Sometimes it seems that hardly a day goes by that something doesn’t remind me of a Robert E. Howard comment. There is, of course, the daily news, with its constant drumbeat of violence and treachery which calls to mind Howard’s views on humanity’s true nature. But occasionally something of a somewhat lighter nature also comes to mind. This was the case this past Sunday when I read a couple of articles in The Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section.

The Kennedy Center is sponsoring a six-month “Shakespeare in Washington” festival, which is undoubtedly the reason that the Post thought to run articles arguing two sides of the Shakespearean “authorship question.” While the majority of Shakespearean scholars, and the general public, agree with Stanley Wells that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was the author of the plays attributed to him, others argue, for various reasons, that the author must have been someone from a higher social class, thus better educated and more widely travelled, than the middle-class son of a merchant from Stratford. A growing number of these “It wasn’t Shakespeare” scholars side with the argument summarized by Roger Stritmatter suggesting that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the author of Hamlet, Macbeth, et al.

The “authorship question” apparently dates from “around 1785 ,” when a clergyman confided to a friend that he believed Francis Bacon had probably written the plays attributed to Shakespeare, and over the years a variety of candidates were posited. According to Stritmatter, the case for Edward de Vere was originally made in 1920 by the unfortunately (for the Oxfordians) named James Looney, in a book entitled Shakespeare Identified.

As I read these articles, I remembered Bob Howard’s remark on the topic to H.P. Lovecraft, from a 1932 letter:

I notice where a mug named Oliver Herford has decided Shakespeare was Lord Oxford. It must have been a momentus decision, affecting the destiny of the world for Olivero got his map in the magazines. Personally, I never cared whether the Shakespearian plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford-on -Avon, or Lord Oxford-on-Thames or Lord Bitchbelly of Hogwallow-on-the-Tripe. Its a cinch somebody wrote ‘em, because I’ve read ‘em myself, unless I was suffering from an optical delusion, and if so, I enjoyed the delusion. Although there’s only one character of Shakespeare that I have any real attachment to, and that’s Sir John Falstaff. I have a sincere affection for that old bastard.

Oliver Herford (1863-1935) was perhaps best known as an illustrator, but was also a poet and playwright; the sobriquet “the American Oscar Wilde” was probably earned by his ability to come up with eminently quotable quips (such as “Only the young die good”). I haven’t yet located the magazines in which he got his “map” published, probably in the late summer of 1932 (“September 22, 1932″ is pencilled on the letter to Lovecraft, though not by Howard; internal evidence supports a September 1932 date). I have found a newspaper column by O.O. McIntyre (“New York Day by Day,” one of the more popular syndicated columns of the 20s and 30s; at least one newspaper carried it under the title “McIntyre’s Daily Chat”), datelined November 2, 1933, in which he wrote:

The Washington Square intelligentsia are in hot debate again as to whether Shakespeare wrote his famous works. Leading the cons are Oliver Herford and Joseph Auslander. They are firm in their opinion that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is the real author.

Since this was written a bit more than a year after Howard’s comments, all we are able to surmise is that Herford was making something of a sideline of debating the “authorship question.” I’d be delighted if anyone out there were able to point me toward the magazine Howard refers to.

Howard apparently liked Shakespeare quite a bit. In a 1928 letter to Clyde Smith, he said:

I have carefully gone over, in my mind, the most powerful men – that is, in my opinion – in all of the world’s literature and here is my list:
Jack London, Leonid Androyev, Omar Khayam, Eugene O’Neill, William Shakespeare.
All these men, and especially London and Khayam, to my mind stand out so far above the rest of the world that comparison is futile, a waste of time. Reading these men and appreciating them makes a man feel life not altogether useless.

A quick look at the REH Bookshelf entry for Shakespeare will show that Howard was evidently pretty well versed in the Bard of Avon. (At one point he even argued for Francis Bacon’s authorship of Hamlet, to Novalyne Price. And he quotes in “Graveyard Rats” from Titus Andronicus — man, nobody reads Titus Andronicus!)

But in certain moods Howard could be hard on Shakespeare, as in a 1929 letter to Smith (immediately following the play, “Bastards All!”):

I have a feeling that I’ve unconciously plagiarized a great deal on this drammer but what the Hell. Its very disconnected because my desires wavered between a wish to write straight jovial obscenity and a desire to simply parody Shakespeare and exaggerate and emphasize what I consider show the bastardness of the scut’s nature – the brutal inconsistencies of his characters. I admit that he portrayed human nature that way, but his damnable preachings show his swinishness to my mind. I admit Shakespeare nauseates me quickly. If I might wish for any real power in anything I might write, it would be to write a book proving that he wrote all his dramas but making him out such a bastard that it would influence future literature. I can stand all but the ruling class moral tone he puts in from time to time. That isnt an echo of Upty [Upton Sinclair]. I never even read what Upty said about him. He narrates the doings [of] a bastard, makes you see he is a bastard, then leaves you with the impression that after all, the bastard was morally in the right. Oh, Hell, I cant say what I’m trying to. All I do is wander around in a labyrinth of words which never start and get nowhere. I never in my life presented a clear view of what I wanted to say. I can readily see why primitive people fight instead of arguing. Many a time have I wished to carry my point by the simple process of caving in seven or eight skulls in a row. I consider a swing with a mallet an unanswerable argument. At this time, instead of trying to make my friends understand what I cant understand myself, I’d simply seek out a teacher of Shakespeare and slam him with a mallet, thereby exhibiting my contempt for the subject and my stand on the matter as a whole.

