Line #71 Creator/RobertEHoward


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/robert_e_howard.jpg]]
2
3	->''"Money and muscle, that’s what I want; to be able to do any damned thing I want and get away with it. Money won’t do that altogether, because if a man is a weakling, all the money in the world won’t enable him to soak an enemy himself; on the other hand, unless he has money he may not be able to get away with it."''
4
5	Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936) was a writer and poet from Texas.
6
7	He wrote short stories and poems spanning several genres, including HeroicFantasy, {{Western}}, CosmicHorror and HistoricalFiction. He was the TropeMaker for the genres LowFantasy, DarkFantasy and SwordAndSorcery -- which, in fact, received its name from a discussion of what the genre that a Howard story was should be called. Along with Creator/JRRTolkien, he is one of the most influential writers in modern fantasy. His life was the subject of the 1996 film ''Film/TheWholeWideWorld''.
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9	Howard was a friend and correspondent of Creator/HPLovecraft and one of the contributors to the original Franchise/CthulhuMythos. It was an OddFriendship: The erudite New Englander and backwoods Texan boy, with diametrically opposed philosophies about. . . well, everything. While Lovecraft felt that human concerns and powers were utterly irrelevant to the universe at large (the foundational cornerstone of CosmicHorror), Howard felt that humanity could overcome anything (especially themselves) so long as they held barbarism in their heart. (An EldritchAbomination appears in a Lovecraft story, anyone present will die or go insane, and the person who lived to tell the story probably wasn't even there. An EldritchAbomination appears in a Howard story, Conan will probably sword it to death.) Lovecraft liked technology and civilization, Howard most emphatically did not. But the two actually bonded over their differences, challenging each others' worldviews and forcing honest evaluation which only strengthened them.
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11	His most well-known creation is Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian, a character that has greatly overshadowed his creator.
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13	Howard committed suicide with a gun at the age of 30, after his ailing mother fell into an irrecoverable coma and he was told she would never wake again. She died shortly after.
14	----
15	!!Works
16
17	Notable characters created by Howard include (sorted by approximate internal chronology):
18	[[index]]
19	* Literature/{{Kull}}, exile of Atlantis and king of Valusia.
20	* [[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Conan]], a barbarian from Cimmeria who would become king of Aquilonia. Many other works have been written about him, but the complete, canonical stories are:
21	** Literature/ThePhoenixOnTheSword
22	** "Literature/TheFrostGiantsDaughter"
23	** "Literature/TheGodInTheBowl"
24	** "Literature/TheScarletCitadel"
25	** "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant".
26	** "Literature/BlackColossus"
27	** "Literature/XuthalOfTheDusk"
28	** "Literature/ThePoolOfTheBlackOne"
29	** "Literature/TheValeOfLostWomen"
30	** "Literature/RoguesInTheHouse"
31	** "Literature/IronShadowsInTheMoon"
32	** "Literature/QueenOfTheBlackCoast".
33	** "Literature/TheDevilInIron"
34	** "Literature/ThePeopleOfTheBlackCircle"
35	** "Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn"
36	** "Literature/TheBlackStranger"
37	** "Literature/TheServantsOfBitYakin"
38	** "Literature/BeyondTheBlackRiver"
39	** "Literature/ManEatersOfZamboula"
40	** "Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon"
41	** "Literature/RedNails"
42	** "Literature/TheHyborianAge"
43	* Literature/BranMakMorn, king of the Picts.
44	* [[/index]]Cormac Mac Art: An Irish pirate during the time of Myth/KingArthur.
45	* Turlogh Dubh [=O'Brien=], a Gaelic outlaw.[[index]]
46	* ''Literature/TheShadowOfTheVulture'' -- ComicBook/RedSonja was not actually created by Howard, she was inspired by a "Red Sonya" who hailed from Ukraine in that short story Howard wrote.
47	* Franchise/SolomonKane, a British Puritan who wanders the world, facing enemies both human and supernatural.
48	* [[/index]]Esau Cairn, an Earthman who became a hero on the distant planet of ''Almuric''.
49	* Black Terrence Vulmea, an Irish pirate.
50	* Breckenridge Elkins: A 19th century MountainMan, PlayedForLaughs and, although not well known now, at the time of his death, Howard's most popular character.
51	* Dark Agnes de Chastillion, a swashbuckling noblewoman from 16th century France.
52	* The Sonora Kid, a Western [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]]
53	* Sailor Steve Costigan, amateur boxer, champion of the ''Sea Girl'' (the fightin'est ship afloat) and scourge of waterfronts across the Asiatics. One of Howard's more humorous protagonists.
54	[[/index]]
55
56	Many of Howard's works (including some juvenalia) are available [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Author:Robert_Ervin_Howard here]]
57	----
58	!!Artists that were influenced by Robert Howard's works include:
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60	* Music/BalSagoth, whose name is derived from the Howard short story ''The Gods of Bal-Sagoth''.
61	* Creator/FritzLeiber in the description of lush, sensuous oriental civilizations which he employed to great effect in his Lankhmar stories.
62	* Creator/KarlEdwardWagner
63	* Creator/TerryPratchett who created the famous Cohen the Barbarian for Literature/{{Discworld}}
64	* Creator/MichaelMoorcock, a big fan of his work who designed the titular character in ''Literature/TheElricSaga'' to be a SpiritualAntithesis to Conan.
