The Robert E Howard Foundation, The Robert E Howard United Press Association, and Project Pride are pleased to announce that Charles Hoffman has accepted our invitation to be Guest of Honor at Robert E. Howard Days in June 2012.

Chuck is one of the most formidable essayists in Howard studies. His “Conan the Existentialist,” which appeared in Amra 61 (March 1974), was the opening salvo of what has come to be called “the new criticism” of Howard, criticism that took him seriously as a writer whose work had depth and substance along with the excitement and adventure. Prior to that essay, most Howard “criticism” consisted of book reviews (though some, like those of Schuyler Miller and Fritz Leiber, showed real insight) or introductions by fans who failed to take him seriously (John D. Clark famously proclaiming, “Don’t look for hidden philosophical meanings or intellectual puzzles in these yarns–they aren’t there.”). Chuck showed that Howard could not only provide rousing action, but rewarded closer reading as well. Patrice Louinet says, “‘Conan the Existentialist’ is the essay that made me want to study & write about Howard. It was a pure revelation.”

Chuck co-authored, with his long-time friend Marc Cerasini, Robert E. Howard: Starmont Reader’s Guide 35, a book that remains the most impressive critical overview of Howard’s entire corpus. A revised edition, originally planned for publication in 2006, is expected from the REH Foundation Press in 2012. (There’s a fine interview with Chuck and Marc, conducted by Steve Tompkins, over at the Cimmerian Blog archive.) Chuck and Marc also edited the first two issues of the journal Cromlech, the first periodical publication devoted to serious scholarship and criticism of REH. Determined that Howard studies should have a continuing vehicle for such work, I used Cromlech as my model when I started The Dark Man.

Chuck has written a number of acclaimed essays on Howard’s work, several of which you can read at his blog (which he hasn’t updated in a very long time, something I hope he will be prompted to remedy soon). You’ll have to dig back into his archive, but it’s worth the effort. It was due to my profound respect for his body of work that I asked Chuck to provide the essay, “Robert E. Howard: Twentieth-Century Mythmaker,” for the first volume of The Best of Robert E. Howard (Del Rey).

Make your plans now to attend Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas, June 8-9, 2012, and take advantage of this all-too-rare opportunity to meet one of the towering figures of Howard studies!

noun

1. a waxy substance consisting mainly of cholesterol secreted by the intestinal tract of the sperm whale and often found floating in the sea; used in the manufacture of perfumes

[origin: Middle English, from Old French ambre gris, "gray amber"]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

“Lady, hell!” bleated Harrigan. “Do you know what she just did? Threw away my chart! The only dash-blank chart in the world that could show me how to find the island of Aragoa!”

“Was we goin’ there, cap’n?” asked the bos’n.

“Yes, we was!” yelled Harrigan. “And what for? I’ll tell you! Ambergris. A barrel full! At thirty-two dollars an ounce! You bilge-rats been grousin’ to know where we were sailin’ to–all right, I’ll tell you! And then I’m goin’ to tie that wench up and skin her stern with a rope’s end!

“A few months ago a blackbirder bound for Australia went on a reef in a storm, off a desert island, and nobody but the mate got ashore alive. They’d found a mess of the stuff floatin’ on the water, and filled a big barrel with it–and it floated ashore with him. The mate stood the solitude of the island as long as he could, and then took to sea in the ship’s boat he’d patched up. He’d salvaged a chart and marked the island’s position. He’d been weeks at sea when I picked him up, on my last voyage from Honolulu to Brisbane. He was ravin’ and let slip about the ambergris–I mean he was that grateful to me for savin’ him he told me all about it, and gimme the chart for safekeepin’, and right after that he got delirious and fell overboard and drowned–”

[From "The Girl on the Hell Ship," originally published as "She Devil" in Spicy Adventure April 1936. The complete story can be found in the forthcoming volume Spicy Adventures, which can now be pre-ordered from the REH Foundation.]

Rob Roehm, the Hardest Working Man in Howard Fandom, has announced that pre-orders are now being taken for the newest volume from the REH Foundation press, SPICY ADVENTURES. This is the much anticipated collection of REH’s more titillating (heh) writings and features a Yowsa! cover by Jim & Ruth Keegan.

Click your way on over to www.rehfoundation.org for all the pertinent information and pick yourselves up one of these great additions to your REH Press collection.

Here’s the table of contents:

Introduction by Patrice Louinet

The Girl on the Hell Ship (aka “She-Devil”)
Ship in Mutiny
Desert Blood
The Purple Heart of Erlik
The Dragon of Kao Tsu
Murderer’s Grog
Guns of Khartum
Daughters of Feud

Miscellanea

Untitled Synopsis (“John Gorman . . .”)
The Girl on the Hell Ship—draft
Untitled Synopsis (Ship in Mutiny)
Ship in Mutiny—draft
List of Characters (Desert Blood)
Untitled Synopsis (The Purple Heart of Erlik)
Untitled Synopsis (Daughters of Feud)