Robert Howard Doesn't Commit Suicide

What if the author Robert Howard did not commit suicide upon learning of the impending death of his mother (who he was rather close to, possibly due to his abusive father)?

Here's a bio for the those of us who don't know who he is

http://www.crossplains.com/howard/

Might he have lived long enough to see the "Conan" films, and possibly influence their creation? Could his lesser-known heroic characters such as Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane get farther than they did in OTL?

Here's a little timeline:

1934: Pawling & Ness Ltd. not gone into receivership and Howard's first book "The Hour of the Dragon" is released, establishing a fairly broad fanbase, especially in England.

1936: Howard's mother dies. Doward goes into a deep depression. Sales hit an all time high. In late August, he is commited to psychiatric care.

1938: Howard finally emerges from his depression after three appempted suicides. His friends all speak of a total change in personality, cynical and with a bleak, pitch black outlook on life. He leaves his old life behind and moves to the rural town of Walfordshire, England, leaving Texas and North America behind, to begin a new path in life. Fans of "The Hour of the Dragon" welcome him.

1939: Howard returns to writing. In june he finishes a depressing novel about a paedophile parent entitled "The hidden child - The abusing parent" based upon his own experiences. The book is a smash hit, and Howard sporadically send his manuscripts to Wierd Tales and Action Stories. Beacuse of the outbreak of war in september, paper rationing hits Howard and the rest of the writing community in England, somewhat crippeling his writing ablilities.

1940: Howard meets JRR Tolkein. He starts an eight book epic about Conan The Barbarian entitled "The Conan Chronicles", later to be released by Pawling & Ness Ltd. It has about the same quantity as all of the Lord Of The Rings books put togheter (including "The hobbit", "Silmarillion" etc) and turns the world of Conan the Barbarian dark, thus establishing a dark element in fantasy much earlier than in OTL.

The effect of this is that much more gothic literature gets established much earlier, giving authors like HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe a much broader audience. CS Lewis and Tolkien is also somewhat influensed by this, but much of their work is written the same whay they did get in OTL. During the war, the stories of Bran Mak Morn, the Pictish chieftain, becomes a smash hit in britain, boosting morale among the english as they can identify with the pics fighting off foreign invaders, just the they do in the heigt of the blitz and dunkirk etc etc.

So, what happens after this?

Bran Mak Morn inspiring the British in the face of continental despotism? That's a pretty good idea, sort of like how Churchill gave a speech honoring Boudicea (her monument meaning "liberty or death").

That's a good timeline thus far. However, I thought Howard kinda always had a bleak outlook on life; supposedly Lovecraft (who believed there was no God and no hope) found him a kindred spirit.

Howard was born in 1902-ish, so if the Conan films are made sometime around OTL (late 1970s early 1980s), he might be alive, and mentally sharp enough to have an influence on them.

Of course, if Howard is more popular, his works might be made into films earlier, perhaps in the 1950s or 60s. I'm guessing the late 1960s, since a lot of them were too hard-core in the sex and violence departments for the 1950s.

Tolkein was intensely Catholic. I see the interaction between Howard and him to be weak and mutually disdainful.

How about a love interest for Howard--Alissa Rosenbaum? IIRC she's a few years younger.

Robert Ervin Howard and Ayn Rand? You're kidding right? Altho....

"..Goody Twoshoes and the Filthy Beast?..."

I also agree that any association between him and Tolkien would be unproductive. Howard was a functioning American "pulp" writer who, while generally several notches above his contemporaries, could write potboilers that were exactly that. Tolkien was an Oxford don and contemporary of C.S. Lewis, whose ambition was to rewrite English Mythology

Even if Howard wasn't draft age he might still probably join the military like every other able-bodied American/Brit in WWII. Probably becoming an info officer. As part of that function he has to deal with Intelligence and becomes friends with a young OSS operative named Ian Fleming. The two stay in touch.

After the war he returns to America. He goes into a sort of semi-retirement as most of his earlier works have fallen victim to the paper drives and his new darker Conan doesn't seem to attact his old readership. Pulp fiction was in bad times then (1945-50) as the publishing industry was going through lots of changes. In addition, the racist characterics and consequent reputation of much of his 30's stories don't seem to carry well into the post war world. In 1950, however, he is hired on by Bill Gaines and joins the staff of EC Comics.

