TC editors advertising (I refuse to use the term “pimping”) their personal literary items for sale has a long history here on the blog.  Check out this post by Leo Grin (and several subsequent).

Times are dire here in serpent-haunted SEK. Musing on such, a decision was reached by yours truly. Time to lighten the load for the journey into the future.

I own the two-volume set of A Means to Freedom from Hippocampus. I’ll be taking it to Cross Plains this Friday. My firm asking price is $300.  Cash or (possibly) check. The set has been read once. Very minor shelf-wear. Since I’m not a full-blown book collector (much like Leo), I will rely on the expertise of Paul Herman and Jeffrey Shanks as to the exact condition when I reach Howard Days.

Speaking of Paul Herman, he just announced on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum that Paradox has kindly donated a set of AMtF to the Silent Auction for Project Pride.

For any who might feel qualms about buying the set from me, all I can say is that you can contact me after the Silent Auction. However, this is a Darwinian struggle for survival. I’ll take offers whenever they come. I’m really beginning to get an inkling of how REH felt in 1936.

As mentioned in the headline, I am also bringing along the two Night Shade hardcover collections of Wagner’s Kane oeuvre. Once again, minor shelf-wear. My price is a firm $150 for the set.

If neither set sells in Cross Plains, both will go on ebay at a higher price and shipping added into the bargain. I’ll be bringing other cool stuff to Howard Days (as well as a piece for the Silent Auction), so feel free to seek me out. The (by then) former Managing Editor of The Cimmerian blog will be heading back to Dallas after the REH Foundation awards ceremony.

Sixty years ago this month, a comic book with a very new type of story hit the newsstands. Avon’s Out of this World one-shot, cover dated June 1950, sported a classic science fiction cover by Gene Fawcette featuring a menacing robot carrying off a hapless damsel while her would-be rescuer fires his ray gun. The comic was an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories, including “Lunar Station” by Joe Kubert. But it is the final story in the book whose title should raise the eyebrows of Robert E. Howard fans — “Crom the Barbarian.”

Written by Gardner F. Fox and illustrated by John Giunta, “Crom the Barbarian” is listed by the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as the first sword-and-sorcery comic story. Whether this designation is accurate or not is probably a matter for debate. There are fantasy stories and characters — primarily Arthurian and mythological — that appear earlier in comics (Prince Valiant would be a notable example), but “Crom the Barbarian” is very likely the first true Howardian sword-and-sorcery story. It is littered with tropes and place names that can found in the Conan stories — the name of the titular protagonist, “Crom”, being the most obvious example.

"Crom the Barbarian" first appeared in Out of This World #1 (June 1950).

Crom and his sister Lalla are members of the wandering Aesir tribe, who find themselves separated from their people during a battle with a group of monkey-men known as the Cymri. Fox’s “Aesir” are not the gods of norse mythology to whom the name originally referred, but rather the blond-haired race of wandering Nordic barbarians from Howard’s Conan and Steve Allison tales. Likewise, the name “Cymri” comes from a Welsh tribe whom Howard made into descendents of the Cimmerians in his fictional pseudo-historical essay “The Hyborian Age” (though the physical appearance of Fox’s Cymri may be inspired by the monkey-men of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Pellucidar stories).

Crom and Lalla find themselves adrift in a Cymri boat on an inland sea (invoking the Vilayet Sea of Conan’s world) and eventually land on a island controlled by a wizard named Dwelf. Dwelf, using Lalla as a hostage, forces Crom to undertake a quest on his behalf. He must travel to the city of Ophir (another Howard place name) and retrieve of vial of water from a magical fountain of youth. Upon arriving in the city, Crom discovers that the tower which holds the magic fountain is well-guarded, but realizes that he might reach the upper levels of the tower from the adjacent city jail. He starts a bar brawl in order to get arrested, then, after nightfall shimmies along a rope from the window of his cell to the top of the tower. Once he reaches his destination, Crom must fight his way past two panthers in order to gain entrance to the tower; unfortunately his escapades are witnessed by Tanit, the queen of Ophir, as she is looking out of her palace window. One can see the influence of several Conan stories here — particularly “The Tower of the Elephant” and “Rogues in the House.”

Once inside the tower, Crom fights his way past a group of guards, then enters the chamber with the fountain. There he confronts and defeats that most Howardian of guardians: a giant serpent. As he goes to fill a vial with the youth-restoring water, Queen Tanit attacks him from behind with a dagger. Crom easily evades the threat, and nullifies his assailant. Having acquired the object of his mission, he rides out of the city, taking Queen Tanit with him as his hostage. Upon returning to Dwelf’s island, the somewhat predictable conclusion plays out as the wizard drinks the waters of yout, then turns on Crom and attempts to kill him. Unfortunately for Dwelf, he drank too much of the magic water and quickly de-ages into an infant, and then nothingness. Tanit meanwhile has naturally become smitten with Crom’s barbaric virtus and has fallen in love with him. The tale ends with the queen suggesting that they return to Ophir where they can rule side-by-side and Crom, in a very non-Conan-like move, accepts the proposition.

The pulp Out of THis World Adventures contained a comic section which reprinted "Crom the Barbarian."

It seems clear that Fox had read Howard’s Conan stories, most likely when they first appeared in Weird Tales, though he also seems to have been familiar with “The Hyborian Age” essay, which had only been published in fanzines and Arkahm House’s Skull-face and Others by this point. Gnome Press’s Conan the Conqueror would also appear sometime in 1950, though it seems likely that it would have post-dated “Crom the Barbarian,” as the latter must have been written by March at the earliest.

To anyone familiar with Fox’s career, it should not come as a surprise that he was a fan of Howardian-style sword-and-sorcery and would be the one to introduce that genre to the sequential art medium. He is, of course, best known for his work on DC’s Golden Age and early Silver Age super-hero comics. His most famous story, “Flash of Two Worlds!” in The Flash #123 (September 1961) introduced the concept of DC’s “multiverse” that would serve as the basis for the many “Crisis” storylines of the last five decades. But, Fox also wrote prose fiction for a number of pulps in the 1940’s and 1950’s, including Weird Tales. He would go on to write more sword-and-sorcery in the 1960’s and 1970’s with his Kothar and Kyrik paperback series. Many of these stories were Howardian enough that Marvel was able to adapt them seamlessly into Conan stories for their comic series, Conan the Barbarian.

As noted above, Out of This World was a one-shot issue, and is quite scarce today. The Photo Journal Guide to Comics by Ernie Gerber, published in 1989, lists it as a “Gerber 8” on its Scarcity Index, meaning that there are an estimated 11 to 20 copies in existence. The actual number is probably two to three times that, as Gerber’s calculations were made in the pre-internet days, but it is most definitely a tough book to find. Many of the existing copies have a odd transfer stain on the front cover which seems to be some type of printing defect. It is possible that a number of copies were deemed to be too defective to release and were destroyed before reaching the newsstands. This rare one-shot would not be the last appearance of Crom, however.