I really will get around to writing up a review of A RHYME OF SALEM TOWN and Other Poems, but I’ve got something else to yak about right now. It’s just a quick hit here.

Finally today I got around to seeing 300, Frank Miller’s graphic novel brought to the big screen in all it’s CGI glory. There’s been some discussion over on REHinnercircle and on the Conan Forums regarding this movie and its Howardian Imagery, and mentions of Spartans and the history of that time as written about by Ol’ Two Gun. I’m not really up to snuff on that part of ancient history, but I read the posts with interest, hoping that maybe some of that on-line education will sink in.

The movie 300 is very beautiful. That’s my first response to the imagery that was presented to me. It’s great to look at this movie. The colors are subtle and muted, lots of golds and sepia and red (for the blood, of course). Each scene is framed like a comic book (duh), and that’s a good thing for me. (That’s why I liked the movie Unbreakable so much.) 300 just looks damn good. There’s plenty of blood and gore, graphic violence the likes of which I’ve never seen in a movie before – decapitations and limb-severings and spurting blood provided by slashing swords and stabbing spears. And there’s naked women and hints of mysticism – all that good Sword & Sorcery stuff. Pretty much all I could ask for in a movie!

As I watched, it was fairly easy to envision a Howard character like Conan or Kull or Bran Mak Morn being substituted for the on-screen”historical” depictions of a whirling dervish with a sword. There were plenty of dervishes in 300, and their well-coreographed actions combined with computer generated assistance come very close to some of the imagery that Bob Howard puts in my brain when I read his words.

The point I’d like to make about Howard Imagery, however, is just that – each of us intereprets the words of Bob Howard just a little bit differently. That’s what makes discussion and speculation and arguing about what Howard wrote so much damn fun, among those of us who indulge ourselves in all the great words he strung together and left for us to discuss, speculate and argue about. 300 makes for some Howardian-like imagery, and may even have assisted some of my own Howardian Imagery, but in the end I’ll continue to use Howard’s words to rebuild my own in-brain depiction of what he’s telling me.

I’d never call Howard’s Imagery “beautiful” in the traditional sense, but what he gives me is a combination of words which has it’s own beauty. I can read a Howard story over and over, because I’ll always get something new out of it – a missed or overlooked phrase or even just a word – that makes that particular story continually fresh and exciting. The imagery he gives us never ceases to amaze me, and I won’t cite any examples right now because I’ll be here all night!

But you know what I’m talking about here. You all have your own favorite bits of Howardian Imagery, and your own way of interpreting them and discussing them and envisioning them. At the very end of the day, your version is the only one that counts. And that’s exactly why no movie or comic book or illustrator will ever get your Howardian Imagery exactly right.

That’s just one of the things that makes Robert E. Howard so great – what he does to each and every one of us! And it’s only going to get better – this is the greatest time EVER to be a fan of Robert E. Howard!

One of the many episodes in the life of Robert E Howard that has been subject to various interpretations over the past couple of decades was his meeting with the poet Benjamin Musser in 1929. This meeting was mentioned in Dark Valley Destiny, immediately following an account of a 1927 bus trip to San Antonio during the entirety of which Howard allegedly disregarded his travelling companion, Truett Vinson, entirely, “addressing his remarks to the bus driver.” De Camp then said “Vinson was not the only victim of Howard’s unpredictable moods,” and quoted from a 1933 letter Howard wrote to H.P. Lovecraft:

I once met a noted poet, who had been kind enough to praise my verse most highly, and with whom I’d had an enjoyable correspondence. But I reckon I didn’t come up to his idea of what a poet should be, because he didn’t write me, after he returned East, or even answer the letter I wrote him. I suppose he expected to meet some kind of an intellectual, and lost interest when he met only an ordinary man, thinking the thoughts and speaking in the dialect of the common people. I’ll admit also that after a part-day’s conversation with him, I found relief and pleasure in exchanging reminiscences with a bus driver who didn’t know a sonnet from an axle-hub.