Here he works on the darker stories he wants to write. In 1951 Conan the Barbarian joins Moon Girl as EC's only ongoing 'hero' lines. The artist is Harvey Kurtzman and the book rapidly becomes EC's flagship. Conan is darker now, more amoral. A true 'antihero' type. This is unusual in the 1950's and the stories attract some serious critical attention to the comic book genre.

Alas, they only help to give fuel to Dr Wertham's famous and censorious fires. When EC ceases publication of all comics in 1953, Kurtzman offers Howard a job in the staff of MAD magazine. Howard creates the comic parody of "Conan the Librarian" as an ongoing character who becomes quite popular, even to getting two paperbacks published for collectors later on. However, he never quite jells with the other writers and leaves in 1955.

Howard uses his still ongoing friendship with the now well known Ian Fleming to sponsor a movie on Solomon Kane after failing to pitch it as an ongoing serial for television. It is notable only as being the first starring vehicle for a newcomer, Lee Marvin. Howard continues to turn out a series of Westerns for the Dream Factory. All of these are very forgettable, but successful enough to move Howard’s house next to John Wayne’s in Beverly Hills. As this happens, the Conan stories are just beginning their resurgence in popularity.

In 1965 Conan the Barbarian is released. Directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Lee Marvin. Peckinpah’s overstated violence is a perfect match to Marvin’s understated surliness for Howard’s amoral antihero, a type then just at its height of popularity. The film wins Four Academy Awards, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture and, of course, Best Writer for Robert E. Howard..

He’s now 59, rich and famous. Anyone want to continue? Or do you see a darker or just different life as more appropriate?

I've always been ambivelant about REH... I love his stories, but he had some appalling racist views. From what I've read about his life, if he had lived longer, he would probably have gotten out of fantasy fiction. Towards the end of his life, REH was writing more and more westerns and (believe it or not) humorous fiction (if you ever get a chance to read the Bear Creek stories, do so... they are hilarious). While he might have written one or two more Conan stories (or finished the ones he left half written), it's noteworthy that Conan wasn't all that popular until the 60's.... it's hard to see why REH would have stuck with that series. One of the big questions about REH is what he would have been like if he had lived until the late 50's, when the civil rights movement started taking off....

I take the possibly cynical point of view that if you've made a serious suicide attempt once sooner or later you'll succeed. If it hadn't been his mother, something else would have put him over the edge. I also suspect that we ascribe Howard an inflated place in the history of fantasy. I suppose the best known pre-war American fantasy writer was Cabell, now virtually forgotten. But looking back we ignore this strand, concentrating on the magazines. And for this, we take Howard as a symbol for all the writers who contributed to the pulps. Perhaps factors like his early death and the Lovecraft link contributed. Had he lived longer, he would just have kept churning them out, moving from theme to theme as public taste shifted.

I can't see any influence resulting either way between Tolkien and Howard. The interesting thing about the great British fantasy writers was how intensely personal their work was. It was written, not for a market, but with themselves in mind. None was a professional. Eddison was a civil servant, Tolkien an academic, Peake an artist. And all of their invented worlds are thoroughly dissimilar. Tolkien owed quite a bit to Eddison, but the tone is completely different. You couldn't have characters like Eddison's Horius Parry or Corinius in Tolkien. Both were villains but heroic ones- that to Tolkien, would have been a contradiction in terms. Parry- wife killer, brother killer, poisoner, murderer many times over. But he's got style. The hero is chained to the dungeon wall. Parry visits him: "Let me remember you of Prince Valero, him that betrayed Argyanna a few years since to them of Ulba and led that revolt against me. The Gods delivered him into my hand. Know you the manner of his end, cousin? No: for none knew it but only I and my four deaf mutes you wot of, that were here at the doing on't, and I have told no man of it till now. Do you see that hook in the ceiling? I'll not weary you with particulars, cousin. I fear 'twas not without some note and touch of cruelty. Such a pretty toying wit had I. But we've washed the flagstones since."

That's what I like. A villain who enjoys being a villain.

That sounds cool Prunesquallor what's the name of that?

Did Robert Howard write comics or books?

Michael-

E R Eddison. (1882-1945). English civil servant, wrote as a hobby. Fantasy-
THE WORM OUROBOROS (1922)
THE ZIMIAMVIA TRILOGY- MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES (1935), A FISH DINNER IN MEMISON (1941), THE MEZENTIAN GATE (posthumously published, uncompleted, 1958). Fuller text- ZIMIAMVIA, A TRILOGY (1992).
These books are not to everyone's taste (to put it mildly) and a lot of people who like OUROBORUS dont like ZIMIAMVIA (and vice versa).