The second Crom story, "The Spider God of Akka," appeared in Strange Worlds #2 (November 1950).

The following month, in an innovative publishing move, Avon released a pulp magazine called Out of this World Adventures with a comic insert in the center. Cover-dated July 1950, it reprinted the stories from the Out of this World comic book, including “Crom the Barbarian.” In August, a separate printing of the Out of this World comic book was published, this time without the printing defect that marred the earlier version. The two printings are easily distinguished: The first printing has “June 1950” printed in the upper right corner of the front cover, while the second printing has no date.

In November 1950, Avon published the first issue of a new on-going comic book series, Strange Worlds, dedicated to science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories. Strange Worlds #1 contained the second Crom story by Fox, entitled “The Spider God of Akka.” The story picks up where the previous one left off: Crom, Queen Tanit, and Lalla leave Dwelf’s island to return to Ophir, but upon reaching the mainland they are attacked and captured by the Cymri (now simply called “ape-men”). The captives are brought to the ancient ruined city of Akka, where Rou, the king of the ape-men, attempts to sacrifice them to the giant spider god, Spraa. Crom is able to defeat the giant spider and he, Tanit, and Lalla escape from Akka. The three return to Ophir, which has come under the control of the usurper, Bokris. Crom defeats Brokris’ men and hurls the tyrant from high walls of the palace to his death. The story concludes with Crom taking his place at Queen Tanit’s side as co-ruler of Ophir.

Following their previous model, Avon released the second issue of the Out of This World Adventures pulp a month later. Again it contained a comic section, this time reprinting material from Strange Worlds #1, including “The Spider God of Akka.” After this second issue, Out of This World Adventures was discontinued and the pulp/comic combination idea was abandoned. The Strange Worlds comic series continued, however, and Crom made his third and final appearance in the second issue.

The final Crom story, "The Giant from Beyond," appeared in Strange Worlds #2 (April 1951).

“The Giant from Beyond” appeared in Strange Worlds #2, cover-dated April 1951. In this story, a now well-groomed Crom has started become soft with the easy living at the court of Ophir (there is a Howardian theme for you). He is called back to action when a giant named Balthar begins attacking Ophirian caravans in the south. Crom leads a group of warriors from Ophir on an expedition to defeat Balthar and his savage followers who worship the giant as a god. Sailing down the Nexus River, into the jungles of the south, Crom and his men are attacked by a giant prehistoric reptile and narrowly escape. They finally come upon the city in the jungle built by Balthar and his followers. After a fierce battle Crom is able the blind the giant, while the archers of Ophir riddle him with arrows. With Balthar defeated, Crom and his men return to Ophir as conquering heroes.

There is no indication of finality with this third story, and Fox may have intended to continue the adventures of Crom. For whatever reason it was not to be however, and “The Giant from Beyond” would remain the last story of Crom the Barbarian. Strange Worlds would continue to print a few fantasy stories and prehistoric adventures, some more sword-and-sorcery than others, but for the most part, that would be the last true sword-and-sorcery in mainstream comics for nearly two decades, when a certain Cimmerian would finally make his four-color debut.

Courtesy of the ever redoubtable Bill Thom of Howard Works and Coming Attractions, it appears that the collection previously known as Dark Agnes and Other Historical Adventures has received a subtle, but potent, name change: it is now The Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures. In addition to the name change, we have an illustrator — and a sneak preview.

The Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures – Coming January 25th!
Jim & Ruth Keegan (Illustrators)
Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN-10: 0345505468
ISBN-13: 978-0345505460
http://www.randomhou…n=9780345505460
http://www.amazon.co…73269022&sr=1-1

I think the new title is much better. For one thing, it’s more technically correct: the phrasing gives the impression that there’s a story called “Dark Agnes,” rather than alluding to the heroine of a triplet of stories. Dark Agnes and Other Historical Adventurers would thus be more accurate from that point of view. Replacing “Dark Agnes” with “The Sword Woman” is thus contextually appropriate, as well as giving readers an idea what to expect. Howard fans already know who and what a “Dark Agnes” is, but newcomers won’t: “Sword Woman” does wonders for explaining in shorthand.

While I was initially surprised (and pleased) to see Jim and Ruth Keegan credited as illustrators, apparently this isn’t the case: the Keegans are the art directors, the illustrator being John Watkiss.

Apparently some wires have gotten crossed — although Ruth and I are art directing Sword Woman, we are NOT illustrating the book. An artist named John Watkiss is the illustrator. John is most well known for his brilliant production design paintings for numerous motion pictures, including Disney’s Tarzan and Atlantis. A few of his non-Howard paintings can be seen at the following LINK.

He’s still working on Sword Woman, but thanks to the generosity of Jay at Paradox, we’re able to show you this small peek:

I’m not immediately acquainted with Mr Watkiss’ artwork, but I am with the films he has worked on. Disney’s Tarzan was about as accurate as one can expect from Renaissance Disney (i.e. willful and sweeping reinterpretation of essential themes and tropes, plus catchy songs and scrappy animal sidekicks), but the art design was fairly impressive. Similarly, Atlantis: The Lost Empire may have inadvertently homaged elements of Stargate and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water – not the first time Disney’s been in hot water over similarities to anime — but it was a fairly decent adventure in the vein of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the art design for Atlantis itself was spectacular. If there’s one thing I can’t really fault in either film, it’s the visuals.

Mr Watkiss has a hard act to follow in Stephen Fabian, whom I consider the best Agnes illustrator (the Zebra cover notwithstanding) as depicted at the top of the post. Instantly I’m impressed by Mr Watkiss’ work, though that may because I simply adore my lassie Aggie, and appreciate every time she gets an illustration. It’s certainly most gratifying to see a Howard heroine not mistakenly depicted in a metal bikini, something Agnes herself has suffered more than once. The powerful opening of “The Sword Woman” makes a provocative scene, and the image of a bride in a blood-stained dress with a blade in her hand will be familiar to modern viewers of the Kill Bill generation, as well as gamers who’ve played Dragon Age – proof that despite the age of his fiction, Howard’s work is as resonant and relevant as it’s ever been.  Hopefully the cover will continue this very encouraging trend, and dispel any notions of Agnes as chauvinistic pulp cheesecake.

I can’t wait to see more of Watkiss’ work, but for now, I shall peruse his official website.