“We may guess,” wrote de Camp, “that Robert accorded the visitor treatment of the sort he gave Vinson on their 1927 trip and that the Easterner lost his enthusiasm for keeping up the acquaintanceship.” Not only has this been taken as an illustration of Howard’s “unpredictable moods,” some have even taken it as an indication that Howard was strongly anti-intellectual, given his apparent preference for the company of bus drivers. One of my correspondents once even cited the “poor personal contact” between Robert E. Howard and this poet as being a “developmental reason for Howard’s attitude toward pointy-headed intellectuals.” However, Howard met Musser in 1929, and the evidence of Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, the writing of which was completed in 1928, suggests that Howard’s “anti-intellectual” stance (if such it was) was pretty well developed by that time. (I think it would be closer to the mark to say that Howard adopted a “proletarian” stance modeled after favorite writers like Jack London and Jim Tully, or that he was “anti-intelligentsia,” the latter perhaps an overly nice distinction but one I think valid, in that it was the class of intellectuals he harbored a resentment toward, not individual intellectuals.)

As more information on Musser has come to light, we should look at this relationship more carefully. (For once, I’m not going to blame de Camp for his interpretation, which was perhaps reasonable given the limited information he had to work with.)

Benjamin Francis Musser (1889-1951) was the editor of two poetry journals to which Howard submitted poems. In a letter to Clyde Smith, ca. July 1929, Howard quoted from a letter in which Musser praised his verse…

I dont know who you are; forgive me but I never heard of you before; but by jupiter the world will hear something of you in the future if you can build to greater heights the tower you are erecting in the special kind of theme treated in the poems you have submitted to me

…and accepted “Tides” for Contemporary Verse (appeared in the issue for September 1929) and “Red Thunder” for JAPM: The Poetry Weekly (September 16, 1929). Also in this letter, Howard relates that Musser “says he can’t find Cross Plains in the atlas but wants to meet me when he comes to Dallas in October to lecture on modern poetry — a kind of lecture tour over the country, I gather.” Musser did indeed visit Texas on a lecture and reading tour in October 1929, listing among the addresses where mail would reach him the home of Lexie Dean Robertson, a poet living in Rising Star, Texas (a few miles from Cross Plains), with whom Howard was acquainted. It was probably there that Howard and Musser met.

If indeed the meeting was a strained one, it seems odd that a year later, in December 1930, Howard would tell Lovecraft:

“One shining example of tolerance and broadmindedness among the moderns is my friend Ben Musser, a poet of no small note.”

And if Musser “didn’t write me, after he returned East, or even answer the letter I wrote him,” how are we to explain the discovery of Musser’s chapbook, “As The Poet Says–”, inscribed “Greetings for Christmas 1931 to my friend Bob Howard, from Ben Musser”?

No, it is by no means clear that there was “poor personal contact” between the two men.

It’s not until March 1933 that we find the remarks to Lovecraft which seem to suggest a “poor personal connection.” Why, a bit more than two years after extolling his “tolerance and broadmindedness,” two years after receiving a Christmas gift inscribed to “my friend,” would Howard be suggesting that he and Musser had not hit it off? I suggest that the answer lies in the context of the later story.

First, let’s note that Howard does not say that there was any sort of poor personal connection – just that the “poet” never wrote him back and he “reckon(s)” that he did not measure up to the guy’s image of a poet. More importantly, though, this remark comes in a letter in which the REH-HPL “physical vs. mental” debate is getting into full swing. When deciding how much credence to lend a Howard story, it’s important to look at the context. Is there a point he is out to prove? If so, he will slant his story — or make up a story — to make that point. Now in the December 1930 comment, as it happens, Musser was the exception to the general rule — look at the context:

I appreciate your comments on my verse and most certainly agree with you regarding the conventional unconventionalism of modern poets. That’s a point I’ve maintained for years — that these supposed exponents of radical freedom of thought and expression are serfs of conventions even more hidebound and narrow and despotic than the old line. I am acquainted with a certain young and as yet unrecognized Texas poet whose work is superb — in spite of his views, I maintain, and not because of them — and this attitude is apparent in his every action; an excellent fellow when he forgets his superiority for a little, he is so infernally afraid that he’ll appear human he often makes himself obnoxious. One shining example of tolerance and broadmindedness among the moderns is my friend Ben Musser, a poet of no small note.

The young Texas poet is in all probability Howard’s good friend Clyde Smith; this is typical of Bob’s comments about Clyde (see, for instance, his characterizations in Post Oaks and Sand Roughs). There was no need for Bob to bring Musser in to this particular comment, since he’s an exception to the generalization Howard is trying to make. For that reason, I think we can trust this comment. And it seems to suggest, in fact, that Howard and Musser had actually gotten along pretty well.

But in the 1933 letter, the situation is very different. Howard is upholding the worth of the physical life as being at least equal to the mental. He’s been talking about how artists look down upon “common” men: thus, a story in which a “poet” seems to act condescendingly toward a “common man” illustrates his point. So far from being a “developmental reason for Howard’s attitude toward pointy-headed intellectuals,” the 1933 version of the Musser story is a product of that attitude, or at least of his resentment of Lovecraft’s insistence that the sort of intellectual activity he (HPL) enjoyed was superior to the type of physical activity which Bob liked.

