his death, proof that he had not entirely abandoned the idea of writing fantasy tales. Whether he would have eventually returned to Conan after some time is a question that must remain unanswered.

In 1935, Howard sent several stories to England via his agent Otis Adelbert Kline. The stories, sent to Weird Tales’ representative in the United Kingdom, included several Conan tales, which were sent on 25 September: Beyond the Black River, A Witch Shall Be Born, and The Servants of Bit-Yakin. It seems probable Howard had no real hopes for these, as he had tear-sheets of Weird Tales pages sent, not actual typescripts. Anyway, nothing ever came out of this.

Howard’s last work on Conan occurred in March 1936, when two fans, John D. Clark and P. Schuyler Miller, sent him a letter in which they attempted to establish the chronology of the Conan tales. Howard’s letter, reproduced in this volume, is essential to the reader interested in Conan’s “biography,” though Howard was perhaps having some fun with the two fans. For instance, he wrote that Conan “made his first journey beyond the boundaries of Cimmeria. This, strange to say, was north instead of south. Why or how, I am not certain, but he spent some months among a tribe of the Æsir, fighting with the Vanir and the Hyperboreans.” Clark and Miller couldn’t possibly know that Howard was referring here to The Frost-Giant’s Daughter, the second-written Conan tale, which had been rejected by Wright and was still unpublished in its original form. With his reply, Howard included a map, expanded from the very rough ones he had prepared in 1932; it was to be the last work he would do on Conan.

Robert E. Howard committed suicide on June 11, 1936. Conan the Cimmerian, however, is still with us. In spite of some difficult years, he has managed to survive, and shows no signs of weakness.

The barbarian’s longevity wouldn’t have surprised Howard.

The barbarian must always ultimately triumph.

NOTES ON THE CONAN TYPESCRIPTS AND THE CHRONOLOGY

By Patrice Louinet

LIST OF THE EXTANT CONAN TYPESCRIPTS (July 1934–July 1935)

The final drafts of the stories published in Weird Tales were probably destroyed after the story was typeset, and thus are no longer extant.

Regarding the terminology used: a draft is “incomplete” when we are missing at least one page; it is “unfinished” when Howard didn’t finish the draft. Sometimes Howard would write a draft and rewrite only a portion of it; such drafts are subdivided with numerals (i.e., draft b2 recycles pages from draft b1). All drafts have been examined for the preparation of this volume unless noted.

The Servants of Bit-Yakin

– draft a, untitled, 32 pgs. (numbered 1–5, 7–33 in error)

– draft b, 48 pgs.

– draft c, (final Weird Tales version), survives as carbon, 56 pgs.

Beyond the Black River

– draft a, untitled, 56 pgs.

– draft b, (final Weird Tales version), survives as untitled carbon, 69 pgs.

The Black Stranger

– synopsis a, untitled, single-spaced, 2 pgs.

– draft a, untitled, dwindling to a synopsis, 64 pgs.

– draft b1, incomplete, pgs. 47–81 of 81 pgs.

– draft b2, incomplete, pgs. 47–93 of 93 pgs., (numbered 47–59, 59–93) (pages 79–81 are perhaps missing; they were not located in time for this edition)

– draft c, final version, 98 pgs., (plus discarded pg. 35) (also survives as a carbon)

– in addition to his final draft, Howard wrote a two-page synopsis of the first part of this story, conceived as a serial; undoubtedly this would have appeared in Weird Tales—had the story been accepted—at the beginning of the second installment.

The Man-Eaters of Zamboula

– synopsis, 1 pg.

– draft a, dwindling to a synopsis, 24 pgs.

– draft b, 33 pgs.

– draft c, (final Weird Tales version), survives as carbon, 40 pgs. (page 32 is perhaps lost; it was not located in time for this edition)

Red Nails

– draft a, untitled and incomplete, pgs 1–52 of 53?, dwindling to a synopsis, (probably lacking the final page only)

– draft b, incomplete, pgs. 27–91 of 91, dwindling to a synopsis

– draft c1, partial, pgs. 97–100, (draft for last few pgs. of c2)

– draft c2, (final Weird Tales version), survives as incomplete carbon, pgs. 17–102 of 102 (pages 44–45, 47–51, 53, 56–77 are perhaps lost; they were not located in time for this edition)

Untitled Notes (The Westermarck . . .)