65	----
66	!!Robert Howard's stories (that do not have their own articles on this wiki) include examples of:
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68	* ActionGirl: Howard created quite a few badass female protagonists most notably Valeria, Dark Agnes and Red Sonya of Rogatino.
69	* AssholeVictim: Murderous sailor John Kulrec in "The Sea Curse".
70	* BornInTheWrongCentury: Esau Cairn of ''Almuric'' is a Conan-like figure who is described by Howard as being born out of his epoch, a man of great strength and intelligence who was nevertheless ill-fitted to life in a "machine-made civilization."
71	* TheButcher: Skol the Butcher from "The Blood of Belshazzar".
72	* CallASmeerpARabbit: In "The Valley of the Worm", the narrator states that it's not that the titular creature resembled a worm that much, It's just that it resembled other things less.
73	* CanonWelding: Howard did this a lot with his historical, horror and fantasy stories. Just to name a few examples: Literature/{{Kull}} was explicitly tied with Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian in the essay "The Hyborian Age". Both were tied to the historical-fantasy character Literature/BranMakMorn through the Kull-Bran crossover "Kings of the Night". The ring of Thoth-Amon from the Conan stories, and worshipers of Bran Mak Morn, both featured in Howard's modern horror stories, while both Bran and Kull are mentioned in one of his Turlogh Dubh O'Brien stories set in the 13th century. It wouldn't be unreasonable to consider all of Howard's speculative fiction to be part of [[TheVerse the same verse]], even if Howard never lived to point it out himself. And of course Howard and Creator/HPLovecraft making references to each-others in their works was the foundation of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.
74	* CreatorThumbprint: [[RatedMForManly Manliness]], those manly men getting [[{{Gorn}} in touch with their inner barbarian]], Irish or Irish-American manly men (even Conan is, within the Howard mythology, an ancestor of the Irish) and in modern-day stories, manly men named Steve. [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent Repellent reptiles.]]
75	* CrossOver: The story ''Kings of the Night'' stars Kull crossing over into the world of Brak Mak Morn.
76	* DiedDuringProduction: Many of Howard's incomplete drafts were picked up by other writers, such as Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, and turned into complete stories.
77	* DumbMuscle: Breckenridge Elkins will sometime forgets nature omitted to give him a brain to go with all his muscles. When an Englishman hunter asks him if he really hunts grizzly bears only with his revolver and Elkins says he can but sometime he has to finish the job with the butt of the revolver.
78	* FeministFantasy: Dark Agnes de Chastillon's stories in particular can be seen as early examples of this trope.
79	* GoneSwimmingClothesStolen: Happens to Breckenridge Elkins, leading to a situation where he gets [[MistakenForSpecialGuest mistaken for a prizefighter]].
80	* GoodOldFisticuffs: He wrote a lot of non-supernatural stories about boxers and other fist-fighters, usually with titles like "Circus Fists" and "Waterfront Fists."
81	* HopelessSuitor: Breckenridge Elkins to most girls he courts. It's a testament of the other guys' resolve that they pursue their romance despite Breckenridge beating them to a pulp or shooting at their house as warning to back off.
82	* LoopholeAbuse: Lopez from "The Horror From The Mound" swore inviolable oaths to his father never to speak of the Mound's curse to anyone but his own eldest son. But when Brill suggests he ''write down'' the secret instead of say it, Lopez has no problem with that.
83	%%* TheMorlocks: The Children of the Night are a stunted variation.
84	* MountainMan: Breckenridge Elkins and his whole family in Bear Creek. At first an Englishman asks Breckenridge if his giant size is unique only to meet his family and see it's pretty much the norm, Breckenridge is just the biggest and strongest one. Breckenridge's pa quit civilization after losing to the yankee (or stealing a horse) and now they live off bear meat, corn liquor and selling furs and skins.
85	* NeverMyFault: With a mix of ImplausibleDeniability Breckenridge refuses to take responsibility for his destruction or rampage, either blaming it on losing control of his strength, civilized folks being too weak to take a stove to the face or it wasn't on purpose.
86	%%* OutlawTown: Bab-el-Shaitan ("the Gate of the Devil") in the story "The Blood of Belshazzar".
87	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: "Pigeons From Hell" featured a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuvembie "zuvembie"]], which name was later used by Creator/MarvelComics for its voodoo-based zombie-like creatures (who couldn't be called such due to MediaNotes/TheComicsCode.)
88	* PlanetaryRomance: ''Almuric''. An Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs-style adventure, but with a Howard hero.
89	* TheTropeKid: The Sonora Kid
90	* TheVerse: Conan and Kull both exist in the same history. Also, in "Kings of the Night" Kull is brought forward to help Bran Mac Morn who is implied to be the reincarnation of Kull's friend Brule. And Conan's sorcerous foe Thoth-Amon's ring from ''The Phoenix on the Sword'' appears in the John Kirowan story ''The Haunter of the Ring''. And many of Howard's other stories likewise touch upon their place in the Franchise/CthulhuMythos.
91	* WalkingTheEarth: de Montour, from "Wolfshead".

Context Creator / RobertEHoward