I wrote about the probable solution to the “Musser mystery” back in Seanchai 71 (REHupa mailing 120, April 1993), and I’ve learned even more about him since. At some point in 1929 – I can’t be sure if it was before, during or after his Texas trip – Musser had a spiritual experience that caused him to rededicate himself to his Catholic faith, and he dropped all his secular pursuits. He devoted the rest of his life to the study and promotion of Catholic, specifically Franciscan, poets, and put out a number of books of his own poetry, all of which was religious in nature from that point. He had desired to join the Franciscans as a Friar Minor when younger, but for reasons he never stated he failed in three attempts, and had to accept “the solace of being a Tertiary of Saint Francis.” Instead of the cloistered life he had sought, he married and pursued a poetic career. In an autobiographical essay for The Book of Catholic Authors, Musser wrote of “…a period in which Bohemianism rivalled Catholicism for the field and finally, I pray forever, fell before the Cross. That ‘arty’ interlude included the editorship of several poetry magazines.” At the end of 1929, his magazines were abruptly merged with Bozart, published by Ernest Hartsock of Atlanta, with Musser listed as an Associate Editor. This did not mark the end of Musser’s poetic career, by any means, but a rededication of that career to specifically religious poetry, and to study of Franciscan poets. In 1940, in recognition of his dedication to the order, he received the signal honor of being proclaimed an affiliate of the Friars Minor, with the right to use “O.F.M.” after his name, wear the complete habit, and other privileges. He died in 1951 at his home in Atlantic City, survived by his wife and three children, plus an adopted son who had entered the priesthood.

Musser claimed to have been named the first Poet Laureate of New Jersey (in entries in The National Cyclopaedia, The Book of Catholic Authors, and Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930-1947). However, the State of New Jersey has never had an official poet laureate, and does not recognize Musser’s claim. In the early 1930s, an organization was formed in Washington, D.C., calling itself The Poet Laureate League, naming a poet laureate for each state (I have no information on how these selections were made), and writing to the governors of the states to inform them of these selections. In some cases, apparently, the governor wrote a letter of congratulations to the honoree, who took that as an official ratification. Musser even claimed that his appointment, in September 1934, had been “ratified by the United States Senate” (The Book of Catholic Authors) or “Congress” (Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches), and “backed by” or “approved by” the governor. The New Jersey State Library wrote me that “we have been unable to verify any of this in anything, including the Congressional Record Index, Laws of New Jersey, a listing of Governor’s proclamations, Legislative Manuals, The New York Times Index, etc.,” and they summed up nicely: “This really sounds as though a private group, this Poet Laureate League, took it upon themselves to designate the position and the man and got some sort of casual acknowledgement from various political bodies.” Musser appears to have been quite proud of the honor accorded him, though, “official” or not.

One wonders that, having rededicated his life to his Catholic faith, Musser would have continued corresponding with the poet of “Red Thunder.” And yet we know that he did send Howard at least one of his chapbooks as a Christmas present — a chapbook printed in a limited edition of 200. Were there, perhaps, others as well? (I know of at least three other chapbooks Musser had printed as Christmas gifts for “poet friends”: Golden Bow, 1934; House of Bread, 1935; and Canticles for St. Francis, 1936. There is no evidence that any were sent to Howard, but keep your eyes open….)

Clearly, there is no reason to suppose that Howard and Ben Musser did not hit it off when they met in 1929. It looks more like Howard just gave the story a convenient spin in the 1933 letter, to make his point about “intellectuals” looking down on working stiffs like him.

I received a note from Doug Ellis, who heads up the Windy City Pulp Con. He writes:

Weird Tales and the 75th anniversary of Conan are the themes for this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, May 4-May 6 at the Sheraton Chicago Northwest in Arlington Heights. We’re looking for Conan or Weird Tales related articles for our program book, which we’d need to have in hand by the end of March. Contributors will be paid in copies of the program book. If you’re interested in contributing, or have questions, contact the book’s editor, Tom Roberts.

Our Guests of Honor will be Conan artists Ken Kelly and Gary Gianni. The art show will feature a display of Conan and other art by our GoHs, which should include the largest display of Gary’s Wandering Star art ever. Both GoHs will also be set up in our dealer’s room.

We’re looking for published Conan or Weird Tales art for the art room, whether just for display or for sale, particularly cover art by Ken Kelly (and if anyone knows where any of those Berkeley paperback covers are, please let me know!). Among other paintings, we anticipate having one of Margaret Brundage’s Conan paintings from Weird Tales on display. If you have any published Conan art or Weird Tales art you’d be willing to make available for display in the art show, please email Doug.

I’ve gone to Windy City Pulp Con the last few years, and it is excellent. Morgan Holmes will recommend it, I know. Lots of dealers with good selections, and it’ll be great to see my pal Gary Gianni again. It’s in a new hotel this year; Arlington Heights is a NW suburb of Chicago, and I attend Capricon at this hotel every February. (If you bring extra dough, you can go next door to the race track and lose it on the ponies!)