– single-spaced page

Wolves Beyond the Border

– draft a, unfinished and dwindling to a synopsis, 15 pgs.

– draft b, unfinished, 25 pgs.

NOTES ON THE ORIGINAL HOWARD TEXTS

The texts for this edition of The Conquering Sword of Conan were prepared by Patrice Louinet, Rusty Burke, and Dave Gentzel, with assistance from Glenn Lord. The stories have been checked either against Howard’s original typescripts, copies of which were furnished by Glenn Lord and the Cross Plains Public Library, or the first published appearance if a typescript was unavailable. Drafts of Howard’s stories, when extant, have also been checked to ensure the greatest accuracy. Every effort has been made to present the work of Robert E. Howard as faithfully as possible. Deviations from the original sources are detailed in these textual notes. In the following, page, line, and word numbers are given as follows: 57.2.9, indicating page 57, second line, ninth word. Story titles, chapter numbers and titles, and breaks before and after chapter headings, titles, and illustrations are not counted. The page/line number will be followed by the reading in the original source, or a statement indicating the type of change made.

The Servants of Bit-Yakin

Text taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by Glenn Lord. (Page 53 of the carbon was in such bad shape that it had to be retyped by Glenn Lord, respecting Howard’s layout and eventual mistakes.)

The carbon has no title for the first chapter; it was either added by Howard directly on the typescript or added by the Weird Tales editor. 4.6.17: reach; 4.10.4: crossed-legged; 4.17.2: invistigation; 4.25.13: ampiteater; 4.30.3: exaled; 6.2.8: sacret; 6.28.9: indiscretly; 6.33.8: “stood” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 6.35.8: “with within” in original; 8.9.3: lapus-lazuli; 8.17.8: “be” absent from original; 8.33.9: freizes; 9.3.2: preversed; 9.3.8: effected; 9.40.5: established; 10.12.8: Pains-takingingly (hyphenated); 10.28.9: period after “characters”; 10.36.10: this page of the carbon is damaged and the following words or phrases up to and including 10.39.5 are taken from Weird Tales text: 10.36.10: “script”; 10.37.2: “familiar,”; 10.37.9: “been modified”; 10.38.1: “nomad”; 10.38.6: “baffled him. He”; 10.38.13: “recurrent”; 10.39.5: “as a proper name. Bit-Yakin. He gathered”; 11.2.4: mauscript; 11.32.11: posssessed; 14.7.15: carefull; 14.32.9: the last three letters of “immemorial” are unreadable on the carbon; 16.6.10: contemptously; 16.14.11: “forget” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 16.33.6: space before “watching”; 17.5.15: caves; 17.21.17: of; 17.23.2: no period and quotation mark after “immediately” (typed to right edge of paper); 17.24.9: Zembawans; 18.10.5: explict; 18.35.12: “if” absent from original; 18.38.1: squaked; 18.39.6: freizes; 19.17.13: Conan’s; 19.36.2: tense; 20.4.6: straining; 20.11.2: holloweed; 21.6.3: “not” absent from original; 21.7.5: Obvious; 22.38.1: Gawlur; 23.23.11: “cry” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 24.32.11: “not” repeated; 25.2.4: “this” repeated (This this); 25.22.14: “the” absent from original; 27.1.9: instantly; 27.9.1: through; 28.14.7: difficukty; 29.3.14: where; 29.11.2: the that; 30.2.10: phosphorous; 31.3.8: prophesy; 31.6.11: descrated; 31.37.9: yards; 32.3.7: “a” absent from original; 32.9.11: escounced; 32.14.10: phosphorous; 32.25.15: the first three letters of “cavern” are unreadable on the carbon; 32.29.2: set; 34.20.16: the; 34.21.5: chainting; 34.38.15: phosphorous; 35.2.5: is; 36.1.8: grassped; 36.24.3: “glow” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 39.15.10: hyphen instead of comma after “grey”; 40.3.5: blood; 40.14.5: down downward; 40.14.13: nervelss; 41.9.4: jems; 41.16.11: the line: “like you. There’s no use going back to Keshia. There’s nothing in Keshan” didn’t register on the carbon. The text is taken from the Weird Tales text.

