Conan is a 1967 collection of seven fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 short stories and associated pieces written by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....

, L. Sprague de Camp

L. Sprague de Camp

Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...

 and Lin Carter

Lin Carter

Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...

 featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery

Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...

 hero Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...

. Most of the stories were originally published in various pulp magazine

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

s. The book has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers, including Ace Books

Ace Books

Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...

, and has also been translated into German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

 and Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

. It was later gathered together with Conan of Cimmeria

Conan of Cimmeria

Conan of Cimmeria is a 1969 collection of eight fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines...

and Conan the Freebooter

Conan the Freebooter

Conan the Freebooter is a 1968 collection of five fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s...

into the omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles

The Conan Chronicles

The Conan Chronicles is a 1989 omnibus collection of three previous fantasy collections by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, published by Sphere Books. The component collections had originally been published by...

(1989).

Contents

• "Introduction" (L. Sprague de Camp)
• "Letter from Robert E. Howard to P. Schuyler Miller" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hyborian Age
  The Hyborian Age
  The Hyborian Age is an essay by Robert E. Howard pertaining to the Hyborian Age, the fictional setting of his stories about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published during Howard's lifetime...
  
  , Part 1" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Thing in the Crypt
  The Thing in the Crypt
  "The Thing in the Crypt" is a short story written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian created by Robert E...
  
  " (L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)
• "The Tower of the Elephant
  The Tower of the Elephant
  "The Tower of the Elephant" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan infiltrating a perilous tower in order to steal a...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hall of the Dead
  The Hall of the Dead
  "The Hall of the Dead" is one of the original short stories by American author Robert E. Howard starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, a fragment begun in the 1930s but not finished or published in Howard's lifetime. It was completed by L...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp)
• "The God in the Bowl
  The God in the Bowl
  "The God in the Bowl" is one of the original short stories featuring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard but not published during his lifetime. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan robbing a temple museum only to...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard)
• "Rogues in the House
  Rogues in the House
  "Rogues in the House" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine circa January 1934...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hand of Nergal
  The Hand of Nergal
  "The Hand of Nergal" is one of the original short stories by American author Robert E. Howard starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, a fragment begun in the 1930s but not finished or published in Howard's lifetime...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter)
• "The City of Skulls
  The City of Skulls (short story)
  For the fantasy roleplaying adventure game see City of Skulls"The City of Skulls" is a short story written by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian created by Robert E...
  
  " (L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)

Plot summary

After a letter reflecting on Conan's life written by Howard to P. Schuyler Miller

P. Schuyler Miller

Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...

 and John D. Clark

John D. Clark

John Drury Clark, Ph.D. was a noted American rocket fuel developer, chemist, and science fiction writer and fan. He was instrumental in the revival of interest in Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and influenced the writing careers of L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, and other authors.- Life and...

, both fans of Howard's work, is an essay on the invented prehistory in which the hero's adventures are set tracing its development up to Conan's own time. The stories gathered in this collection then follow the Cimmerian

Cimmeria (Conan)

Cimmeria is a fictional land of barbarians in antediluvian earth and the homeland of Conan the Barbarian in the works of Robert E. Howard.-Fictional history:...

 from his escape from slavery in Hyperborea through his days as a youthful thief in Zamora, Corinthia and Nemedia, to the beginning of his stint as a mercenary soldier for King Yildiz of Turan. To Conan's discomfiture, the supernatural is his constant companion.

Chronologically, the seven short stories collected as Conan are the earliest in Lancer's

Lancer Books

Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...

 Conan series. The stories collected as Conan of Cimmeria

Conan of Cimmeria

Conan of Cimmeria is a 1969 collection of eight fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines...

follow.