Robert E. Howard
Robert E Howard is best known for his Conan the Barbarian stories, but Robert Howard also made significant contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. The same magazine H.P. Lovecraft is so associated with, Weird Tales, published most of Robert E. Howard's stories. In fact, when Weird Tales gained a new editor in Farnsworth Wright in 1924, Wright began publishing a wider range of stories by new talent like Robert Bloch and Robert Howard. The Conan the Barbarian series became immensely popular with fans.
Robert E Howard and H.P. Lovecraft
The
first Robert E Howard tales to appear in Weird Tales involved
characters like Kull and Solomon Kane, who proved to be a particular hit
with the readers. By 1930, the Solomon Kane series became the first
continuing series for Robert E Howard. In that year, Howard wrote a letter
to the editor of Weird Tales, praising H.P. Lovecraft's use of
obscure Gaelic references in his short story "The Rats in the Walls".
Farnsworth Wright forwarded the letter on to H.P. Lovecraft, which greatly
pleased the author. Soon, Lovecraft and Howard began a letter correspondence
that would last until Howard's death in 1936.
Robert E Howard soon joined the Lovecraft Circle of writers who shared stories with each other and often references each others' creations in their own works. Robert E Howard was soon nicknamed "Two-Gun Bob" by Lovecraft, since the antiquarian New Englander enjoyed Howard's colorful letters with long descriptions of his native Texas. This correspondence involved discussion of their competing worldviews. H.P. Lovecraft viewed civilization as the pinnacle of human achievement. Robert E Howard viewed civilization as corrupt, temporary, and fragile. To Robert E Howard, barbarism ultimately would prevail over civilization. Despite differences that would be voiced more and more as the years passed, Robert E Howard profited from being introduced into the Lovecraft Circle.
Robert E. Howard's Conan
The first Conan the Barbarian story is an example of this influence. Howard first conceived Conan the Barbarian in his travels around Texas in the early 1930s. By 1931, he decided to take an unpublished Kull story and turn it into the first Conan the Barbarian tale, later named "The Phoenix on the Sword". Howard removed a romantic subplot with two minor characters and instead introduced horror elements--a formula that would mark the successful new sword-and-sorcery genre.
Unlike other Robert E. Howard lead characters, the author didn't throw away belief in the character despite initial rejections of his manuscripts. The Depression was being felt in the publishing industry and many publications went out of business. Weird Tales became a biweekly magazine, so opportunities dwindled for writers. Despite this, Robert E Howard would write 9 Conan the Barbarian stories before one of them ever saw print.
The Hyborian Age
Robert E Howard's Hyborian Age came after writing the first three Conan stories. In this journal, the author laid out the detailed background for Conan's world, complete with kingdoms, characters, personal histories, and historical lore. Realms from real world lore such as Hyperborea, Lemuria, and Mu were placed alongside the now-famous realms like Cimmeria, Hyrkania, Aquilonia, and Shem.
Robert E Howard and the Cthulhu Mythos
While Robert E. Howard's world was unique and imaginative, he did occasionally reference a few of the dark gods from H.P. Lovecraft's writing. In a world where sorcery is dangerous and mysterious, references to outer gods that might be worshipped in other times and places fit in perfectly.
One example of these connections is the god of the Serpent Men, the Great Serpent. This deity was associated with the Great Old One Yig created by Zealia Bishop and reworked by H.P. Lovecraft himself.
Solomon Kane
For a author who died at the age of 30, Robert E Howard's characters have had a lasting legacy of fame. Solomon Kane might not be as famous as Conan the Barbarian, but Solomon Kane was popular in his time and is seen in books, games, and films even to this day. Solomon Kane is the rare Puritan hero in literature. His stories are set in the late 16th century and early 17th century.
Solomon Kane travels the world dressed all in black with no ambition but to destroy evil in any form. Kane carries with him flintlock pistols, a cutlass, and a rapier--generally all the weapons he needs to fight evil. Solomon Kane later wields the Staff of Solomon, a staff older than the Earth, but which was given to him by a West African native named N'Longa.
Opponents for Solomon Kane include an evil baron who placed a boy on a gibbet, pirates, Arab slave traders, a city of vampires, Barbary pirates, and a vampire queen. Authors such as Ramsey Campbell, Javier Martin, Gianluigi Zuddas have finished story fragments in the Solomon Kane series, while a Solomon Kane graphic novel and comic book series appeared in the 21st century. A Solomon Kane role-playing game called The Savage World of Solomon Kane was published using the Savage Worlds rules system, while a Rob Zombie video (The Lords of Salem) may have been based on one of the released Solomon Kane comics. Finally, a Solomon Kane film was released in 2009. Actors who played in the movie were James Purefoy (as Solomon Kane), Max von Sydow, Pete Postlethwaite, and Alice Krige.
Robert E Howard's Kull the Conqueror and Bran Mak Morn
As mentioned earlier, Robert E Howard also created Kull the Conqueror and Bran Mak Morn. Kull seems like a pale copy of Conan the Barbarian, but Kull was actually created first. Conan only came about after Kull didn't catch on with the public the way Robert E Howard would have wanted--and the first Conan story was first written as a vehicle for Kull.
Bran Mak Morn is a Robert E. Howard pulp hero of Scottish descent. Bran Mak Morn displays Howard's penchant for heroes from cultures that aren't normally seen as heroic. Where Conan and Kull were heroic barbarians and Solomon Kane was a heroic Puritan, Bran Mak Morn was a heroic Pict. I don't know that I've ever seen Picts depicted as anything but antagonists and murderous savages in any other fiction.
That's the brilliance of Robert E. Howard stories, though. The fiction of Robert E. Howard is gritty and primordial, giving the stories a dynamism you might not see in fiction set in more civilized worlds. People love Conan the Barbarian because he sees evil for what it is--then plunges his sword through it.