Bibliography
Conan in Weird Tales and books

The December 1932 issue of Weird Tales introduced Conan the Cimmerian. (This first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword”, was actually a rewrite of a rejected Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule!”).

Howard wrote another twenty or so Conan stories, most published in Weird Tales between 1932 and his death in 1936, but some published only in the 1950s and 1960s following a number of successful collections published by Gnome Press. (See The Conan Stories Never Seen In Weird Tales by James van Hise.)

Conan was arrogated by L. Sprague de Camp and others in a series of collections and novels from the mid 1950s to the present. But, as van Hise says, “Other hands have told new tales, but they are just about a character named Conan.”

Most recently, Howard’s canonical tales have been republished in Wandering Star’s collections. In many cases, the stories have been restored based on his original typescripts or carbons. The collections also include many synopses and unfinished drafts.

Weird Tales &c.

In the following list, stories not originally published in Weird Tales are shown in grey text. The order follows The Dark Storm Conan Chronology  by Dale Rippke. The WT covers in the column on the right are the nine that illustrate Conan stories; all are by Margaret Brundage.

Gnome Press

After World War Two the stories were republished by Gnome Press―

The next book, Tales of Conan (collection, 1955), was partly by L. Sprague de Camp, who made revisions and added extra passages of continuity.

This heralded the later explosion of Conan titles, in which Howard’s work – both published and unpublished – was extensively reworked. De Camp and Lin Carter wrote whole new stories – some of which even cannibalized non-Conan tales! – and fitted everything within an original chronology.

The 30 or more titles in the new Conan sequence that began with Conan the Defender (1982) are spinoffs using Howard’s character but none of his text. Some of these are by fantasy authors – such as Poul Anderson, Karl Edward Wagner, and Robert Jordan – who are notable in their own right.

Of course, there are die-hard purists who spurn all but Howard’s original tales; see, for example, An REH Purist’s Manifesto by Rusty Burke.

And with the approach of the new millennium, there was a renewed focus on the original Howard tales…

Orion/Gollancz collections

Howard’s original stories have recently been republished in the UK in two volumes in Orion/Gollancz’s Fantasy Masterworks series, edited and include additional material by Stephen Jones and feature cover art by John Howe. (The first printings of these books apparently had a tremendous number of typographical errors, which Orion/Gollancz claims to have corrected in subsequent printings.)

These were later combined in a hardcover (and trade paperback) edition to celebrate Howard’s centennary.

Wandering Star and Del Rey collections

UK-based Wandering Star began publishing a three-volume omnibus edition, textually restored and meticulously researched by Howard scholar Patrice Louinet. Paperback editions are being published in the U.S. by Del Rey (an imprint of Random House). Unfortunately, Wandering Star folded before completing its project…

The first volume, with illustrations by Mark Schultz, includes, for the first time, the final version of “The Scarlet Citadel” taken from an original manuscript retyped (and somewhat revised) by Howard six months after the story’s first appearance in Weird Tales for submission to British publisher Denis Archer.

The second, with illustrations by Gary Gianni, includes never-before-published versions of “People of the Black Circle” and “A Witch Shall be Born”. The texts for these stories were taken from Howard’s original carbon and typescript. In addition, it contains Howard’s only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon.

The third, with illustrations by Greg Manchess, includes two drafts of “Wolves Beyond the Border”.