Part 36 (1/2)
The study of the typescripts shows that Howard didn't begin work on his Conan novel until after he had finished both The People of the Black Circle and a detective story received by his agent on March 10 Chances are that he didn't actually begin it until after he had sent another story to his agent circa March 17 It was only apt that such a novel was begun at the tient didn't receive anything froive or take a couple of days, as the beginning date of the writing of the novel, then The Hour of the Dragon ritten in less than two land: ”As you doubtless reested that I subth novel, on the order of the weird short stories for & Ness Ltd Under separate cover I a you a 75,000 word novel, entitled, The Hour of the Dragon, written according to your suggestions Hoping it will prove acceptable”
During those two months, Howard apparently didn't write any other story, concentrating all his efforts on his novel, with an estimated output of 5,000 words per day, seven days a week On 330
May 20, the day he sent the novel to England, Horote four short letters The Hour of the Dragon had occupied alar Hoffmann Price's brief visit in April see those twomuch from the British market, two full months of work seems an awful lot One suspects that Howard had much more faith and hope in his novel than he was ready to admit He knew that if the novel was to be accepted and published it could be a major, perhaps the major, break for him
As could be expected, Howard took a few days off in June: ”Having co off a few hours for relaxation and to try to catch up with eously” Howard took a short vacation and visited the Carlsbad caverns, which were to inspire him for one of his next Conan stories, but he soon found himself back to work and back to Conan Only a few days had elapsed between the co of The Hour of the Dragon The delay was very probably the saon and his next Conan story
A Witch Shall Be Born ritten in late May or early June 1934, probably in a matter of days The tale was evidently intended to replenish Farnsworth Wright's stock of Conan stories
In April 1934, Wright had published Iron Shadows in the Moon, Queen of the Black Coast had followed in May, and Howard knew that The Devil in Iron and The People of the Black Circle were scheduled for the August 1934 and subsequent issues, leaving hies of Weird Tales This was a new situation for the Texan, since Iron Shadows in the Moon and Queen of the Black Coast had been written and sold in 1932 Wright was accepting Conan stories as fast as he could get the thees of the cover (Queen of the Black Coast, The Devil in Iron, The People of the Black Circle, and A Witch Shall Be Born, published in a seven- rowing, and the character was very probably attracting new readers to Weird Tales Wo for ht's censoring hands, as a romantic barbarian A Witch Shall Be Born required only two drafts before Hoas satisfied with it
That it ht's expectations exactly there can be no doubt In a letter to Robert H
Barlow dated July 5, 1934, Horote: ”Here, at last, is the o A Witch Shall Be Born It is ht says my best”
A Witch is hardly Howard's best, but it is a special Conan tale in the sense that it is at the saettable Conan story yet contains the most famous, or rather thethe story, one gets the i from that year's production to craft the tale The monster at the end of the story seems to be a cousin to that in the last chapter of Almuric Taramis and Salome remind us that Hoas fascinated with brothers and sisters (with another occurrence of painful separation at birth) and also remind us of Howard's interest in duality Paranoia, a 331
thedoh this tale, and Howard repeats that people aren't alhat they seem to be
It is a frequent occurrence in Howard that evil lurks behind seely innocent features In A Witch Shall Be Born, only Conan and Howard? seems to have all the facts All other characters are as blind as Olgerd Vladislav to what has been taking place under their very eyes
Conan, in A Witch Shall Be Born, is beco extremely confident with his creation as testifies the structure of the tale We are here ives life to the entire story by being present in only two chapters It is teht he was achieving with the Conan series: The Texan knew he had a winner and that he could get aith al the lead character in the story except in the central chapters Conan dominates the whole story and this is made plain in the crucifixion scene How can anybody kill a character literarily or literally who can survive such a scene as that one? For to write a crucifixion scene will automatically invite a Christic comparison Conan probably became ”immortal” with this scene and one wonders to what extent Hoished it to be so The story average as it is exudes Howard's confidence in his creation It was accepted with relish by Farnsworth Wright, published on the heels of four consecutive issues of Weird Tales starring the Ciain won the cover
