There are many characters in our society we are familiar with whether from books and comic books or television and movies. One of the characters we know from a variety of media is Conan the Barbarian but little is known about how he came into being.  Conan is a character from the sword and sorcery genre created by a writer from Texas named Robert E. Howard in 1932. Howard’s Conan stories began as a series of articles submitted to the fantasy magazine Weird Tales. Howard’s influences ranged from the Greek writer Plutarch to the mythology works of Thomas Bulfinch.  Howard wrote many more Conan stories over the next 4 year completing 21 stories.

Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936 after a combination of depression and the unrecoverable coma his mother entered (she died the day after Howard committed suicide).  In the years after Howard’s death the Conan copyright changed hands several times and eventually wound up in the hands of L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter. They revised the Howard stories and sometimes rewrote them.

Conan books have been written and published by various different authors over the last 50 years, many of them trying to imitate the style of Robert E. Howard. The original Conan stories written by Howard were allowed to go out of print and were unavailable in their original form. In 2003 the original Howard stories were collected and printed by British Publisher Wandering Star and were republished in the U.S. by Ballantine. These volumes included Howard’s original stories but expanded on them by offering his notes and letters on the setting and for the world of Conan which provided a more complete look at the history of Howard’s ideas and the genesis of the character. Regardless of the history of the character the books, comic books, and the movies of the 80s have kept the Conan character alive and well in the imagination of society since he was first put into print in the 1930s by Robert E. Howard.

History Store History DVDs Replica Guns Replica Swords Scale Model Kits

History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.

Tags: 1932, 1936, American fiction, Ballantine publishing, Conan, Conan the Barbarian, History DVDs, History Store, L. Sprague De Camp, Lin Carter, Plutarch, pulp fiction, replica guns, Replica Swords, Robert E. Howard, scale model kits, sword and sorcery genre, Thomas Bulfinch, Wandering Star, Weird Tales magazine