Beyond the Black River

Text taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by Glenn Lord. (Pages 1 and 65 of the carbon were in such bad shape that they had to be retyped by Glenn Lord, respecting Howard’s layout and eventual mistakes.) The chapters are untitled in the carbon, except for the first one. A blank line in the ts. below each new chapter suggests Howard intended to add titles; these may have been present on the ts. sent to Weird Tales. It is also possible that these were added by the Weird Tales editor. 45.7.6: “a” before “soft” in original; 45.13.9: cabin; 46.37.14: “been” absent from original; 48.7.1: “and” absent from original; 50.10.13: quotation mark before “Conan”; 52.14.4: the words “straying” and “strayed” appear on the carbon, one typed over the other, though it is not clear which was Howard’s final choice; 52.21.1: accomodate; 52.25.12: “of” absent from original; 52.35.8: blunder; 56.22.6: pythong; 56.39.14: no space between “know” and em-dash; 59.13.2: breek; 59.14.1: sword; 60.40.13: touched; 64.10.3: coifures; 65.22.1: “four of” in original; 65.31.12: accomodated; 65.37.2: of; 67.15.13: shoudders; 67.17.9: that; 67.26.1: beast; 67.40.9: thew; 68.20.2: futiley; 68.29.13: “in” unreadable due to a crease on the carbon; 68.39.7: ancient; 74.17.2: avoiding; 74.22.13: cubs; 74.25.6: “and” absent from original; 76.5.6: carnivora; 76.21.3ff: “looking for us” unreadable due to a crease on the carbon and taken from Weird Tales text; 76.23.12: “to” absent from original; 76.33.13: doesn’ (typed to right edge of paper); 77.26.7: villave; 78.15.9: “with” after “trade” in original; 79.8.12: laying; 79.20.4: “the” absent from original; 80.13.7: “a” absent from original; 83.14.12: “yards” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 84.4.3: furious; 84.7.6: no comma after “Cimmerian”; 84.31.6: accrosst; 84.36.12: broast; 86.1.4: glancing; 88.7.13: “and” unreadable due to a crease on the carbon; 88.29.13: hideous; 88.29.14: slashdd; 88.38.12: “was” instead of “no”; 88.40.14: growl; 91.28.10: pleasur (typed to right edge of paper); 93.1.6: “shoulders” absent from original and taken from Weird Tales text; 93.28.12: “blood” instead of “wound” in original; 93.34.2: boths; 96.7.7: slepp; 96.11.10: comma after “blazed”; 98.2.16: settlers’; 100.1.1ff: the carbon is torn here and the first two words (“No; Conajohara) are unreadable; text taken from Weird Tales text.

The Black Stranger

Text taken from Howard’s typescript, in the holdings of the Cross Plains Public Library. The original has a number of annotations in pencil, some of which are from Howard’s hand. We have ignored these since they correspond to the changes Howard introduced when he rewrote the story as a Terence Vulmea tale: as was customary, Howard’s corrections for the Conan version of the typescript were typed rather than penciled. Interested readers are invited to consult the facsimile edition of “The Black Stranger,” published in 2002 by Wandering Star. 104.19.13: statue; 106.23.7: agily; 107.27.7: nitched; 109.6.1: repellant; 109.14.12: cerulian; 112.22.10: neice; 112.23.1: protege; 116.3.5: Storm’s; 120.15.8: roasing; 120.22.11: silene; 120.36.12: It’s; 121.6.8: neice; 122.27.3: fixidly; 122.38.10: no period after “intentions”; 125.33.11: “in” absent from original; 126.17.4: neice; 126.35.15: curtisied; 128.12.3: comma after “Curse”; 128.26.12: “a” repeated; 129.10.11: neice; 133.21.14: randy; 133.22.1: “the” absent from original; 136.32.2: “the” repeated (the The Red Hand); 136.34.12: adaptibility; 138.11.8: surveilance; 140.35.3: every; 140.35.5: eaves dropping; 143.27.8: appeares; 145.11.14: no quotation mark after “years!” in original; 146.26.2: “is” absent from original; 147.6.7: neice; 147.10.16: “w ill” (extra space); 147.35.5: “of” absent from original; 148.22.6: rogue’s; 148.26.10: potents; 149.18.15: venmous; 149.24.5: “on” absent from original; 149.39.1: seem; 150.11.13: crew; 152.1.2: paroxism; 153.23.10: “it” absent from original; 153.40.4: dirction; 154.26.13: quotation mark before “he” rather than after “Eagle-Picts,”; 156.7.11: “the” absent from original; 156.40.13: nitched; 158.38.1: jamb; 159.19.5: “for” absent from original; 160.40.7: clapsed; 161.35.8: “cloak-wrapped” not hyphenated (“cloak wrapped”); 162.9.6: resplendant; 163.1.9: no comma after “strand”; 164.40.1: question mark rather than period after “help”; 165.34.5: when; 168.35.6: And; 170.10.1: no comma after “glare”; 171.3.8: headlong; 172.15.11: irrelevency; 172.21.5: consumated; 172.32.6: no space between the quotation mark and “she.”