Howard had every reason to be confident
At the beginning of 1933, Howard only had one regularin al Action Stories a regular ht he had another regularstories published in several new and different ent Otis Adelbert Kline; furtherht he had just sold a novel to the British market
It was an idyllic situation
It wasn't to last long
NOTES ON THE CONAN TYPESCRIPTS AND THE CHRONOLOGY
By Patrice Louinet LIST OF THE EXTANT CONAN TYPESCRIPTS (JanuaryJune 1934) The final drafts of the stories published in Weird Tales were probably destroyed after the story 332
was typeset, and thus are no longer extant The surviving typescript for A Witch Shall Be Born is the exception rather than the rule, unfortunately
Regarding the ter at least one page; it is ”unfinished” when Howard didn't finish the draft Sometimes Hoould write a draft and rewrite only a portion of it; such drafts are subdivided with nues from draft b1)
We are particularly indebted to Glenn Lord for furnishi+ng copies of the typescripts mentioned below, and to Terence McVicker for the copy of the typescript of A Witch Shall Be Born
The People of the Black Circle synopsis, untitled, 2 pgs
draft a, untitled, 80 pgs
draft b1, incos 10-92; 94-98 + 47a of 98; nu 47a discarded in favor of 47b; pgs 1-9 lost, pgs 10-90 survive as carbon (and were reused in draft b2); pg 91 survives as original and carbon; pg 47a and pgs 92 and 94-98 as originals) draft b2 (final Weird Tales version) was cos
11-91 [survive as carbon], plus draft b2 pg 92 [lost] and pgs 93-98 [survive as carbon]
In addition to his drafts, Horote the paragraphs which appeared before the second and third install up the events of the previous chapters A total of ten pages survive, six as originals and four as carbons, the latter identical to the text appearing in Weird Tales
Untitled story synopsis, untitled, 3 pgs
draft, untitled and unfinished, 29 pgs
The Hour of the Dragon 333
synopsis, untitled, 2 pgs
notes, 4 pgs
draft a, untitled, incos 1-7, 21-29, 31-119 of 119) draft b1, untitled, dis (numbered 1-70, 72-116, 118-162 in error) draft b2, inco to a synopsis, (re-uses draft b1 pgs 1-150 plus part of pg 151; pgs 151-163, 165-169 of 169; nu 164) draft c, untitled, unfinished and inco 2; nus 210-229 of 229 pgs; nus 1- 209 were reused for drafts d2 and d3 then later lost; pgs 210-216 were also reused for draft d2 and were discarded) draft d2 (re-uses draft d1 pgs 1-216; nus between 221 and 227 in spite of the nu, a the papers sent to Otis Adelbert Kline after Howard's death and later lost; pgs 1-209 caes fros 1-4, 6, 9, 15-18, 24, 38-39, 46-50, 52, 55, 61, 70, 72 (2 different), 79-80, 85, 94, 96-99, 101, 111, 113, 117, 122, 128, 134-136, 170, 206, 211- 213, 216-217, 221-223, 225-226, 228-229, 232-241 of 241 pgs There is a strong possibility that these pages were discarded and revised when Howard prepared the novel for subht
draft e (final Weird Tales version) [lost: the carbon for this was probably a the papers sent to Otis Adelbert Kline after Howard's death and later lost]
sub
A Witch Shall Be Born 334
synopsis, untitled, 1 pg
draft a (this draft was sent to Robert H Barlow on 5 July 1934; the typescript is now in private hands; unfortunately, it hasn't been possible to examine the typescript for this edition) draft b1, incos 1-53 as carbon, with slight differences between the two) draft b2 (final Weird Tales version: reuses draft b1, pgs 1-52; pgs 53-55 survive as originals, pgs 54-55 as carbon [REH probably kept the wrong pg 53 carbon in his files]) NOTES ON THE ORIGINAL HOWARD TEXTS
The texts for this edition of Volume 2 of the Complete Conan of Cimmeria were prepared by Patrice Louinet, Rusty Burke and Dave Gentzel, with assistance froainst Howard's original typescripts, copies of which were furnished by Glenn Lord and Terence McVicker, or the first published appearance if a typescript was unavailable Drafts of Howard's stories, when extant, have also been checked to ensure the greatest accuracy Every effort has been made to present the work of Robert E
Howard as faithfully as possible
The study of the extant texts for A Witch Shall Be Born (Howard's original typescript, the carbon thereof and the Weird Tales text), showed conclusively that Farnsworth Wright, the editor of Weird Tales, had censored several passages in the Conan stories, particularly bits of dialogue and descriptions that he probably found too ”explicit” Fortunately, carbons survive for most of the later Conan stories, often in complete or nearly-complete forinal typescript survive shows that these are nearly identical The only differences concern the titles, subtitles and chapter divisions of the stories, which are often but not always absent froraphical errors may have been fixed, or a word replaced by another Unless the original typescripts ever surface, Howard's carbons offer by far the purest available text for inal sources are detailed in these textual notes In the following pages, page, line and word nue 51, ninth line, fifth word Story titles, chapter numbers and titles, and breaks before and after chapter headings, titles and illustrations are not counted The page/line nuinal source, or a statees are 335
