Swords of the North

ROBERT E. HOWARD, father of the "Sword and Sorcery" genre, built an entire world of fantasy and adventure. He peopled it with legendary heroes - including Conan the Cimmerian and Kull, the king of Valusia. While these are Howard's most famous creations, there are many others. SWORDS OF THE NORTH collects some of Howard's finest tales of Sword and Sorcery, including "Kings of the Night," "The Dark Man," "The Valley of the Worm," and more. Also collected in this volume are the complete tales and fragments of two of Howard's lesser-known characters: James Allison, who remembers his past lives as mythical warriors; and Cormac Mac Art, the leader of a band of Vikings during the reign of King Arthur.

Robert E. Howard (1906- 1936) grew up in the boomtowns of early twentieth-century Texas, eventually settling in Cross Plains where he lived for the remainder of his short life. Deciding early on a literary career, he spent the bulk of his time crafting stories and poems for the burgeoning pulp fiction markets: Weird Tales, Action Stories, Fight Stories, Argosy, etc. Howard's literary reputation was assured with the publication of "The Shadow Kingdom" in 1928, which featured a unique blend of fantasy and adventure which has since been termed Heroic Fantasy. The creation of Conan the Cimmerian, Kull the Conqueror, Solomon Kane and many more has earned him lasting recognition. Rob Roehm has gone to every location in the United States that Howard mentions visiting-from New Orleans to Santa Fe, and dozens of Texas towns in between-verifying and expanding our knowledge of Howard's biography. His research has also uncovered lost Howard stories, letters, and poems. He writes about these discoveries, infrequently, at howardhistory.com.

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