The Conan Swordbook


The Conan Swordbook is a 1969 collection of essays edited by L. Sprague [de Camp] and George H. Scithers, published in hardcover by Mirage Press. The essays were originally published as articles in Scithers' fanzine Amra. The book is a companion to Mirage's other two volumes of material from Amra, The Conan Reader and The Conan Grimoire. Most of the material in the three volumes, together with some additional material, was later reprinted in two de Camp-edited paperback anthologies from Ace Books; The [Blade of Conan] and The [Spell of Conan].

Summary

The book consists of twenty-nine 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 Talbot Mundy, E. R. Eddison, Edgar Rice Burroughs and A. Merritt. Some original material by Howard is also included.

Contents

  • “Swords and Sorcery”
  • “Letter to Harold Preece”
  • “Letter to August Derleth”
  • “The Art of Robert Ervin Howard”
  • “A Gent from Cross Plains”
  • “Who Were the AEsir?”
  • “Who Was Crom?”
  • “Lord of the Black Throne”
  • “Conan of the Khyber Rifles”
  • “Howard’s Detective Stories”
  • “Conan on Crusade”
  • “Howard’s Cthuloid Tales”
  • “Editing Conan”
  • “The Novels of Eric Rücker Eddison”
  • “John Carter: Sword of Theosophy”
  • “Hyborians, Be Seated ”
  • “Titivated Romance”
  • “Controlled Anachronism”
  • “…And Strange-Sounding Names”
  • “Weapons of Choice ”
  • “Weapons of Choice ”
  • “Weapons of Choice and/or Necessity”
  • “Range”
  • “Sublimated Bloodthirstiness”
  • “And as for the Admixture of Cultures on Imaginary Worlds”
  • “Response”
  • “Ranging Afterthoughts”
  • “Ocean Trade in the Hyborian Age”
  • “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian”