Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas, United States, on January 22, 1906 and died in Cross Plains, Texas, United States, on June 11, 1936. He was a prolific North American writer who worked primarily as a short story writer and poet. In his professional life, Howard flirted with different genres, mainly those linked to fantasy and fiction. A constant contributor to pulp fiction magazines, very popular in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the writer is currently best known for the authorship of the character Conan the Barbarian, and for many he is also considered, historically, as the “father” of the subgenre of sword & sorcery, supposedly a subgenre of fantasy.

He began writing at the age of 9, but only at the age of 15 did he begin to write professionally, and only in 1924, when he was attending the Howard Payne Academy in Brownwood, did he have a story published, the short story Spear and Fang (Spear and Fang) appeared in the July edition of 1925 from Weird Tales magazine. Many of his stories were published in Weird Tales, such as “The Hyena” and “The Lost Race”, and had its first cover in 1926. Its inspiration is due to the horror stories that He heard it from his grandmother and his old aunt Mary Bohanoon, and as a child he always dreamed of being a barbarian fighting Rome, thus becoming a rebel against the civilized world.

He wrote stories of many styles but his most famous creations are those in the sword and sorcery genre – a fantasy genre characterized by its emphasis on violent combat and supernatural interventions (gods, monsters, wizards, etc.). Howard created one of the most popular fantasy characters of all time; the barbarian Conan, who made his debut in the story The Phoenix on the Sword in December 1932. To host his creation Howard invented the Hyborian Age, which is the Earth itself but in a pre-cataclysmic past of which current history has no memories . Other celebrated characters include King Kull, the Puritan adventurer Salomon Kane, and the Pictish king Bran Mak Morn. He also created the warriors Dark Agnes de la Fere and Red Sonya de Rogatino, the latter of which served as the basis for Roy Thomas to create the character Red Sonja for the Conan comics published by Marvel Comics. With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre that would come to be known as “Sword and Sorcery” between the 1920s and 1930s. His work gave rise to a series of imitators, making Howard one of the great influencers in the fantasy genre, rivaled only by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Another field in which Howard was successful was supernatural horror, in which he borrowed many ideas from his correspondent and friend H. P. Lovecraft, while always adding his own trademarks of fast action and flashy characters.