The quote comes from MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES, the trilogy is about political intrigue in an imaginary world. It's all very theatrical because, in a sense, the characters are only puppets. All worlds are made by the God for the pleasure of the Goddess who's devised them and in these worlds they play their parts. Sometimes they're conscious of their true identities. M OF M opens a few months after the death of the great King Mezentius who's left behind a legitimate heir and a much abler bastard son, Barganax. Horius Parry, the King's Vicar in Rerek, is sniffing around to see what he can pick up. The "Overture" begins with the death of Edward Lessingham in his personal kingdom in the Lofotens. He's in his eighties but has spent the night with his mistress. The action then shifts to Zimiamvia where a young man called Lessingham is involved in Parry's activities.

comics, as in comic books? Don't think so. He did write two novel length stories that I know of (Almuric and Hour of the Dragon/Conan the Conquerer). He also wrote a series of connected humerous short stories about the old west (the Bear Creek stories) that make up an episodic novel. REH had variable writing skills; some of his stories are fascinating and have memorable scenes... others are just purely bad...

"Worms of the Earth" (which can be found in Nameless Cults: The Cthulhu Mythos Fiction of Robert Howard) is one of the best stories he wrote, in my humble opinion.

If I ever go into film, I'd like to make it into a movie...certain paragraphs could be 10-15 minute scenes in their own right.

Howard was rather racist; though he had sympathetic black and Hispanic characters, he inevitably had hordes of black people worshipping the demon-gods or whatever. Plus his portrayal of the Tuatha de Danaan (the descendants of the pre-Celtic peoples of Ireland) smack of racial stereotypes of monstrous non-whites chasing white women.

Howard wrote lots of short stories for pulp magazines like "Weird Tales" (which is still in existence...go to www.dnapublications.com) and a bunch of ones that don't exist. I don't think he ever wrote comics.

I remember a previous thread a few mths back on an American fascism based on such writers Robert Howard- in TTL, how would a surviving Howard with imnmense success thru Conan etc have affected American race relations etc ?

Melvin,

I think in that thread, we dicussed having Robert Howard and Lovecraft, among others, serve as propagandist for a hypothetical US fascist government. Howard's heroes were always big Nordic guys (Bran Mak Morn, Conan, Solomon Kane, etc); if the US gov't was having issues with Japan, his villains could be "evil yellow men."

Howard No Exception....

I keep reading remarks in various posts throughout this thread about Howard's racism. I feel the need to point out the fact that he did write during the 1920's and 1930's and he was more the rule than the exception in regards to racism in his stories. Considering his propensity to educate himself I don't find it unreasonable to assume that if he did not committ suicide he may well have grown beyond his Texas roots.

Besides, if you've ever read many of his stories it becomes quite clear that tyrants and evil men in his stories aren't all non-whites. In "The Hour of the Dragon" Conan fights against "white men" in the form of Aquilonians and other Hyperboreans who just as capable of tyranny and despotism as any "Eastern Prince". I detect more of a disdain for the hypocrisy of so-called "civilization" and a love of the purity of "barbarism". Despite gaining a more cosmopolitan viewpoint later in his life(i.e. "The Hour of the Dragon"), he still adheres to "barbaric" sense of honor, justice and self-reliance. Give Howard's writings another read, though Oriental Despots are hated and feared they are hardly the only ones.

Raastin said:

Considering his propensity to educate himself I don't find it unreasonable to assume that if he did not committ suicide he may well have grown beyond his Texas roots.

Click to expand...

A Texan grown beyond his Texas roots?! That would be a Weird Tale.

If you read his stories, you can see that Howard's racism was given over to stereotypes. Asians are sinister, blacks are either lazy and uneducated or superstitious and given to the worship of evil sorcerers, and Arabs/persians are fanatic and cruel. OTOH, Howard seemed to rather admire Native Americans, and wrote at least one story I recall from their viewpoint. He also had several admirable people from assorted races. The Conan stories feature several black warriors who are tough and honorable, and one of his pirate stories features a black chieftain who earned a great deal of respect (posthumously, of course) from the hero of the tale. Arabs/Persians/Afghans and the like are a mixed lot; many of them seem to be cruel and fanatic, but those allied to his heroes are loyal to the bitter end, dying bravely and all that. Howard seemed to have a penchant for either Nordic or Celtic superiority, and his fictional heroes all reflect that.....