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{{creator}}
'''Robert E. Howard''' (January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936) was a writer and poet from Texas, USA. He wrote short stories and poems spanning several genres, including [[Heroic Fantasy]], [[Western]], [[Cosmic Horror]] and historical fiction. He was the [[Trope Maker]] for the genre [[Sword and Sorcery]] -- which, in fact, received its name from a discussion of what the genre that a Howard story was should be called. Along with [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]], he is one of the most influential writers in modern fantasy. His life was the subject of the 1996 film ''[[The Whole Wide World]]''.▼
[[File:Robert E Howard suit.jpg|thumb]]
Howard was a friend and correspondent of [[H.P. Lovecraft|HP Lovecraft]] and one of the contributors to the original [[Cthulhu Mythos]]. ▼
▲'''Robert E. Howard''' (January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936) was a writer and poet from Texas, USA. He wrote short stories and poems spanning several genres, including [[Heroic Fantasy]], [[Western]], [[Cosmic Horror]] and historical fiction. He was the [[Trope Maker]] for the genre [[Sword and Sorcery]] -- which, in fact, received its name from a discussion of what the genre that a Howard story was should be called. Along with [[J. R. R.
▲Howard was a friend and correspondent of [[H.P.
His most well-known creation is [[Conan the Barbarian]], a character that has greatly overshadowed his creator.
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Howard committed suicide with a gun at the age of 30, after his ailing mother fell into an irrecoverable coma.
{{
* [[Den of Iniquity]]
{{examples|Works}}
[[There Is No Such Thing as Notability|Notable]] characters created by Howard include (sorted by approximate internal chronology):
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* [[Karl Edward Wagner]], who can be considered a [[Spiritual Successor]] of sorts to Howard.
* [[Terry Pratchett]] who created the famous Cohen the Barbarian for [[Discworld]]
{{creatortropes|Tropes common to many of Robert Howard's stories:}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Dark Agnes, Red Sonya of Rogatino
* [[Anti-Hero]]: Pretty much every main
* [[Author Existence Failure]]: Many of Howard's incomplete drafts were picked up by other writers such as [[L. Sprague de
* [[Barbarian Hero]]: Essentially created the modern version of this trope.
* [[Born in the Wrong Century]]: Esau Cairn of ''Almuric'' is a Conan-like figure who is described by Howard as being born out of his epoch, a man of great strength and intelligence who was nevertheless ill-fitted to life in a "machine-made civilization."
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* [[Duel to the Death]]
* [[Fair for Its Day]]: Although, usually under pressure from his publishers, Howard had many [[Damsel in Distress]] types, he also wrote several strong, intelligent female characters including Belit and Valeria from his Conan stories, and Red Sonya of Rogatino from his historical fiction. Unfortunately the same can't be said of his racial views [[Values Dissonance|which were pretty typical for the time and place he grew up in.]]
** Howard occasionally wrote stories that weren't screamingly racist, or at least had some non-racist plot elements. In the Solomon Kane stories set in Africa, most of them have something along these lines. In ''The Hills of the Dead'', N'Longa the shaman can actually be read as the hero, since he does all the major work necessary to put down the vampires, while Kane just keeps the vampires off N'Longa's back during the process. N'Longa also speaks eruditely when he's using his own language...he just can't speak English well. The Bogondan villagers of ''Wings in the Night'' are presented as basically good people trapped in a
*** Other non-racist moments show up from time to time. In Howard's historical short story ''The Road of Azrael'' (not public domain, but recently reprinted in ''Lord of Samarcand and Other Tales of the Old Orient''), the viewpoint character is an Arab. Several of his horror/supernatural works feature sympathetic characters of color: The viewpoint character in ''The Thunder-Rider'' is Native American, while In ''The Spirit of Tom Molyneaux'' (aka ''Apparition in the Prize Ring'') the hero (but not the viewpoint character) is an African-American, whom Howard actually describes as possessing "great nobility." In ''The Noseless Horror'', Ganra Singh (a Sikh) saves the day at the end. Meanwhile, ''The Horror from the Mound'' features a Mexican who's got a damn sight more common sense than the story's white viewpoint character. Finally, ''The Dead Slaver's Tale'' and ''The Dead Remember'' feature black victims getting ghostly revenge on the whites who murdered them.
*** Also in his defense, he wrote some stories that showed plenty of racism existing between conflicting clans and tribes that were either [[Fantastic Racism|purely imaginative]], or ''all'' ultimately Indo-European, at least in name. Picts? Northern Britain. Atlanteans? Supposed "Aryan" progenitors. In other words, Howard's fiction contains racism, itself, as an common accepted fact.
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* [[Loners Are Freaks]]: [[Solomon Kane]], poster child for this trope, has a few interactions on rare occasions with the [[Witch Doctor]] N'Longa, but that's about it. Most of the other characters in the Kane stories are just there to die violently (often at the hands of Kane himself).
** [[Conan]] is a loner a lot of the time too.
* [[Macekre]]: In addition to some of his stories being completed upon his death, many of his less-popular stories were rewritten, often to create [[Dolled-Up Installment
* [[Mighty Whitey]]
* [[Mountain Man]]: Breckenridge Elkins
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[[Category:Creator]]
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[[Category:Male suicides]]
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