The Blade of Conan


The Blade of Conan is a 1979 collection of essays edited by L. Sprague [de Camp], published in paperback by Ace Books. The material was originally published as articles in George H. Scithers' fanzine Amra. The book is a companion to Ace's later volume of material from Amra, The [Spell of Conan]. Most of the material in the two volumes, together with some additional material, was reprinted from three previous books issued in hardcover by Mirage Press; de Camp's collection The Conan Reader, and the de Camp and Scithers-edited anthologies The Conan Swordbook. and The Conan Grimoire.

Summary

The book consists of thirty-one pieces, mostly essays on fantasy writer Robert E. Howard and his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, Howard's sources and literary successors, and other fantasy authors such as E. R. Eddison, A. Merritt and Talbot Mundy.

Contents

  • “Swords and Sorcery”
  • “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian”
  • “Ocean Trade in the Hyborian Age”
  • “Hyborian Technology”
  • “The Real Hyborian Age”
  • “Lord of the Black Throne”
  • “The Art of Robert Ervin Howard”
  • “Memories of R.E.H.”
  • “Conan on Crusade”
  • “A Gent from Cross Plains”
  • “Editing Conan”
  • “Howard’s Detective Stories”
  • “Howard and the Races”
  • “The Case for Solomon Kane”
  • “Stirrups and Scholarship”
  • “Howard’s Cthuloid Tales”
  • “Controlled Anachronism”
  • “The Novels of Eric Rücker Eddison”
  • “Hyborians, Be Seated ”
  • “Mundy’s Vendhya”
  • “Titivated Romance”
  • “Weapons of Choice I”
  • “Weapons of Choice II”
  • “On Weapons of Choice and/or Necessity”
  • “Son of Weapons of Choice and/or Necessity”
  • “Range”
  • “Sublimated Bloodthirstiness”
  • “And as for the Admixture of Cultures on Imaginary Worlds”
  • “Ranging Afterthoughts”
  • “Arming the Incomplete Enchanter”
  • “The Complete Duelist”
  • “Rearming the Incomplete Enchanter”