The Dark Man, The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies No. 1 (1990)

Previous Installments:
Collecting REH: Fanzines and Chapbooks, Part 1
Collecting REH: Fanzines and Chapbooks, Part 2

As the Howard-mania of the 1970s began to die down by the following decade, the deluge of small press and fan publications slowed to a trickle. The venerable Amra ceased publication in the early 1980s, but REHupa remained, still producing its mailings on a regular basis. REH fanzines did not vanish altogether, though, and several new small presses continued to print Howard-material related through the 1980s and 1990s. By the turn of the millennium, Howard and his characters began to creep back into the public consciousness with the publishing of the Wandering Star limited editions and their mass-market Del Rey reprints, as well as a popular new Conan comic book series by Dark Horse. With this renewed interest in the Man from Cross Plains, new journals and publications began to appear and even a few once-defunct periodicals returned from the grave. This article will give a brief overview of some of these publications from the last three decades, but for a more comprehensive listing of Howard-related publications, I once again refer the reader to the Howard Works site, or Paul Herman’s print bibliography, The Neverending Hunt.

As mentioned above, several new small publishers cropped up in the 1980s. One of the first was Gibbelins Gazette Press, based out of Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1982 they released The Ghost Ocean, a collection of poetry edited by Rusty Burke and Vernon Clark. The Ghost Ocean had a print run of 360 numbered copies, the first 50 of which were hardbound. This was followed by The Ballad of King Geraint in 1989, featuring the long title poem. It had a print run of just 70 copies and is very difficult to find. These two Gibbelins Gazette publications run around $75-125 when they come for sale.

Another small press that appeared in the 1980s was Thomas Kovacs’ Dark Carnival Press. Although based out of Zurich, they produced several English-language items of Howard ephemera, beginning in 1983 with The Rhyme of the Three Slavers. This was a simple broadside sheet printing the title poem. 250 copies, numbered and signed by Kovacs were produced for the Raven Club. Another of these broadside sheets, Neolithic Love Song was produced in 1987 with only 36 copies printed, also signed and numbered.

In 1986, Dark Carnival printed two chapbooks, The Spears of Clontarf, containing the title story, and Writer of the Dark, a collection of stories and verse. The first printing of The Spears of Clontarf had an ivory cover, with 80 copies produced, plus an additional 20 numbered copies that were distributed at Howard Days that year. A second printing of 20 copies with a buff-colored cover and a copy of The Rhyme of the Three Slavers broadsheet bound-in was produced in 1993. There were 500 copies of Writer of the Dark produced — 200 have a reddish-orange cover with an illustration of a rat, 200 have a tan cover with no rat (80 of these were destroyed in a flood), and 100 remain as unbound sheets.

One of the more prolific small presses during this period was Robert Price’s Cryptic Publications, an HPL-oriented publisher based in North Carolina. Cryptic produced a series of chapbooks throughout the 1980’s containing a number of stories and poems, all with cover art by Stephen Fabian. The first was Bran Mak Morn: A Play and Others, published in 1983 with a print run of 425 copies (25 signed by Glenn Lord). This was followed by Two-Fisted Detective Stories in 1984, with a print run of 500 copies. Of these there were 50 numbered copies, 26 lettered copies, and 20 presentation copies, all signed by Price and Fabian. These two were followed by The Adventures of Lal Singh (1985), Pay Day (1986), Lewd Tales (1987), The Coming of El Borak (1987), North of the Khyber (1987), and The Sonora Kid (1988). The print runs for these last six are not stated. Most of these Cryptic booklets range in price from $25-75. Cryptic also published a good bit of Howard material in some of its periodicals such as Crypt of Cthulu, Risque Tales, and Revelations from Yuggoth – check Howard Works for a complete listing.

Two-Gun Raconteur No. 12

Another Lovecraft-oriented publisher, Necronomicon Press, who had printed two REH chapbooks in the 1970s, returned in 1989 with Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1923-1930, edited by Glenn Lord, Rusty Burke, and S.T. Joshi. The second volume, Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1931-1936 followed in 1991. Although, individual Howard letters had been published here and there, this two volume chapbook set was the first time most the important letters had been collected together, and it would remain so until the REH Foundation’s recent publishing of the Collected Letters. Copies of the Selected Letters sell for around $75-125 each.

Between 1990 and 1996, Necronomicon published Robert E. Howard’s Fight Magazine Nos. 1 through 4. These colorful chapbooks reprinted a number of Howard’s boxing yarns and today they sell for $20-40. In 1997, they published Ghor, Kin-Slayer, The Saga of Genseric’s Fifth-Born Son. This booklet was project begun in 1970s by Jonathon Bacon, in which a story fragment by Howard was completed by seventeen well-known fantasy writers, each taking a chapter, with the final project a full-length novel. Contributors to the project included Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Charles Saunders, A.E. Vogt, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and other notable authors. The collaborative work was originally going to be serialized in Fantasy Crossroads, until that periodical ceased publication in 1979. This chapbook is the first time it was published in its entirety, and it usually sells for around $20.

Some other notable chapbooks published in the last couple of decades include No Refuge, published by Rusty Burke in 1989. It contains a letter from Howard to Lovecraft and has a print run of 30 numbered copies. Also, Flight, published by Stolte in 1992 had only 20 copies produced. Prices vary widely on these last two as they are so scarce. A Man-Eating Jeopard was published in 1994 by Alla Ray Morris in Cross Plains, and reprinted in 1998 — it sells for $30-40. In 1999, Paul Herman published The Complete Yellow Jacket with a print run of 100 numbered copies and 8 lettered presentation copies (it was reprinted in 2001). It contains Howard’s contributions to the school newspaper of Howard Payne College.

Several Howard-related journals and amateur press publications began in the 1980s and 1990s and some are still being published today. From 1985 to 1988, Cryptic Publications produced three issues of Cromlech, The Journal of Robert E. Howard Criticism. This scholarly journal contained numerous articles and reviews, with contributions by Charles Hoffman, Robert Price, Marc Cerasini and others — issues sell for around $30 each.

Deluxe editions of the Cimmerian Vol. 3, No. 7 (2006)

Necronomicon Press began publishing its own REH academic journal, The Dark Man, The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, in 1990. The early issues were edited by Rusty Burke and had contributions most of the top REH scholars of the time. Necronomicon ceased publication of the journal after issue number 4 in 1996, but it was revived in 2001 with issues 5 and 6, published by Mind’s Eye Hyper Publishing/Iron Harp and edited by Frank Coffman. With issue 7 (2004), publication of the journal was taken by Seele Brent publications. It continues to this day under the editorial leadership of Mark Hall and is one of the leading publications for Howard scholarship. The early issues of The Dark Man, sell for $20-30 and the more recent issues are available for around $10-15.

Two of the fanzines that were first published in the 1970s, Dennis McHaney’s Howard Review and Damon Sasser’s Two-Gun Raconteur, were revived in recent years with the renewed public interest in Howard. Howard Review resumed publication with issue 8 in 1988, though it was only distributed to REHupa members. Issue number 9 appeared in 1991 with a print run of around 60. Number 11 appeared in 1998, though it was cover-dated 1995. The last issues, 12 and 13, appeared in 2004 when publication was once again ceased. It is not clear what happened with the tenth issue, unless one of McHaney’s other publications was intended to be number 10.