The Man-Eaters of Zamboula

Text taken from Howard’s carbon, provided by Glenn Lord. (Page 32 of the carbon is supposedly extant but was not located in time for the preparation of this volume; the text for this page [from 200.35.14: when, to 201.19.3: another] was taken from the Weird Tales appearance). 177.9.2: flambouyant; 179.17.7: heterogenous; 179.38.3: carving; 180.2.14: wounded; 180.5.7: by; 180.28.8: “a” absent from original; 180.28.14: no comma after “suk”; 180.36.6: no quotation mark after “thieves” (typed to right edge of paper); 183.20.14: “there” repeated; 184.4.3: “a” absent from original; 184.17.5: visullized; 184.35.11: a; 185.19.3: “the” absent from original; 185.29.6: “eastern-most” hyphenated at line break; 185.36.5: unsatieted; 185.40.5: no period after “escaped” (typed to right edge of paper); 186.32.12: no period after “streets” (typed to right edge of paper); 186.33.2: “me” absent from original; 189.8.2: black; 189.8.4: no comma after “past”; 189.8.8: scruffing; 189.11.4: “the” inserted in original (“the Aram’s death-house”); 189.20.6: unforseen; 189.39.2: quotation mark before “she” rather than after em-dash; 190.1.11: no quotation mark after “name” (typed to right edge of paper); 191.5.5: comma rather than period after “him”; 192.19.10: “A” absent from original (probably didn’t register on the carbon); 193.23.12: she; 194.5.10: one; 194.17.9: “help” absent from original; 195.3.6: “under” repeated; 195.10.14: of; 195.13.2: “the” absent from original; 195.36.2: filiaments; 195.40.11: no comma after “tugging” (typed to right edge of paper); 196.17.13: “a” absent from original; 196.27.10: “and” absent from original; 196.29.8: deafeningl (typed to right edge of paper); 198.10.4: breasts; 198.20.13: no period after “corridor” (typed to right edge of paper); 199.15.4: discernable; 200.14.12: no period after “dissemble” (typed to right edge of paper); 201.24.11: monster; 201.30.5: rythm; 201.32.8: tarrantella; 203.1.13: “mad-dog” in original; 203.21.9: plotte (typed to right edge of paper); 203.35.14: quarte (typed to right edge of paper); 207.5.12: grasping; 207.29.5: saw.

Red Nails

Text taken from Weird Tales, July, August–September, and October 1936 (three-part serial). The incomplete surviving carbon has been consulted for the preparation of this edition: variations within the printed text are minimal, mostly corrections of typographical errors. 224.21.1: Sailor’s; 227.17.9: period rather than comma after “girl”; 228.34.1: “plowshare” hyphenated at line break; 231.17.1: “love-making” hyphenated at line break; 234.18.5: has; 235.1.7: Science (Howard’s carbon has “Silence”; cf. 239.7.11); 238.5.3: Xotalancs; 239.23.4: “sword-thrust” hyphenated at line break; 243.34.3: Xotalancs; 248.2.1: “battle-ground” hyphenated at line break; 250.3.5: restorted; 254.13.6: “nearby” hyphenated at line break; 258.38.11: “sword-play” hyphenated at line break; 259.13.7: “throne-room” hyphenated at line break; 260.39.13: “witch-light” hyphenated at line break; 267.24.15: “wrestling-match” hyphenated at line break; 273.17.8: Techultli.

Untitled Notes