Conan the Barbarian of Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg and the surrounding Texas Hill Country has long served as a muse for artists who take inspiration from its natural beauty. Author and creator of Conan the Barbarian Robert E. Howard however was inspired by the land to create a different time and a different world, an era filled with the fantastic, the evil, and the bloodthirsty.
Born to Dr. Isaac Mordecai Howard and his wife Hester Jane Ervin Howard in Peaster, Texas on January 22, 1906, the younger Howard spent most of his early life traveling from boomtown to boomtown where his father served as a traveling county physician. It was in these boomtowns Howard saw firsthand the evils of the world. He witnessed or saw in his father’s office the results of lynching, gunfights, murder, prostitution, and oil field or ranching accidents that left individuals maimed for life or dead. Howard also heard anecdotes from survivors of slavery, raids by hostile indigenous, and the expansion of the west. He began consuming history by reading any book he could get his hands on with his interests running toward – no surprise – the more violent eras of man’s past.
In addition to real world lessons of the worst of society and history, Howard also learned from the literary world. His mother, an avid reader and intellectual, read to Howard or read with Howard every day. She instilled in him a love of reading, poetry, history, and encouraged him to write. Howard’s first attempts at writing came at age nine when he wrote battle scenes featuring such historic fighters as the Vikings and Arab warriors. Despite this fondness for reading and writing, Howard hated school. He found school confining, hated others having authority over him, and was often bullied. The latter became more and more common as Howard’s mother forbid him to fight back.
Howard’s family moved to the small town of Cross Plains, Texas in 1919. The next year saw the town grow tenfold almost overnight when an oil gusher hit. Howard avoided the population growth and the crime and violence that came with it by voraciously reading pulp magazines. He took inspiration from the pulps and began writing stories for them. Although none of the stories he submitted to the pulps during this time were published, characters he created for the stories - such as Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, El Borak, The Sonora Kid - would eventually find their way to publication later in his life.
Howard took his rejection letters to heart and decided to not only read pulp magazines but to actually study them. This plan worked when, in 1924, he sold a story of a fight over a gorgeous woman between a Cro-Magnon man and a Neanderthal entitled Spear and Fang to Weird Tales. Howard decided to become a full-time writer upon receiving word of his first sale. He made his second sale to the magazine only weeks later. Despite this sudden success, Howard still had to work odd jobs to make ends meet. He worked at the Cross Plains newspaper, did odd jobs in gas and oil fields, and worked as a soda jerk all the while crafting stories and sending them off for submission.
Howard got his first cover story at age 20 when Weird Tales published his werewolf story Wolfshead. Shortly after this Howard made a deal with his father that would see him attend the book-keeping program at Howard Payne Business College. Upon completion, the elder Howard would support his son for one year while he tried to make writing a successful career. It was during this time that Howard crafted and Weird Tales published The Shadow Kingdom, a story that featured one of his earlier characters, Kull the Conqueror. This story marked the first time that an author had successfully combined horror, fantasy, mythology, high action, battle scenes, swordplay, extreme violence, and historical romance. This new genre would go on to be called “Sword and Sorcery” and has influenced the creation of everything from Star Wars to Game of Thrones.
A new genre aside, Howard’s most famous creation was conceived during a road trip through Texas in 1932. While in Fredericksburg, he looked out upon the fog cloaked hills to imagine an era he called the Hyborean Age. He drafted a poem about the land entitled Cimmeria that would serve as the home of Conan the Barbarian. Howard’s Conan’s stories took Weird Tales and the world by storm and he turned more out at breakneck speed. In addition, he wrote westerns and cowboy tales that brought him true financial success.
This success was short-lived however as Howard took his own life on June 11, 1936. Only moments after hearing that there was no hope that his hospitalized mother would wake from a coma, Howard walked out to his car and shot himself in the head. His mother died the next day. Why Howard committed suicide has remained a mystery, but most agree that his final act was years in the process. He had suffered depressive episodes most of his life, had commented often on how bleak he felt society truly was, and pondered suicide often.
More than after years after his death, Howard’s work remains insanely popular. His characters live on in books, comics, movies, and games and several authors have expanded on his work.
This piece first appeared in the Fredericksburg Standard in April 2022.