Damon Sasser’s Two-Gun Raconteur resumed publication with issue number 5 in 2003. It has been in continuous publication ever since, with the last issue, number 13 being released last year. Two-Gun Raconteur contains regular contributions from Sasser, Morgan Holmes, Brian Leno, Danny Street and others. Issues of the revived TGR sell for around $20.

Another new publication that has emerged in recent years is Joe Marek’s The New Howard Reader. Beginning with issue 1 in 1998, The New Howard Reader contains numerous hard-to-find stories, poems, and letters by Howard. They all have very small print runs and usually run $50-75 each. Another recent REH journal was of course the print version of The Cimmerian. Published bi-monthly by Leo Grin from 2004 to 2008 (and monthly in 2006 in honor of Howard’s centennial), The Cimmerian contained contributions from some of today’s best-known REH scholars. Each issue had print run of 225 numbered copies, of which the first 75 were a deluxe edition. In 2009, Grin destroyed all the remaining unsold copies, making the journal even more scarce. Copies of deluxe edition issues usually sell for around $30 and regular editions for around $20.

A previously unknown copy of the exceedingly rare 1937 Herbert Jenkins first edition of A Gent from Bear Creek has been just been discovered by noted Robert E. Howard scholar Patrice Louinet. This is only the thirteenth known copy of Howard’s first published book to be located and it could very likely be one of the nicest copies in existence. Judging from the photos, it appears to be in better condition than the Darrell Richardson copy, which sold at auction last month for over $12,000. Louinet found the book last week with an automated online search and quickly purchased it from the UK bookseller that had listed it. The exact events are best described by Louinet himself (as posted at TGR):

“Just like every Howard collector, I’ve always wanted to own a copy of the Jenkins Gent. I knew that I would have to get lucky if I ever wanted to find one, because my pockets were not deep enough to buy one at full price. When the Darrell C. Richardson auction was announced a few weeks ago, I did raise a good chunk of money to go after the Phantagraphs and some desired pulps, but the copy of Gent that was in the lot was never on my radar.

Now, I suppose every hardcore collector is aware that a few years ago an American bookseller listed a Jenkins edition of Gent for $15, obviously having no idea as to its real value. This copy was immediately snatched up by a Canadian bookdealer and ended up on eBay, selling for $8,500 a few weeks later. I suspect that a lot of people had the same idea I had – that history could repeat itself, so I added Gent to my list of automated notifications from ABE [Books] and patiently waited.

Last Tuesday (April 20), a little before 6:00 pm French time, I received the email. I remember seeing A Gent from Bear Creek in the subject field, which surprised me because I usually don’t get notifications for the book, and then I saw the year – 1937. I don’t remember registering anything as to the condition except that it lacked the dustjacket, and the price: £20 ($30 American). It took me a few seconds to digest all this, and then I literally went dizzy, immediately clicked on the item, logged in, and bought it. The whole transaction took 30 seconds, tops. I didn’t know how much I had paid for postage, and was not really sure I hadn’t made a mistake.

I tried to cool down, re-read everything, took a deep breath and decided to give the bookseller a call. I told him I was simply inquiring if my order had gone through, because I had been looking for that book “for years.” I offered no further details. The bookseller said it usually took a couple hours before they get the notification, but he did some checking and thus the book was pulled off the ABE list within the hour. I didn’t ask him to confirm it was indeed a 1937 Herbert Jenkins edition, as I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. The conversation ended when he told me the book would go out the next day.

For the next 48 hours, the butterflies in my stomach were killed by the pins and needles I had in there. On Thursday, I received notification that the book had shipped and I became hopeful, but still remained wary. It arrived today in a plain padded envelope. Fortunately it made the trip safely and didn’t suffer any damage in transit.”

Even after receiving confirmation from the seller that the book had shipped, Louinet was still trying to keep his hopes and expectations tempered. As he wrote to me in an email last week, “It can still get lost, or be the Don Grant, McHaney’s facsimile, something else, I don’t know. Sure, the description is that of an old book, but I don’t want to believe it. Yet.”

After a nerve-wracking week of waiting for Louinet, the book finally arrived this morning and he confirmed that it was indeed the real thing. As with all but one of the known copies, it lacks the elusive dust jacket, but it appears to be in excellent condition. According to Louinet, “the book is in amazing shape; by far the best copy I have seen. No fading whatsoever — some very light foxing, some minor rubbing and shelf-wear, and that’s it.”

With this find, Louinet will no doubt be the envy of REH collectors everywhere. After recently acquiring several rare Howard related pulps and fanzines, he has topped it off with one of the most sought-after of Howard collectibles. Amazingly, he does not consider this rare book to be the best item in his incredible collection:

“Now, I know that A Gent from Bear Creek is the Holy Grail for most heavy-duty Howard collectors, so I am on Cloud Nine, no doubt about it. But my state of mind is nowhere near what I felt when I came into possession of the original of the iconic 1934 Fedora/Al Capone photograph. Receiving that rare gift still gives me shivers. It is a one of a kind item, one that has a real connection to Bob Howard. This copy of Gent is only a book – well, a really, really rare book.”

“Only a book,” it is true, but what a special book it is. The first edition of A Gent from Bear Creek was published posthumously in 1937, in the UK by Herbert Jenkins. Its unusual scarcity is thought to be due to most copies being destroyed during World War II from bombing and paper drives. Only one copy with an intact dust jacket is known to exist; it originally belonged to August Derleth, but has been owned by Glenn Lord for many years. For collectors it is a moot point anyway as this copy will likely never be on the market — it will eventually end up in the collection of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.

The copy belonging to long-time REH and ERB collector Darrell Richardson (mentioned above) had been in his collection for many years until his recent passing, when it was auctioned off by his estate. Isaac Howard’s former copy is now in the collection of Ranger Junior College in Ranger, Texas. In addition to lacking the dust jacket, it was taken apart in order to create the photo-offset first American edition published by Donald Grant in 1965, and then subsequently rebound. An ex-library copy, once owned by Mel Stein, is now in a private collection in Canada. Four known copies exist in library collections (1 in the British Library, 1 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 1 in the National Library of Scotland, 1 in the Trinity College Library in Dublin).

For many years, these were the only known copies, but in the last decade the internet has led to the discovery of five more examples. A jacketless copy with restored endpapers was offered on eBay several years ago. Another copy originating from a bookstore in South Africa was purchased by Leo Grin and donated to the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains. A copy was purchased in 2005 by English collector Alistair Durie from a Charing Cross bookseller in London for over £2,000. The copy mentioned above by Louinet that appeared on ABE Books several years ago for $15, was then sold on eBay to a pulp collector, who traded it to Ed Gobbett for a valuable run of Shadow pulps. And now, this latest copy, also found on ABE, makes the thirteenth known copy.