The coffee’s in the process of brewing right now, and while I’m waiting I’ll get started in the process of getting my blogging in some sort of working order. I hope to fall into some sort of schedule here, and would encourage my fellow bloggers to do the same, but I can’t wield the whip here like I do over at the paper apa.

I was planning on doing some reviews here tonight (Rob Roehm’s wonderful HOWARD’S HAUNTS, the new REH poetry volume A RHYME OF SALEM TOWN AND OTHER POEMS, plus the new Vol.4 No.1 Cimmerian), and while I still may give them a cursory sentence, I’ve got other things on my mind. (Cursory sentence: Buy them!)

The recent redesign of this here REHupa website has indeed revitalized (and will continue to revitalize) a long neglected aspect of Robert E. Howard’s presence on the internet: REHupa’s responsibility. We (REHupa as a name-only entity, not a paper apa) have had this website up for quite awhile now, and we’ve used the paper apa’s name as the masthead because of it’s recognizability in Howard Fandom. We’re responsible.

That use of the REHupa name here on this website has come under some discussion recently. By way of explanation, REHupa’s main existence is as a bi-monthly amateur press association, a nice little fan club for people who want to make up their own little fanzines dedicated to REH and have them bound together into one entity, a “Mailing”. But it’s the type of discussion that gives me, as the Official Editor of REHupa (see also: “Chief Coallator”, “Single Stapler”, “Obligatory Ear” – my wife Cheryl gave me that one) cause to reflect on what exactly REHupa is, and what is its purpose, it’s responsibility.

Like I said, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association is an amateur press association (apa), and there are rules which govern its existence in paper form. We (the paper hold-in-your-hand REHupa) have managed to keep it together enough for 35 consecutive years, and we’ve published 203 Mailings. The Rules that govern the 30 members have kept us together, and have also been ignored and usurped and bent all to hell, but everything was (and is) done with the good intents of the apa in mind and at heart. It’s tough to argue with the success of 35 years and 203 consecutive Mailings published.

Now that the REHupa website is coming into some prominence and notoriety with a redesign and the establishment of three blogs to project that prominence, I’m having it pointed out to me that REHupa is more than just the paper apa. Well, yes and no. Is that nebulous enough for you? Our presence here on the internet uses the REHupa name to give credibility (and dare I say respectibility) to all aspects of discussion about REH. And with that lending of credibility comes responsibility to the Whole Wide World of Robert E. Howard Fandom.

If you’ve read this far, I hope that you’ll come to trust me and Rusty and Morgan (and Webmaster Leo) when I say that we will live up to that responsibility of portraying Robert E. Howard fandom, scholarship and comeraderie here on the REHupa website in a way that will make you all feel comfortable about coming over here for information and entertainment. In truth, the REHupa website has been ignored by the majority of the 30 member active Roster for too long now, and the time has come to step things up.

To wit: if you haven’t checked out all the little tabs at the top of the main page, I’d invite you to go there as soon as you can. Hell, you can even stop reading this right now…I won’t mind. While most of the stuff there has been on the site for awhile, Leo Grin’s great repackaging makes it look fresh. And I’ll bet a number of you (REHupans and non-REHupans) haven’t read some of the essays and commentary there in awhile either.

When you go there (either now or later), you’ll even find a brand new essay, “The Tao of Conan,” from REHupan Dale Rippke. Extremely good stuff. I say “REHupan” Dale Rippke because it’s only REHupans (and some former REHupans) who can post articles and essays here. I’m hoping this little pep talk will encourage more REHupans to submit their essays to this site. This will benefit all the non-REHupans who come here for a good Howard fix, and will only help to increase REHupa’s name prominence and respectibility. And, it’ll give each REHupan a part of that responsibility. While the paper apa REHupa remains a cloistered entity, we’ve got a lot of good stuff, past-present-and future, to share with everyone.

We’re still making it up as we go here, but I think we’re figuring it out.

This is my first post to the new updated REHupa blog. My connection to Robert E. Howard goes back to 1980. I was a junior in high school (Cathedral Prep in Erie, PA) and my English teacher had our class read J. R. R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. I had been reading a steady amount of science fiction before that including some Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. Tolkien’s book was a remedy for the gray, cold January days and I immediately read The Two Towers and then The Return of the King including the appendices in the third volume. Then, I tackled The Silmarillion, which remains my favorite Tolkien volume to this day. That was it; there was no more Tolkien. This was before Unfinished Tales came out.

