Part 39 (1/2)

Then she carried Valeria back to the throne-cha carried the bodies of the slain into the catcohost of Tolkemec She prepared to suck the blood from Valeria's heart to retain her own youth

Meanwhile Conan had released Olmec, ore to unite forces with hi stair, where he struck Conan from behind As they rolled down the stair Conan lost his sword, but strangled the prince with his bare hands

Conan's leg was broken, but he hobbled to the throne room where he stumbled into a trap set for him Then from the catacoic and while he was so [Draft stops here; the fifty-second and probably last page of the typescript is apparently lost]

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Ephemera 342

Letter to P Schuyler Miller Lock Box 313 Cross Plains, Texas March 10, 1936 Dear Mr Miller : I feel indeed honored that you and Dr Clark should be so interested in Conan as to work out an outline of his career and a ly accurate, considering the vagueness of the data you had to ith I have the originalabout Conan-- around here somewhere and I'll see if I can't find it and let you have a look at it It includes only the countries west of Vilayet and north of Kush

I've never atteh I have a fairly clear outline of their geography inabout them I feel a certain amount of license, since the inhabitants of the western Hyborian nations were about as ignorant concerning the peoples and countries of the south and east as the people ofabout the western Hyborian nations I feel confined within the limits of known and inflexible boundaries and territories, but in fictionizing the rest of the world, I feel able to giveadopted a certain conception of geography and ethnology, I feel compelled to abide by it, in the interests of consistency My conception of the east and south is not so definite or so arbitrary

Concerning Kush, however, it is one of the black kingdoiven its name to the whole southern coast Thus, when an Hyborian speaks of Kush, he is generally speaking of not the kingdodoeneral And he is likely to speak of any black man as a Kushi+te, whether he happens to be a Keshani, Darfari, Puntan, or Kushi+te proper This is natural, since the Kushi+tes were the first black men ho with and raiding them

As for Conan's eventual fate--frankly I can't predict it In writing these yarns I've always felt less as creating the his adventures as he told them to me

That's why they skip about so e adventurer, telling tales of a wild life at random, seldom follows any ordered plan, but narrates episodes widely separated by space and years, as they occur to him

Your outline follows his career as I have visualized it pretty closely The differences are minor

As you deduct, Conan was about seventeen when he was introduced to the public in ”The Tower of the Elephant” While not fully e civilized youth at that age He was born on a battlefield, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding 343

Vanir The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cih a purebred Cirandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled fro wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north He had taken part in many raids into the Hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in Conan, as a child, a desire to see the Conan's life of which I aot his first sight of civilized people It ht have made a peaceable visit to some frontier town before that At Vanariuh only fifteen He stood six feet and weighed 180 pounds, though he lacked rowth

There was the space of about a year between Vanariu this time he returned to the northern territories of his tribe, and made his first journey beyond the boundaries of Cie to say, was north instead of south

Why or how, I a a tribe of the aesir, fighting with the Vanir and the Hyperboreans, and developing a hate for the latter which lasted all his life and later affected his policies as king of Aquilonia Captured by them, he escaped southward and came into Zamora in time to make his debut in print

I aues in the House” occurred in Za factions of politics would seem to indicate otherwise, since Za political opinions were not tolerated I am of the opinion that the city was one of the s just west of Za Zamora Shortly after this he returned for a brief period to Cimmeria, and there were other returns to his native land froical order of his adventures is about as you have worked it out, except that they covered a little more time Conan was about forty when he seized the crown of Aquilonia, and was about forty- four or forty-five at the tion” He had no male heir at that time, because he had never bothered to formally make some wooodly nunized as heirs to the throne

He was, I think, king of Aquilonia for n, when the Hyborian civilization had reached itshad iht on the defensive, but I aression as a matter of self-preservation Whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide empire, or perished in the attempt, I do not know

He travelled widely, not only before his kingshi+p, but after he was king He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former

He even visited a na the islands adjacent to it How et into print, I can not foretell with any 344

accuracy I was s on the Ya about that Doubtless Conan had first-hand acquaintance with the people who evolved the culture described, or their ancestors, at least

Hope you find ”The Hyborian Age” interesting I'inal h at tiive him a sort of Latin cast of the countenance which isn't according to type, as I conceive it However, that isn't enough to kick about

Hope the enclosed data answers your questions satisfactorily; I'd be delighted to discuss any other phases you o into more details about any point of Conan's career or Hyborian history or geography you ain for your interest, and best wishes, for yourself and Dr Clark

Cordially, PS You didn't y returned, so I' them to show to some friends; if you want them back, please let e The following inally enclosed with Howard's letter of March 10, 1936, to P

Schuyler Miller It is, as Howard states, a copy of the original e, which the Texan had prepared in March 1932 (see The Co of Conan the Ci the different versions, Howard updated hisseveral cities and countries mentioned in the tales

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Appendices 348

HYBORIAN GENESIS PART III

Notes on the Creation of the Conan Stories by Patrice Louinet As he was co 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 hardshi+p, including two years early in his career during which he did not sell a single story, Howard had beco 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 thefactor, 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 co those ue E

Hoffmann Price in April Early in June, then, Howard took his first vacation in a long tiust 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 hoone for a week That the trip proved enjoyable is attested by mentions of it in al weeks, with the visit to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico as the high point of the short holidays Hoas particularly ith about them to his correspondents, notably H P

Lovecraft: I can not describe the fantastic wonders of that great cavern Youthe 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 atteantic, but it is dwarfed by the dily endlessly by winding ramps, for some seven hundred feet We entered at ten thirty o'clock, and ee is too weak to describe the 349

Cavern The pictures do not give a good idea; for one thing they exaggerate the colors; the coloring is really subdued, soive a proper idea of the size, of the intricate patterns carved in the lihout the millenniums In the Cavern natural laws seeone reat stone roof, s from the roof in every conceivable shape, in shafts, in domes, in translucent sheets, like tapestries of ice Water dripped, building gigantic colureen and weird here and thereWe iants whose i 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 particularlyplot and insipid heroine, but it has a settingplace 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 seeht underworld, seven hundred and fifty feet below the earth If so the dimness of the columns and spread his taloned anthropo, I do not believe that anyone would have been particularly surprized” Howard probably decided he could write the tale hi, but it was paving the way for greater things to co 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 subht for 155, payable on publication, and published in the March 1935 issue of Weird Tales Soinal title for the tale The story first appeared in Weird Tales under the title Jewels of Gwahlur Horote 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 a after his death (froazine coh evidently derived froinal Howard document or series of docue was prepared well after the story was published and was very probably intended as a listing of stories sold to Weird Tales to establish ed to Howard's estate by the s of sales, Howard, as a general rule, would always give the published version's title rather than his ohich is the case in this docu Shadow over Xuthal of the Dusk, Shadows in the Moonlight over Iron Shadows in the Moon) It seems quite probable, then, that Teeth was si 350

the title, was re 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 ti, 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, whoust In October, he confided to her that he was ”getting a little tired of Conan