While this book is unquestionably scarce, I have little doubt that there other copies out there in the “wild” that have not been recognized for what they are — perhaps even copies in jacket. Even among collectors of this type of material, the Jenkins A Gent from Bear Creek is not a well-known item. For the typical bookseller, even if they might have heard of Howard through his Conan stories, they might not connect the name with this collection of humorous western tales. If Howard’s first book had been Hour of the Dragon (which was almost the case), then you can be sure that most of the known copies would have been accounted for long ago and you would not have many copies flying under the radar like this. That makes A Gent from Bear Creek somewhat unique among well-known author’s first books, in that it is clearly still possible for savvy collectors to make that lucky find and acquire a copy on the cheap.

So how much does Louinet think his £20 purchase is worth?

“A copy that was not in such great shape, the Richardson copy, fetched about $12,000 a few weeks ago in a little-publicized auction. With that in mind, one can only wonder as to the value of the copy now in my possession.”

One can only wonder indeed. I suspect that if sold by a high-profile auction house like Heritage or Christie’s, it could easily fetch $15,000 to $20,000. But, that will have to remain in the realm of speculation, as Louinet has no plans to sell it:

“You might ask if I am planning to sell my copy. Well, no, I have no intention of parting with it – unless you have some original Howard typescripts to trade. That I would consider.”

Leon Nielsen’s survey A Collector’s Descriptive Bibliography of American and British Hardcover, Paperback, Magazine, Special and Amateur Editions, with a Biography will be republished by McFarland & Company. Damon C. Sasser of REH: Two-Gun-Raconteur fame provided the foreword.

From the blurb:

This guide is an invaluable resource about Howard, with information for every known published work. Initial chapters provide a biography, discuss Howard’s literary legacy, and give basic tips about collecting Howard’s writings. The main body of the work is a bibliography of Howard’s published works from 1925 through 2004. Each entry includes a description and known details including publisher, date, print run, and estimated value. A thorough index locates the publication of every Howard story or poem.

This volume should be available in Fall/Winter 2010.

The late Wisconsin writer and collector Leon Nielsen contributed to The Cimmerian print journal and to Two-Gun-Raconteur (you can read his TGR article “The Image of Conan” here). He also authored Arkham House: A Collector’s Guide (2004) .

Its Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments vii
Foreword by Damon C. Sasser      1
Introduction 5

1. Robert E. Howard: A Brief Biography      11
2. The Robert E. Howard Legacy      36
3. A Robert E. Howard Cast of Characters      80
4. Collecting Robert E. Howard      105
5. A Robert E. Howard Bibliography 134
6. Most Collectible Titles      247
7. A Representative Robert E. Howard Collection      253
8. Reference Bibliography      260

Indexes      263

ISBN 978-0-7864-6109-7
98 photos, notes, bibliography, index
288pp. softcover 2010 [2007]

While the majority of this volume is dedicated to collecting, identifying and evaluating the prices of Howard’s writings, book also contains a biography, several photos of REH and his parents Hester Jane and Dr Isaac Mordecai Howard, as well as a discussion on the rights to Howards works.

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #1 (1976) published by Damon Sasser

Previous Installment:
Collecting REH: Fanzines and Chapbooks, Part 1

During the great Howard revival of the 1970s and early 1980s, a large number of fanzines, chapbooks, amateur press journals, and other ephemera related to Howard were produced. In this segment I will give an overview of some of the more notable examples of these publications. For a more comprehensive survey, I recommend The Neverending Hunt by Paul Herman and of course the Howard Works site.

Following Glenn Lord’s publication of Etchings in Ivory in 1968, several small presses began producing similar high quality, limited edition chapbooks. Beginning in 1972, Roy Squires, literary executor for Clark Ashton Smith, produced a series of small chapbooks featuring Howard verse. Each booklet contained one poem and had print runs of a little over two hundred copies each. They are: Black Dawn (1972), The Road to Rome (1972), A Song of the Naked Lands (1973), The Gold and the Grey (1974), and Altars and Jesters: An Opium Dream (1974). These Roy Squires volumes sell for around $50 to $100. Squires published another volume in 1977, Up, John Kane! And Other Poems, with a print run of three hundred fifty-three copies and which sells for $30-50.

George Hamilton published Verses in Ebony in 1975, the first in series of chapbooks with dust jackets that he would put out over the next few years. Verses in Ebony contained previously unpublished poems, had a print run of two hundred sixty-three copies, and sells for around $50. An unauthorized “prototype version” of around fifty copies was released the previous year and sells for a bit more. Hamilton followed Verses with several volumes of Howard’s historical fiction illustrated by Stephen Fabian: Blades for France (1975), Shadow of the Hun (1975), Isle of Pirate’s Doom (1975), The King’s Service (1976), The Shadow of the Beast (1977), and Spears of Clontarf (1978). Most had print runs of around three hundred copies and sell for $30-60. Hamilton also published Bicentennial Tribute to Robert E. Howard, a collection of essays in 1976; it had one hundred ninety-two copies and sells for around $75.

The Gold and the Grey (1974) published by Roy Squires.

Dennis McHaney produced a couple of similar chapbooks around the same time. Rhymes of Death (1975) had a print run of six hundred copies and was illustrated (and signed) by Tom Foster; it sells for around $20. Two Against Tyre (1975), illustrated by Steven Fabian, had a combined print run of fifteen hundred copies (six hundred numbered, nine hundred unnumbered) and sells for $10-20. That same year, Charles Miller produced two chapbooks, Valley of the Lost (illustrated by Bot Roda) and The Grey God Passes (illustrated by Walt Simonson); both sell for around $10-20.

In 1976, Jonathon Bacon published Runes of Ahrh-Eih-Eche in an edition of one thousand copies. It contains some of Howard’s letters and sells for around $20-30. The same year, Bacon published The Grim Land and Others, with a print run of four hundred fifty copies. It contains a Howard fragment completed by Tevis Clyde Smith and sells for $75-100. 1976 also saw Necronomicon Press publish its first Howard-related work with Voices of the Night and Other Poems; it had a print run of five hundred copies and sells for around $75. This was followed in 1977 by The Illustrated Gods of the North with a run of seven hundred fifty numbered copies; it sells for $30-40.

The renewed interest in Howard’s works in the 1970s also led to the proliferation of fanzines dedicated to the works of Two-Gun Bob and to sword and sorcery in general. As noted in the previous installment of this series, Amra continued to be published throughout the 1970s. It was joined by a number of other journals and fan publications, beginning in 1972 with the REHupa mailings. The Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa) is amateur press association that is limited to thirty members. Each member produces a bi-monthly fanzine that is collected with the other member’s fanzines, and then the combined set is sent out as a mailing to all the members. This means that each mailing is limited to only about thirty copies (with a few extras). There are highly collectible due to their scarcity and prices can vary widely from as little as $30 or 40 to as high as several hundred. Even photocopies of mailings sell well. REHupa is still going strong and has produced well over two hundred mailings by this point. They have been, and continue to be, the torchbearers for promoting and defending Howard and his works.

