<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Robert E. Howard (Robert Ervin Howard), the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, was born in January 1906 in Peaster, Texas, the son of Dr. Isaac Mordecai Howard, a country doctor, and Hester Jane Ervin Howard. They moved several times during Robert's life, finally settling in Cross Plains, Texas—the small town with which he is most identified—in 1919.

Howard was adept at many action-adventure forms, including detective fiction, historical adventure, westerns, boxing stories, horror, and even poetry, and many consider him the 20th century's most important writer of sword and sorcery. While Conan is his most prominent character, his other enduring creations include King Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Breckinridge Elkins, El Borak, and Steve Costigan.

He also contributed to the loosely constructed Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft via tales such as "The Black Stone" (in which he created the arcane book Nameless Cults—later known as Unaussprechlichen Kulten).

Many of his most famous stories appeared in the legendary magazine Weird Tales, but his work also appeared in Action Stories, Argosy, Fight Stories, Oriental Stories, Spicy Adventure, Sport Story, Strange Detective and others. His work has endured in part due to his vivid storytelling and intense characters, making him one of the most influential writers of the era. He actively corresponded with many of his contemporaries, including H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Tevis Clyde Smith, and E. Hoffman Price.

Howard was an avid reader, and at the age of 15 he submitted his first story for publication. While he was in high school two of his stories won cash prizes and appeared in the school newspaper, and he finally made a professional sale to Weird Tales when he was 18—the adventure "Spear and Fang." His first Bran Mak Morn story, "Men of the Shadows," appeared in 1926, and the first Solomon Kane story, "Red Shadows," in 1928, Kull appeared in 1929 ("The Shadow Kingdom"), as did Costigan ("The Pit of the Serpent"), Conan in 1932 ("The Phoenix on the Sword"), and Elkins in 1934 ("Mountain Man").

Howard never married, though he did have a close friendship (and off-and-on romance) with schoolteacher Novalyne Price, and their relationship was the subject of her autobiographical book One Who Walked Alone, which became the basis of the outstanding film The Whole Wide World, starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Renee Zellweger.

Howard himself seemed fearful of old age, and his mother was ill for much of his life—her family had a history of tuberculosis. In 1935–1936 her health deteriorated, and she was hospitalized frequently.

Determined not to outlive his mother, Howard planned his own death for quite some time, and made arrangements with his agent, Otis Kline, carefully organizing the manuscripts he had yet to submit. He borrowed a gun—a .380 Colt automatic—and when Hester Howard entered her final coma in June 1936, Howard left the house, sat in his 1935 Chevy, and shot himself. He died Thursday, June 11, 1936, and his mother died the following day.

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