Robert E. Howard was born in Texas on January 22, 1906. His father was a
doctor and early on in Howard's life the family moved frequently and
lived throughout western Texas. Howard spent the last few years of his
life in Cross Plains, Texas, near Brownwood.
Robert began writing at fifteen and sold his first story three years
later while a college student. The story, 'Spear and Fang' was published
in "Weird Tales" magazine in July, 1925. While "Weird Tales" continued
to publish Howard's stories throughout his short writing career, 'WT' was
not the only pulp magazine to buy his work. He invented a number of
strong, swashbuckling, even barbaric characters and wrote stories about
boxers (a favorite hobby of his) with 'Sailor Steve Costigan' and his
adventures in the far east, as well as tales of the early west such as
his 'Breckenridge Elkins' series, just to list a few of his interests.
His most famous heroes, however, came from the dark past of Earth's
history. He wrote of Bran Mak Morn, king of the picts and King Kull of
Valusia, but perhaps his most well known character was Conan of Cimmeria,
the mighty barbarian who knew no fear and fought his way across ancient
realms to both win and lose kingdoms of his own.
In 1928, Howard began writing tales of 'Solomon Kane,' an English Puritan
who was an accomplished swordsman and duelist, and traveled the world
attempting to avenge evil and destroy all enemies of good and decent
peoples. Kane's adventures took him to deepest Africa where he
discovered worlds of unknown magic, primitive ancient gods and their
worshipers.
"Weird Tales" was still publishing his stories when Howard died
unexpectedly on June 11, 1936. He was only thirty years old but left
behind an enormous amount of written work which is still being reprinted
and read by millions of readers, all over the world.