Overview

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) is most widely known today as the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, more popularly referred to as Conan the Barbarian. However, he also wrote across a wide array of genres for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, including westerns, sports stories (boxing), adventures, supernatural horror, and even humor. Howard also created many other popular characters such as King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Steve Costigan, and Breckenridge Elkins. More importantly, he created two specific subgenres of fiction: sword and sorcery (sometimes referred to as heroic fantasy) and weird westerns. Born and raised in Texas, Robert E. Howard began his writing career after his family settled in the small Central Texas town of Cross Plains. His first professional sale came from the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1925, and over the next eleven years he wrote hundreds of stories and an equal number of poems. With this prolific body of stories, he was among the most lauded pulp authors of that era. It has been said, and rightly so, that the secret to his success was that there was a bit of Howard in every one of his characters, and because Howard was a Texan, even Conan shows elements of the Texan in his persona. Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author details the many trials and tribulations he faced as he became—and remained—a full-time writer while dealing with an aging father and caring for a mother who was dying of tuberculosis. The book both chronicles his personal life and demonstrates how the one driving force in Robert E. Howard’s life—forming the foundation for all of his characters and stories—was his personal pursuit of freedom. He lived for his freedom, he wrote as a means to attain that freedom, and, while it may sound strange, he also died tragically by his own hand in that very same pursuit at the young age of 30.

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9781574419634

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Reviews

""Robert E. Howard is worth reading whether you are a fan of Howard's writing, wish to learn of the realities of the pulp fiction industry, or are interested in exploring life in 1920s Texas. Magnificently researched and engagingly written, it will capture readers.""--Ricochet ""Oliver's biography is not a middle ground between Dark Valley Destiny and Blood and Thunder but instead cuts a new channel--scholarly biography, as exhaustively researched as Dark Valley Destiny and as fair as Finn's reappraisal. . . . I believe Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author will join the front ranks of Howard scholarship; I can't see another Howard biography surpassing this one for research, even-handedness, and thorough attention to detail. Time will tell.""--Brian Murphy, The Silver Key ""Robert E. Howard will be the go-to resource for the next wave of serious Howard scholarship for the foreseeable future. This is an academic biography of Howard that is readable and approachable for a variety of audiences. Oliver makes incredible use of primary sources; first-rate detective work.""--Jonas Prida, editor of Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian ""This will eclipse all the other biographies; it will be hailed as the best of these biographies, and one that will likely stand uncontested for a generation or more. Oliver's new approach to Howard's life and work can best be seen in the details Oliver provides that make Howard's story a family story, and indeed a communal story. We get to live the drama of the rise and growing popularity of the Conan character and get to viscerally feel the crushing economic burden Howard carried alongside the burden of his mother's failing health. And throughout the biography, the love and respect Oliver has for Howard is always evident.""--Patrick Burger, author of On the Precipice of Fascism: The Mythic and Political in the Work of Robert E. Howard and Ernst Jünger ""Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author by Willard M. Oliver offers a deeply researched and vivid account of the life of this legendary pulp writer. From his rich correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft to his complex relationship with Novalyne Price, this biography paints an intimate portrait of a man whose imagination shaped an entire literary genre. Exploring his struggles, triumphs, and creative genius, this book is an indispensable exploration of one of Texas's most fascinating literary figures.""--Ståle Gismervik, founder of the World of Robert E. Howard website

""Robert E. Howard will be the go-to resource for the next wave of serious Howard scholarship for the foreseeable future. This is an academic biography of Howard that is readable and approachable for a variety of audiences. Oliver makes incredible use of primary sources; first-rate detective work.""--Jonas Prida, editor of Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian ""This will eclipse all the other biographies; it will be hailed as the best of these biographies, and one that will likely stand uncontested for a generation or more. Oliver's new approach to Howard's life and work can best be seen in the details Oliver provides that make Howard's story a family story, and indeed a communal story. We get to live the drama of the rise and growing popularity of the Conan character and get to viscerally feel the crushing economic burden Howard carried alongside the burden of his mother's failing health. And throughout the biography, the love and respect Oliver has for Howard is always evident.""--Patrick Burger, author of On the Precipice of Fascism: The Mythic and Political in the Work of Robert E. Howard and Ernst Jünger ""Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author by Willard M. Oliver offers a deeply researched and vivid account of the life of this legendary pulp writer. From his rich correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft to his complex relationship with Novalyne Price, this biography paints an intimate portrait of a man whose imagination shaped an entire literary genre. Exploring his struggles, triumphs, and creative genius, this book is an indispensable exploration of one of Texas's most fascinating literary figures.""--Ståle Gismervik, founder of the World of Robert E. Howard website

Author Information

Williard M. Oliver is a professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas; is a retired major in the Military Police Corps, United States Army; and is an Operation Desert Storm veteran. He is the author/editor of thirty books including one previous biography, August Vollmer: The Father of American Policing. He lives with his family in Huntsville, Texas.

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