Conan the Wanderer is a 1968 collection of four 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 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 fantasy magazines. The book has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers, 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...

, 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...

, 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...

, 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 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...

. It was later gathered together with Conan the Adventurer

Conan the Adventurer (collection)

Conan the Adventurer is a 1966 collection of four 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...

and Conan the Buccaneer

Conan the Buccaneer

Conan the Buccaneer is a 1971 fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Lancer Books, and has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers. It has...

into the omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles 2

The Conan Chronicles 2

The Conan Chronicles 2 is a 1990 omnibus collection of two previous fantasy collections and one fantasy novel by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, published by Orbit Books. The component books had originally...

(1990).

Contents

• "Introduction" (L. Sprague de Camp)
• "Black Tears
  Black Tears (Conan story)
  "Black Tears" is a short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. It was first published by Lancer Books in the paperback collection Conan the Wanderer , which was reprinted several times, first by...
  
  " (L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)
• "Shadows in Zamboula
  Shadows in Zamboula
  "Shadows in Zamboula" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in 1935. Its original title was "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula"....
  
  " (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Devil in Iron
  The Devil in Iron
  "The Devil in Iron" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in August of 1934. Howard earned £115 for the publication of this story....
  
  " (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Flame Knife
  The Flame Knife
  The Flame Knife is a 1955 fantasy novella written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was revised by de Camp from Howard's original story, a then-unpublished non-fantasy Oriental tale that featured Francis X. Gordon...
  
  " (Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp)

Plot summary

Conan, now about thirty-one, survives a Turanian trap that crushes his Zuagir raiders and seeks bloody revenge on Vardanes of Zamora, their betrayer. Afterwards he moves on to other adventures, engaging in skull-duggery in the cannibal-haunted city of Zamboula and ultimately gaining command of a band of Kozaki in the service of Kobad Shah, king of Iranistan. In this final adventure he once again encounters his arch-enemy Olgerd Vladislav, his predecessor as chief of the Zuagirs.

Chronologically, the four short stories collected as Conan the Wanderer fall between 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...

and Conan the Adventurer

Conan the Adventurer (collection)

Conan the Adventurer is a 1966 collection of four 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...

.

Olgerd

Olgerd Vladislav first appeared in Howard's story "A Witch Shall be Born

A Witch Shall be Born

"A Witch Shall Be Born" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in only a few days in spring of 1934 and first published in Weird Tales in 1934. The story concerns a witch replacing her twin sister as queen of a city state, which brings her...

", collected in the previous Conan volume, 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...

.