Beginning in 1974, George Hamilton published Cross Plains, a periodical containing essays and reviews as well as some of Howard’s more obscure works, some never before published. Some issues also contained art by Stephen Fabian and Roy Krenkel. Cross Plains lasted for seven issues until it was discontinued in 1975. Issues sell for $20-30. The same year, Jonathon Bacon began publishing Fantasy Crossroads, a fanzine that was not-Howard specific, but contained quite a bit of Howard-related material. It lasted for fifteen issues, until 1978. Bacon also produced three issues of a similar publication, Fantasy Crosswinds in 1977. Issues from both of these series sell for $20-30.

REHupa #132 from 1995.

REH: Lone Star Fictioneer, published by Byron Roark and Arnie Fenner (yes, that Arnie Fenner), first appeared in 1975 and lasted for four issues. It was a high quality, magazine-sized publication with contributions by Karl Edward Wagner, L. Sprague de Camp, John Severin, Roy Thomas, Barry Smith, and others, as well as art by Krenkel, Fabian, Alfredo Alcala , Simonson, and others. Issues sell for $15-30.

Dennis McHaney began publishing Howard Review in 1975. Containing a good deal of Howard material, this fanzine lasted for seven issues before ceasing publication in 1977. The first issue exists in two versions: a first printing of two hundred four copies and a revised second edition of eleven hundred copies. Issues sell for around $30. The following year saw the publication of the one-shot fanzine, The Conan Companion, edited by Wayne Warfield. Dedicated specifically to essay and material related to Howard’s Cimmerian, it was illustrated by Gene Day and others and sells for $25-30.

1976 also saw the appearance of REH: Two-Gun Raconteur by Damon Sasser. This fanzine lasted for four issues with around three hundred copies of each printed. It contained a number of good essays, letters, art by a number of contributors, including Sasser, Don Herron, Dennis McHaney, and others. Issues sell for around $30. Sasser also produced The Chronicler of Cross Plains in 1978, a one-shot Howard fanzine with contributions by Sasser, Glenn Lord, and Charles Saunders; it also sells for around $30.

With the end of the 1970s, the flood of Howard fan publications, journals, and chapbooks began to slow to a trickle. In the next installment I will look at period from the late ’80s through the 1990s when a few new journals and small presses appeared, up to the current Howard boom in which we are seeing a new flood of publications and even a few older ones such as Two-Gun Raconteur and Howard Review being revived in the digital age.

Next Installment:
Collecting REH: Fanzines and Chapbooks, Part 3

February 1936 issue of The Phantagraph, containing part one of "The Hyborian Age."

For the Howard completist, it can be a daunting picture when one first delves into the world of amateur, semiprofessional, and small press publications related to their favorite author. Few writers have had as many fanzines, semiprozines, chapbooks, journals, amateur press mailings, and other ephemera dedicated to their work as has Howard. Many of these date to the 1970’s, the heyday of fanzines and the peak of Howard’s popularity, but the earliest of them date to the 1930’s when Howard was still alive. In this series I will try to cover as many of these publications as possible and discuss their content, scarcity, and collectability.

The amateur publications that would come to be known as “fanzines” have their origins in the letter columns of Hugo Gernsback’s pioneering science fiction pulp, Amazing Stories. Beginning in January 1928, Gernsback began printing the addresses of the fans who had their letters published. This seemingly simple event was the spark that ignited the movement that has come to be known as “fandom.” For the first time fans of speculative fiction could correspond directly with one another rather than through the medium of magazine letter columns. Isolated fans began to organize meet-ups, the pre-cursors to the massive “cons” of later years, and amateur publication soon followed.

As some fans started to realize they were writing essentially the same letters to multiple correspondents, they began to combine their efforts into group mailings, much as amateur press organizations had been doing since the late 19th century. Newly available printing technology such as the mimeograph machine allowed multiple copies to be created and circulated among groups of fans – thus, was born the “fanzine.” Some of these early publications were of higher quality than others; some were free to contributors, while others were sold for a minimal charge. Most of these fanzines had very small print runs and are incredibly scarce today.

Most sources list The Comet, published in 1930, as the first science fiction fanzine. Other notable early fanzines include The Time Traveler by Julie Schwartz, Forrest Ackerman, and Mort Weisinger and Science Fiction by Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster (the third issue of the latter included the first appearance of the character that would later become Superman). One of the earliest fantasy-oriented fanzines was The Fantasy Fan published by Charles Hornig, though the first may be The Recluse, a one-shot published in 1927 by W. Paul Cook which included contributions from some the Weird Tales regulars like Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, and David Wandrei.

Marvel Tales vol. 1, no. 2 (July 1934) containing "The Garden of Fear" (white and green cover).

Howard’s first appearance in a fanzine was in the March 1934 issue of The Fantasy Fan. When Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright rejected the Conan yarn, “The Frost Giant’s Daughter,” Howard changed the name of the main character to “Amra” and submitted the story to The Fantasy Fan as “The Frost-King’s Daughter.” Hornig changed the title once again to “Gods of the North” and published it. This issue is highly sought after by collectors and like most early fanzines is incredibly scarce. I am unaware of any public sales in the last few years, but judging from recent prices on other early rare fanzines with Howard content, a Very Good copy would likely fetch a price in the $500-1000 range.

A few months later, another rejected story, the James Allison yarn “The Garden of Fear,” appeared in the second issue of Marvel Tales, edited by William Crawford. Marvel Tales was a more professional effort, really more of a semiprozine, and had a larger print run than some of the other fan publications. It also has two different covers, one which is white with green printing and another that is orange with green printing. While still uncommon, it does come up for sale occasionally and usually sells for $75-125 in Very Good condition.

The September 1935 issue of The Fantasy Magazine contained an interesting literary experiment entitled “The Challenge from Beyond.” It consisted of two different stories — one science fiction, the other weird fiction — both written by several of the popular writers of the day, with each taking a chapter. The collaborators for the weird story were C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. Nice copies usually sell for $100-200.

In 1936, Howard’s pseudo-historical essay “The Hyborian Age” was published in The Phantagraph, another scarce fanzine, published by Donald Wollheim. The essay appeared in three parts, in the February, August, and October issues. The August issue also contains the first appearance of the poem “Always Comes Evening.” A copy of each of these three issues recently sold at auction for $600-900 each.

1938 saw the publication of The Hyborian Age, a chapbook produced by LANY Cooperative Publications. LANY was a fan press that was a collaborative effort between New York fans Wollheim and John Michel and Los Angeles fans Ackerman and Russel Hodgkins. This rare booklet contains the title essay published complete for the first time (the three-part Phantagraph version only went up to the time of Conan), as well as the first publication of one of Howard’s Hyborian Age maps and the essay “A Probable Outline of Conan’s Career” by P. Schuler Miller and John D. Clark. It almost never comes up for sale but a decent copy would likely fetch $800-1200.

