Robert E. Howard: Regional Writer

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this article. I have included the first 3 paragraphs below:

Robert E. Howard: Literary Artist or Pulp Hack?
There’s more to the creator of Conan the Barbarian than can be contained by sword-and-sorcery, by Michael Washburn


Robert E. Howard’s career comprised much more than the characters for which he’s best remembered.

People today tend to remember short story writer Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) as the inventor of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, and other fixtures of the sword-and-sorcery genre. Howard’s pop cultural cachet rests largely on the Conan films and a 1996 biopic, The Whole Wide World, starring Vincent D’Onofrio as Howard and Renee Zellweger as Novalyne Price, the teacher in Cross Plains, Texas, who dated Howard and wrote a memoir about her experiences.

But a large, if neglected, part of Howard’s oeuvre includes tales of crime, suspense, and horror set in the region of West Texas where Howard, the descendant of westward-pushing pioneers, lived his short but busy life. Though overshadowed by the Conan stories, many of the regional suspense and horror tales show astonishing talent.

Despite his gifts as a writer, critical recognition of Howard is next to nil. While most of his tales are available in Del Rey paperbacks, Howard’s inclusion in the prestigious Library of America series, and his wide academic recognition, have proved elusive.

Here's the link if you wanna read more? 
bookandfilmglobe.com/creators/robert-e-howard-literary-artist-or-pulp-hack/

[Von K]

Jan 30, 2019 12:16:41 GMT -5 @hunnu said:

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this article. I have included the first 3 paragraphs below:

Robert E. Howard: Literary Artist or Pulp Hack?
There’s more to the creator of Conan the Barbarian than can be contained by sword-and-sorcery, by Michael Washburn

Robert E. Howard’s career comprised much more than the characters for which he’s best remembered.

People today tend to remember short story writer Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) as the inventor of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, and other fixtures of the sword-and-sorcery genre. Howard’s pop cultural cachet rests largely on the Conan films and a 1996 biopic, The Whole Wide World, starring Vincent D’Onofrio as Howard and Renee Zellweger as Novalyne Price, the teacher in Cross Plains, Texas, who dated Howard and wrote a memoir about her experiences.

But a large, if neglected, part of Howard’s oeuvre includes tales of crime, suspense, and horror set in the region of West Texas where Howard, the descendant of westward-pushing pioneers, lived his short but busy life. Though overshadowed by the Conan stories, many of the regional suspense and horror tales show astonishing talent.

Despite his gifts as a writer, critical recognition of Howard is next to nil. While most of his tales are available in Del Rey paperbacks, Howard’s inclusion in the prestigious Library of America series, and his wide academic recognition, have proved elusive.

Here's the link if you wanna read more? 
bookandfilmglobe.com/creators/robert-e-howard-literary-artist-or-pulp-hack/

Superb essay and a recommended read. Thanks Hun.

[deuce]

Robert E. Howard was fascinated by the Lincoln County War, wherein Billy the Kid made a name for himself. He traveled to Lincoln County with his friend, Truett Vinson:



"[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."

[charleshelm]

Great stuff there Deuce...the man could just flat write...