Spring of 1980 was a magical time for me. Disco was dead, boring 70s rock was on the ropes, the Ramones were getting a little airplay with End of the Century album, the Clash and Gary Numan had Top 40 hits. Music was great and exciting. I had also discovered a new and exciting for me branch of fiction. I wanted more fantasy. I attempted the first Thomas Covenant book by Stephen R. Donaldson but could not get into it. It seemed too “modern” for my tastes. A walk a few blocks after school from 10th & Sassafras Street over to French Street to the venerable Erie Bookstore was a life changing event. On the shelves was a copy of the Berkley edition of a book called The People of the Black Circle by a Robert E. Howard. The name meant nothing to me but across the top of the book in bright read letters was CONAN. That was a name I knew. I can remember looking at a copy of the Berkley edition of The Marchers of Valhalla the year before at one of the bookstores at the local mall. I can remember having an interest in checking out this “barbarian fiction” but had no idea where to start. I had no guidebooks to tell me what was good at the time the way you had with science fiction. I knew the name Conan from the comic book during the 70s but was never a reader. I bought People of the Black Circle, got home and immediately read the introduction by Karl Edward Wagner. This was the first time I had ever heard of a magazine called Weird Tales. Then I read “The Devil in Iron.” First impression- Conan was biggest bad-ass I had ever encountered. He had the self-assurance of Aragorn, the strength of Tarzan, and a generous dosage of very human desires. Conan initiated action and didn’t take any crap. He made Tarzan look passive. Plus, there was Howard’s hyper-adrenaline writing style that had the reader experiencing the story as opposed to reading it. In “A Witch Shall Be Born,” Conan kills a Shemite mercenary who slaps him. Later in the story, he bites the vulture swooping down for a meal. This guy was better than Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson! I loved sword and sorcery, it was adventure writ BIG! It was anything but boring in the hands of Robert E. Howard.

Unfortunately, Robert E. Howard books were uncommon at this time and I was unable to continue. It wasn’t until the next year that Ace reissued the Lancer editions with good distribution. I was able to pick up Robert E. Howard again my first year of college and continue a lifelong interest. From the paperbacks, I graduated to small press publications starting when I found copies of Fantasy Crossroads at the great comic book/science fiction book/punk rock record store, Eides. Eides was located on 6^th Street across the river from downtown Pittsburgh at the time. The 6th Street Bridge had a bunch of skateboard punk rock graffiti and messages scrawled on it drawn by skate punks on their way to buy records at Eides.

In the mid-1980s while in Podiatry School, I was buying everything that Rev. Robert M. Price’s Cryptic Publications produced. I managed to get every Howard chapbook except Bran Mak Morn: A Play and Others. I picked up the Starmont Reader’s Guide to Robert E. Howard by Cerasini and Hoffman when it came out. I had read about a book called The Dark Barbarian in one of the Cryptic chapbooks but did not know how to procure a copy and was unwilling to spend the money for a Greenwood Press book.

Through Bob Price, I got into contact with Richard L. Tierney to tell him how much I enjoyed his Simon of Gitta stories. Through Dick Tierney, he got me into contact with his sometimes co-writer, David C. Smith. It turned out Dave lived in Akron, an hour’s drive from my apartment in Cleveland Heights. Thus started a friendship that remains to this day and one that had its ultimate genesis in my love of sword and sorcery fiction and Robert E. Howard. This was the first portion of a Robert E. Howard fan’s journey to the present.

Next installment: The REHupa era

My mind is a kind of jumbled store-house of tag-ends — snatches of history, incidents in the lives of gunfighters and outlaws, anecdotes, myths, legends of the country, and the like. I could fill a thick volume of such disconnected bits and still not exhaust my chaotic store.

– Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, circa June 1931

My contribution to the REHupa blog is likely to consist largely of exploring this jumbled store-house of tag-ends, the sort of marginalia that fascinates me. In working with Howard’s letters and stories, and in compiling information for the Robert E. Howard Bookshelf, I run across all kinds of stuff that I think is not only interesting, but that may provide some insight into Howard’s sources, his thinking on a given subject, or just what kind of things tended to stick in his head. Much of this will have appeared in REHupa at some time or another, sometimes recently (as with today’s subject), sometimes in the more distant past. But I’ll probably be sharing some new discoveries (well, new to me) as we go along.

For today, we’ll have a look at the subject of one of my favorite passages from an REH letter.

Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, January 1931 (p. 10)

And Willie Drenon, whom I saw wandering about the streets of Mineral Wells, twenty years ago, trying to sell the pitiful, illiterate book of his life of magnificent adventure and high courage; a little, worn old man in the stained and faded buckskins of a vanished age, friendless and penniless. God, what a lousy end for a man whose faded blue eyes had once looked on the awesome panorama of untracked prairie and sky-etched mountain, who had ridden at the side of Kit Carson, guided the waggon-trains across the deserts to California, drunk and revelled in the camps of the buffalo-hunters, and fought hand to hand with painted Sioux and wild Comanche. One of the last of the old scouts he was, this pioneer, whom Kit Carson picked up, a lost and bewildered French immigrant boy, wandering about the wharves of the port where he had landed, and his neglect by the country and the people he served is but one case in many thousands. Always the simple, strong men go into the naked lands and fight heroical battles to win and open those lands to civilization. Then comes civilization, mainly characterized by the smooth, the dapper, the bland, the shrewd men who play with business and laws and politics and they gain the profits; they enjoy the fruit of other men’s toil, while the real pioneers starve.