Amra vol. 2, no. 8 (1959)

The Hyborian Age was the first of many Howard works published in chapbook form by various fan presses over the years. The next would be The Garden of Fear published in 1945 by William Crawford. Crawford printed thousands of these booklets (I have heard both 5,000 and 10,000 given as the print run) and many went unsold. They are very common and nice copies can be picked up on eBay for as little as $10. Most copies have a blue cover, though a smaller number were produced with both yellow and green covers. The scarcer yellow and green versions tend to sell for a little more than the common blue version.

In 1954 The Challenge from Beyond was published, reprinting the collaborative story by Howard, et al. in chapbook form. Edited by Charles Evans and published by the Pennsylvania Dutch Cheese Press for distribution by Fantasy Amateur Press Association, it was produced in an edition of 65 copies and sells for $500-600. The same press also reprinted The Hyborian Age that same year in a similar format, presumably with a similar number of copies. It too sells for $500-600.

The 1950’s also saw the birth of what would become one of the most important amateur press journals on REH and Sword and Sorcery for a quarter of century. Amra was first published by George Heap in 1956 as the newsletter of the Hyborian League, a small, but dedicated group of fans that had carried the Howard torch since the author’s death two decades before. Heap would produce six issues over three years, until George Scithers took over with volume 2 in 1959. The earliest issues of Amra were simple mimeographed affairs and focused primarily on Howard. Later issues became more professional in look, often featuring art by Roy Krenkel and contributions by Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp, Poul Anderson, Lin Carter and others, and it covered the broader subject of Sword and Sorcery in general. Amra won two Hugo awards for Best Fanzine and ran for 72 issues before ceasing publication in 1982. Prices vary widely from several hundred dollars for the scarce early issues to $10-20 for the more common later ones.

One of the most sought-after fanzines of the 1960’s is The Howard Collector published by Glenn Lord. Very nicely printed, with a heavy-stock cover, The Howard Collector ran for 18 issues from 1961 to 1973. It published fiction, verse, and letters by Howard along with reviews and essays. The first nine issues had small print runs of 150-250, while the later issues had runs of 300-500. As such, the earlier issues rarely come up for sale and when they do can run $100 or more. Later issues generally sell for $30-50.

In 1968, Joel Frieman edited and published Deeper Than You Think — A Literary Glimpse of Robert E. Howard. This collection of essays was one of the first serious, albeit rudimentary, attempts at Howardian literary criticism. It contains contributions by de Camp, Krenkel, Lin Carter, Robert Weinberg, and others. It sells for $150-200.

That same year Glenn Lord published a handsome chapbook of Howard’s poetry entitled Etchings in Ivory. Published in a limited edition of 268 copies, it has always been a favorite of collectors as it is seen as the first of many small press limited editions of Howard’s works that would see publication over the next decade. In fact it was such a hot collectible at one time that a counterfeit bootleg version exists. The real version has Howard’s name on the front cover in all upper case letters; the counterfeit has a mix of upper and lower case. The real Etchings in Ivory sells for around $200.

The three and half decades following Howard’s death had seen a trickle of fan-based and amateur publications, though things had begun to pick up by the 1960’s. The next decade, however, would see a veritable avalanche of Howard-related material — fanzines, amateur press journals, chapbooks, pamplets and other items. In the next segment I will take a look at the explosion of small press publication during the Howardmania of the 1970’s.

Next Installment:
Collecting REH: Fanzines and Chapbooks, Part 2

The next REH volume published by Subterranean Press in Limited Edition will be The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. It is scheduled for this fall. Fellow blogger Jeffrey Shanks recaps the history of Subterranean’s Howard-related limited editions here on The Cimmerian.

Greg Staples has done the black-and-white illustrations and Subterranean promises some never before published full-color plates.

The Limited run is of 750 numbered copies, signed by the artist, housed in a custom slipcase for $150. The Deluxe edition consists of 50 numbered copies, signed by the artist, bound in leather, housed in a leather slipcase for $400.

Its (massive) table of contents:

Foreword
Introduction
In the Forest of Villefère
A Song of the Werewolf Folk
Wolfshead
Up, John Kane!
Remembrance
The Dream Snake
Sea Curse
The Moor Ghost
Moon Mockery
The Little People
Dead Man’s Hate
The Tavern
Rattle of Bones
The Fear That Follows
The Spirit of Tom Molyneaux
Casonetto’s Last Song
The Touch of Death
Out of the Deep
A Legend of Faring Town
Restless Waters
The Shadow of the Beast
The Dead Slaver’s Tale
Dermod’s Bane
The Hills of the Dead
Dig Me No Grave
The Song of a Mad Minstrel
The Children of the Night
Musings
The Black Stone
The Thing on the Roof
The Dweller in Dark Valley
The Horror from the Mound
A Dull Sound as of Knocking
People of the Dark
Delenda Est
The Cairn on the Headland
Worms of the Earth
The Symbol
The Valley of the Lost
The Hoofed Thing
The Noseless Horror
The Dwellers Under the Tomb
An Open Window
The House of Arabu

The Man on the Ground
Old Garfield’s Heart
Kelly the Conjure-Man
Black Canaan
To a Woman
One Who Comes at Eventide
The Haunter of the Ring
Pigeons from Hell
The Dead Remember
The Fire of Asshurbanipal
Fragment
Which Will Scarcely Be Understood

Miscellanea

Golnor the Ape
Spectres in the Dark
The House
Untitled Fragment
Appendix
Notes on the Original Howard Texts

There’s currently a 50% Off on preorders at Subterranean, but you need to order five to ten different books costing 150$ or less.

After a long delay, the third and final Wandering Star Conan volume has been released.

Well, the wait is finally over! Five long years after it was originally supposed to appear, Conan of Cimmeria, Volume 3 has been released and those who preordered their copies from The Book Palace or Terence McVicker should have them in their hands and on their shelves by now. For those who have been collecting this series of beautiful limited editions by Wandering Star over the years, this is a tremendous relief, as it seemed for a while that the Conan volumes were doomed to suffer the same fate as the incomplete Donald Grant Conan series from the 1970′s. Now, with Wandering Star focusing its efforts fully on the big screen rather the printed page, it is possible to step back and take a look at the most ambitious, most beautifully illustrated, most accurately edited, and certainly the most expensively priced series of Howard’s works ever produced.

The first Robert E. Howard book published by Wandering Star was The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane in 1998. Lavishly illustrated by Gary Gianni and edited by Rusty Burke and Patrice Louinet, this beautiful slipcased volume came with a audio CD recording of “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” and prints of the interior color plates. All the copies were numbered and signed by Gianni and there were three versions created: the standard Limited Edition of one thousand fifty copies, the Publisher’s Edition of one hundred copies with extra illustrations, and the Leatherbound edition of fifty copies which was not sold to the public. The original purpose behind Wandering Star’s production of this book was to have a visual and textual package that could be given to producers, directors, and studio executives in order to help pitch the concept of a Solomon Kane movie. Soon, however, they decided to continue to produce more limited editions, with the lofty goal of eventually publishing all of Howard’s major works in such a format. The series promised to deliver Howard’s verse and prose not only in an aesthetically pleasing presentation, but also in the most textually-pure format possible.