indicated by giving the iinal punctuation
The People of the Black Circle Text taken from Howard's carbon, provided by Glenn Lord, and from the September, October and Nove carbon is incoe typescript; the e 10, line 1) and froly” (742613) to ”repeated helplessly” (75127) are taken from the Weird Tales appearance Howard's chapters are untitled on the carbon; it is not knohether the subtitles are Howard's or Wright's Changes from the Weird Tales text: 5376: Sap; 7613: Hills; 8282: Majesty; 91912: Skalos 9245: Majesty Changes from Howard's carbon: 10189: b; 93013: ”a” omitted; 111713: Eastern; 122012: country-side; 12259: Then; 15107: sent led; 16611: train; 1699: unwanted; 1742: of; 172714: not of one of; 18272: between; 20107: excercise; 20119: excercises; 21176: 'the' absent froht' hyphenated at line-break; 2251: no comma after 'carelessly'; 22226: quiesence; 22363: when; 24211: gripped; 251410: hillsmen; 253213: irrelevent; 25358: liad; 2899: into; 28913: seee of carbon); 30235: Irakzai; 321811: fore-finger; 33201: asonished; 33207: distended; 33344: 'as' absent froh'; 40177: profferred; 402410: hit; 40252: supply; 4175: coht'; 41267: 'north west'; 422612: 'in' not in original; 42287: what ever; 43106: hypnostism; 44344: hundred; 443911: neophism; 45112: excercise; 45191: Raksha; 4757: the top-left corner of the carbon is torn; 'He shook' and the 'l' of 'loose' arewords appear in the Weird Tales version and the first draft; 47163: river bed; 4835: river bed; 48276: traffick; 483311: 'chief' not in original; 50183: tough; 51175: coald; 513714: herslf; 513715: in; 5233: scrutinised; 5296: every; 5377: 'to' not in original; 53228: loosly; 532413: onlique; 54104: on; 55215: coers'; 56514: no comma after 'first'; 56187: no coinal; the word appears in the Weird Tales text and in the first draft; 5743: 'in' not in original; 581011: wide braced; 591011: infest; 59261: 'did' not in original; 60112: half blinded; 60168: thunder storreen robed; 61153: 'as' not in original; 612816: sheer walled; 62328: 'in a' in original; 6411: unprecendented; 643114: black robed; 64349: black robed; 65358: no coinal; 66129: reinacted; 662411: suddeness; 66276: 'if' not in original; 6715: 'whether' not in original; 6795: black robed; 6799: no coe of paper); 67357: 'the' not in original; 6879: his; 681413: stars; 68167: left hand; 70211: half way; 7081: sandal-wood; 7211: He (there is no chapter transition at this point of Howard's carbon); 72815: hair; 73511: dociley; 73145: to; 73381: His; 7411: semi-colon instead of comma after 'Yes' 7796: left hand; 77128: uard; 78122: accepting
336
The Hour of the Dragon Originally appeared in Weird Tales in five installments, December 1935 and January, February, March and April 1936 The verse heading did not appear in the azine; it is taken from Howard's submission sheet for the novel prepared for British publisher Denis Archer in May 1934 (docu was included when the novel was sent to Weird Tales There is no chapter 20 in the Weird Tales text: chapter 19 concluded the March 1936 installan with chapter 21 A study of the drafts for the novel shows that this is achapter 891113: Zingarians; 1332213: not; 1382413: can not; 146264: without; 1563211: intense; ('incense' in all surviving drafts); 16687: Conon; 167368: inal; 197117: shoreline; 1982212: shoreline; 21065: ceatures; 2133210: 'was' not in original; 2441613: men; 24555: Gunderinal typescript, provided by Terence McVicker; page 5 is absent froe has been taken from Howard's carbon, provided by Glenn Lord 257122: 'herself' not in original; 258218: coifure; 2582113: queen's; 2582212: boudior; 26081: 'He' underlined; 260141: 'He' underlined; 260162: 'He'
underlined; 260201: pouring; 260211: 'He' underlined; 260242: 'He' underlined; 261235: semi-colon after 'called'; 26492: exclamation mark after 'slain'; 266511: happens; 266316: no hyphen in 'loinging'; 267812: comma after 'rescue'; 267369: minature; 2682814: tavern-floor; 270347: no em-dash before 'he'; 270351: comma instead of einal; 274614: independance; 274276: 'the' not in original; 27661: from whence; 27715: envelopes; 277105: contemptously; 277217: coifure; 2773711: permenently; 278244: every; 278327: silvered; 2801511: aubdible; 2821314: it; 2821415: it; 2822115: vizer; 282288: 'a' not in original; 285268: hoard; 2901014: protect; 29122: thick; 291154: seed'; 29662: pillard; 296362: cresent; 296377: agonies; 30052: there; 30171: comma after 'compassion'