Drannan, Capt. William F. Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains; or, Last Voice from the Plains. An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West. By Capt. William F. Drannan, Who Went on the Plains When Fifteen Years Old. Copiously Illustrated by H.S. DeLay. And Many Reproductions from Photographs. Chicago: Thos. W. Jackson Publishing Company. 1900.

Drannan, Capt. William F. Capt. William F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts. As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago. As Told by Himself, As a Sequel to His Famous Book, “Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.” Copiously illustrated by E. Bert Smith. Chicago: Rhodes & McClure Publishing Co. 1910.

Somehow, this book reference slipped by me during the years I spent working on the Robert E. Howard Bookshelf. It might have taken me a while to get to “Drannan” from “Drenon,” but it wouldn’t have been the hardest nut I had to crack. I just overlooked it, for reasons I cannot guess. But on a recent trip to Santa Fe I stopped in at one of my favorite haunts, Dumont Maps & Books of the West and, browsing the shelves methodically, as is my wont, my eye was caught by the silver lettering on one spine: Chief of Scouts, Piloting Emigrants Across the Plains of 50 Years Ago, by Drannan. The name rang a bell — the above quotation from Howard’s letters is one that has stuck with me for years, and the astute will recall that I used the part of it beginning “Always the simple, strong men…,” and the paragraph which follows it, as an epigraph to The End of the Trail. I picked it up and had a look at the title page, which stated that this book was “A Sequel To His Famous Book ‘Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.” As it happened, that book was also on the shelf, so I took it up and had a look, and found this was indeed the story of a “French immigrant boy” (“I was born on the Atlantic ocean January 30, 1832, while my parents were emigrating from France to the United States”) who is befriended by Kit Carson and goes on to a life of adventure on the plains.

The Dumonts often place slips of paper cut from their catalogs in the books, and these frequently have interesting and/or amusing comments. Thirty-One Years, for instance, included the remark, “the whole thing an incredibly cheap and fragile production” (nicely complementing Howard’s description, “the pitiful, illiterate book of his life”), and said: “A controversial book. Howes said of it, ‘Reminiscences chiefly of adventures that never happened — by a senile braggart.’ That seems a little harsh. Perhaps we can think of it as tall tales in the frontier tradition.” (Howes is Wright Howes, compiler of one of the standard reference works on books of U.S. history, U.S.iana.) The entry for Chief of Scouts continues the theme: “Howes comments, ‘Additional fabrications by this hoary-headed father of liars.’ Drannan toured the country, lecturing on his adventures, and selling copies of his books. This one is inscribed in pencil, ‘Presented to Hillis Parrett by Bill Drannan 1907.’ He must have told a good story, but perhaps his tenuous grasp on reality is shown by the discrepancy between the date of the inscription and the publication date of the book.” (The book was published in 1910.) The inscription is as stated, but while I am no graphologist I’d have to say that if the signature below the frontispiece is an accurate reproduction of Drannan’s handwriting, the inscription does not appear to be from the same hand. It has the look of a schoolboy’s early attempt at cursive writing.

The publishing information is inconsistent in both volumes. Thirty-One Years states, on the title page, that the publisher is Thomas W. Jackson Publishing Company, and has Thos. W. Jackson Pub. Co. on the base of the spine, but the copyright page states “Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1900 by the Rhodes & McClure Publishing Company.” Chief of Scouts shows Rhodes & McClure on both the title and copyright pages, but has Thos. W. Jackson Pub. Co. at the base of the spine and, to further thicken the soup, at the bottom of the copyright page is “Plymouth Printing & Binding Co., 104-106 South Jefferson Street, Chicago, Ill.” Thomas W. Jackson appears to have been a reprint house of Rhodes & McClure. For instance, in my copy of Chief of Scouts (well, of course I bought them!) the photographs are printed on a heavier, coated stock, and the paper is much better than that used in Thirty-One Years, which seems to be printed on very cheap wood-pulp paper.

Alert readers will have noted another REH connection in the bibliographic information for Thirty-One Years: “Copiously illustrated by H.S. DeLay.” Harold S. DeLay was a prolific illustrator of the early part of the 20th century, and from the the mid-1930s into the 1940s did some work for Weird Tales. Near as I can find in scanning the Collector’s Index to Weird Tales (Jaffery & Cook), his first assignment for The Unique Magazine was Howard’s “Black Canaan” (June 1936), and he also illustrated “Red Nails” (July, August-September and October 1936) and “Black Hound of Death (November 1936).

Eager to know more about Drannan, when I got home I consulted Ramon Adams, Six-Guns and Saddle Leather, and found a lengthy entry for Thirty-One Years.

This book deals largely with the Montana vigilantes, tells of the death of Henry Plummer, gives some information on Captain Jack, the Modoc Indian outlaw, and gives other events in the life of a braggart.