The second book in the series was The Ultimate Trimuph, a collection of Howard’s stories and letters with “barbarism” as their theme and illustrated with sketches and paintings by the legendary Frank Frazetta. It was released in 1999 in an unnumbered trade edition, a regular Limited Edition of one thousand fifty numbered copies and a Leatherbound edition of fifty copies. At the time of publication, Frazetta was unable to sign the Limited Edition and Leatherbound editions due to a recent stroke, though several years later he signed and hand-numbered one hundred twenty-five copies of the Limited Edition that were sold through his museum.

The Savage Tales of Solomon was the first Wandering Star volume and came with numerous extras.

2001 saw the publication of Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, illustrated by Gary Gianni, and again released in a trade edition as well as signed/numbered Limited and Leatherbound editions. Like the Solomon Kane volume, it included an audio CD with a recording of “Worms of the Earth.”

The following year, Howard fans finally had something for which they had been waiting a long time, as Wandering Star published Conan of Cimmeria, Volume 1. After decades of seeing Conan stories that had been poorly edited, modified, completed, and rewritten by the likes of L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and even the well-intentioned Donald Grant, fans of Howard’s most famous character would finally be getting all of the Conan material in its purest form beginning with this, the first of three proposed volumes. Illustrated by Mark Schulz, it was available in a regular Limited Edition of 1050, an Artist’s Edition of 100 copies with extra illustrations (preliminary sketches), and of course the Leatherbound Edition of 50 copies  –  all signed and numbered. Gary Gianni returned to illustrate Conan of Cimmeria, Volume 2, published in 2004 in the same three formats. The third volume, illustrated by Gregory Manchess, was scheduled to be published the following year. But unfortunately for Wandering Star, something happened the previous year that would keep these Conan limited editions from flying off the shelves.

In 2003, the first volume of Conan stories was reprinted by Del Rey in a mass market trade paperback complete with the Mark Schultz illustrations (though the color plates were reproduced in black and white). This was an historic moment as it meant that not only would Bob Howard be back on bookstore shelves and reaching an audience greater than any since the 1970’s, but it would also be with a textual integrity as close as possible to the author’s original intent. Re-titled as The Coming of Conan, this paperback edition was a long-earned triumph for the Howard purists and was truly a break-though moment. For the investment-minded collector, however, it meant that there would be less demand for the Wandering Star Limited Editions, as the Howard fan with shallower pockets could now acquire the same content at a fraction of the price. Those copies of the Conan Limited Editions that had not sold by that by point remained for the most part unsold. This was even more of a problem for the second volume which was reprinted by Del Rey as The Bloody Crown of Conan within a few months of the release of the Limited Edition.

The six Wandering Star volumes.

Now high-quality books, with color plates and limited print runs are very expensive to produce and with sales of the Conan volumes languishing, Wandering Star had a problem. The third Conan volume had been edited, the illustrations by Gregory Manchess were completed, but the funds to actually put together the final product were apparently not there and would not be unless more copies of the previous volumes sold. As 2005 began to come to close, the third and final Conan Limited Edition had not been published. Del Rey, however, was still on schedule with its mass market version, and it hit the bookstores in November of that year, as The Conquering Sword of Conan. Now this was significant for collectors, as it meant that even when and if Wandering Star published their third volume, it would not be the true first edition  -   that honor was now held by the Del Rey paperback. This created a vicious cycle, as Wandering Star needed more of the previous volumes to sell in order to produce the final volume, but no one who had not already bought the first two volumes wanted to commit to the series when it looked like it might not be completed. Those who had already committed, began to get nervous, as they had already shelled out considerable money  for a series that remained unfinished.

As several years went by, Del Rey continued to publish trade paperbacks with reprints of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, but nothing was heard from Wandering Star. They seemed to have given up on book publishing and turn their sights on their original goal of producing a Solomon Kane movie. Finally, in 2007 it was announced that Subterranean Press would be taking over the duties of publishing the Limited Editions of Howard’s works, including the third Conan volume. Those who had two-thirds of the Conan set sitting on their shelves could breathe a sigh of relief. While it was being published by a different company and might not match the design of the other two exactly, at least it was being finished. Relief, however, once again turned to frustration as it was announced the following year that Subterranean Press had been blocked by Wandering Star from publishing the final Conan. Subterranean would instead move on to the next book in the series, Kull: Exile of Atlantis, and the Conan set would remain incomplete.

Several months later, however, the reason for Wandering Star’s actions became clear. They were finally going to come out with the third volume Conan volume themselves, though it would be financed by UK bookseller, The Book Palace, one of the few authorized dealers to carry the previous volumes. For those like myself who had committed to all of the previous volumes, this news was greeted with tremendous relief and anticipation as now a sense of closure could be reached. I must admit, however, I would remain a bit dubious, given the roller coaster ride this volume had taken, until the book was actually in my hands. That moment finally came, I am happy to say, a few weeks ago and I am incredibly pleased with the result.

The third volume is just as nice as the previous Wandering Star editions, and though it is technically published by The Book Palace, it matches the other Conan volumes perfectly. Once again it was published in three signed/numbered formats: regular Limited Edition, Artist’s Edition, and Leatherbound, though the regular Limited Edition would only have 1000 copies rather than 1050, which means there will always be a few incomplete sets out there. My only complaint (and it is a minor one), is that the Artist’s Edition has the extra preliminary sketches included as plates in a separate portfolio rather than bound in the volume as in the previous editions. This is no doubt due to the fact that an Artist’s Edition was not originally planned and was added at the last minute. I can understand that, but I can not help but feel a little cheated, as the actual Artist’s Edition book is no different in content than the regular Limited Edition. This minor fact, however, is dwarfed by the immense pleasure I now get at seeing all three Conan volumes together on my shelf.

With this completed, Wandering Star is out of the book business and concentrating full-time on making movies of Howard’s characters with Solomon Kane (2009) already released and a Bran Mak Morn film in the works. Subterranean Press will now be the the torchbearer for limited editions of Howard’s works, and judging from their Kull volume, and the recently released Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1, it appears that the tradition is in good hands. For collectors who speculated on these books, hoping they would all shoot up in value (like the Solomon Kane volume initially did), they might not have been the best investment, but for those like myself who simply love nice, high-quality books with beautiful illustrations in the tradition of the N.C. Wyeth volumes of the early 20th century, they were money well-spent. This is one Howard fan who tips his fedora to Wandering Star with much gratitude for what they managed to accomplish.