The author claims that he was a close friend of Kit Carson, but that is doubtful, and he has never been mentioned in any book about Carson. He states in one place that he first met Carson in St. Louis in 1847 and in another place that he attended Carson’s wedding to Josefa Jaramillo, but the wedding took place four years earlier, in 1843. The author also claims that he, Carson, and Jim Hughes left St. Louis in 1847 and went up the Neosho River and west to Fort Bent, when in reality Carson stopped in Howard County, Missouri, to visit relatives and then went up the Missouri River by steamboat to Fort Leavenworth, where he was to act as guide in escorting some raw recruits through the Comanche country to New Mexico.

The author tells about a duel he had with a man named Shewman in 1853. In Carson’s own book he tells about a duel he had with a man he calls Shumer in 1835, twelve years before Drannan said that he met Carson. The part the author claims to have played in the Modoc War has never been mentioned by other historians. His claims of service in the various campaigns are refuted by the National Archives in Washington; his name is not to be found in their records.

His dates are so mixed that in his second book, Capt. Wm. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, he has himself in two different places at the same time. It is said that he was uneducated and that his wife wrote Thirty-One Years on the Plains to provide an income for them. It is also said that one hundred editions were issued in the first ten years after publication, and that may well be true, for Drannan and his wife traveled throughout the country selling them, and they must have sold a great many, for it was a popular book in its day. The book is filled with misstatements, but perhaps Drannan was not so much to blame, since like a great many other old-timers he loved to be in the public eye, and his wife, being an apt reader of other histories saw her chance to make him a hero and make his narrative entertaining enough to sell well.

It is perhaps true that Drannan’s adventures are not to be believed, but Adams’ first sentence makes one wonder if he actually read the book, or relied on someone else’s description of it. I admit that I have not read the book thoroughly from cover to cover, but as far as I can see it deals mostly with Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jim “Beckwith” (or Beckwourth) and other mountain men, Indian fighting, scouting for the army and so forth. Chapter 27 includes a few pages concerning the hangings of Boone Helm, Jack Gallagher, “Hank” Parrish (Frank Parish in Dimsdale’s The Vigilantes of Montana), and “Clubfoot” George (Lane) at Virginia City, Montana (he fails to mention the fifth man hanged with them, Haze Lyons), and about the hanging some time later of Slade (“Captain Jack” Slade), but I find no mention anywhere of Plummer, and only one paragraph on the depredations of the “Road Agents.” Plummer was hanged in Bannack (which Drannan renders “Bannock”) on January 10, 1864, and Helm and the others in Virginia City on the 19th. Drannan claims to have been staying with a couple of storekeepers in Virginia City at the time, so it is logical that he would witness the hangings of Helm et al., and miss the hanging of Plummer and friends in Bannack, about sixty miles away. What is odd is his claim that he “did not get out much” during that winter and got all his news from people who came into the store, and thus was entirely ignorant of the work of the Vigilantes until the day of Helms’ hanging, yet the two merchants were apparently well informed on the subject. One would think that such an experienced (by that time) scout would (a) not be cooped up indoors all winter and (b) would be more inclined to keep his ears open for news.

Well, full of fabrications these books well may be, but they are still entertaining reading. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature says, of Jim Beckwourth’s The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, “Somewhat highly coloured, no doubt, by Beckwourth’s fancy, it still remains a valuable record of the time,” and then mentions as “another book in this class” Drannan’s Thirty-One Years, noting he had also published Chief of Scouts.

Did REH actually own either of Drannan’s books? We don’t know. Neither is included in the Howard Payne acquisitions listing, and Howard tells us only that he saw Drannan in Mineral Wells trying to sell the “pitiful, illiterate book of his life.” Whether he himself obtained a copy he does not say, though his misspelling of Drannan’s name would suggest he did not. Of the two, the second book, Chief of Scouts, strikes me as more “illiterate,” in that it is chock full of misspellings and awkward phrasings, far more so than Thirty-One Years (to give but one example, Chief of Scouts consistently spells John C. Fremont’s name “Freemont,” and Phil Kearney’s “Kerney,” while Thirty-One Years spells both correctly). Chief‘s 1910 publication date would also match up fairly well with Howard’s statement that he’d seen him hawking his book “twenty years ago,” or about 1911. (Bob Howard would have been only five years old at the time.) However, Chief of Scouts does not provide the information that Drannan was the child of French immigrants, only that he was orphaned; it is only in Thirty-One Years that we’re told his parents were French. Of course, Howard might have gotten that information from talking with someone who had been present at one of Drannan’s public appearances, from newspaper accounts, or some other source. So we must remain for now entirely in the dark as to whether Howard had actually read either of these books. All we know with certainty is that Willie Drannan remained in Robert Howard’s memory as a “simple, strong man” whose life of “magnificent adventure and high courage” had come to a friendless, penniless, lousy end.

You can read Drannan’s books online: Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains is available through Project Gutenberg and WebRoots, Capt. William F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts through Project Gutenberg

There’s an interesting article about a possible Drannan inscription on a rock in Arizona here.