Opinions on Howard’s state of mind vary wildly, from
‘psychotic’ and ‘Oedipal’ to suggestions
that he was a pretty normal guy who succumbed to stress. By
his own testimony in letters, as well as the statements of his
friends, we know he was certainly subject to dark moods. On
the other hand, the memoirs of those who knew him best - Tevis
Clyde Smith, Novalyne Price (Ellis) and Harold Preece - show
they thought the world of him, and on balance he was an intelligent
and affable companion. If he was occasionally eccentric in his
dress or actions, it may have been as Novalyne Price told her
roommate: “He’s trying to tell people he’s
a writer and writers have a right to be odd. Since they think
he’s crazy, anyway, he’ll show them just how crazy
he can be.” This attitude is indeed reflected in some
of Howard’s letters to Smith and Preece. It is interesting
to note that most of the speculation about Howard’s mental
health has come from people with minimal or no qualifications
in this area. One person who is qualified, Charles Gramlich,
a professor of psychology and fantasy author, wrote: “No
matter how much some folks seem to want to think Howard was
crazy, it just ain’t so. Call him eccentric and I’ll
go along with that. Call him crazy in the way that some of us
call ourselves crazy, and I’ll buy that. But he was not
clinically disturbed... In my opinion, Howard was no crazier
than the rest of us. He was just a better writer.”
Dr. Isaac M. Howard survived his wife and son by eight years.
He had developed diabetes, and his worsening health forced him
to cease practicing and move, in 1940, to Ranger, Texas, where
Dr. P.M. Kuykendall had invited him to live with his family
and assist him at the West Texas Clinic & Hospital. He died
in November 1944, leaving his estate to Dr. Kuykendall.
Following Howard’s death, Weird Tales published a number
of his stories for a few more years, until Farnsworth Wright
stepped down as editor. In 1946, August Derleth, through his
Arkham House imprint, originally established to publish the
work of H. P. Lovecraft in book form, brought out a collection
of Howard’s best stories, titled Skull-Face and Others.
A small magazine, the Avon Fantasy Reader, included several
Howard stories in its 18-issue run during the late 1940s, and
in the early 1950s, a science fiction and fantasy publisher,
Gnome Press, brought out the Conan stories in hardback. In the
1960s, Conan paperbacks, with dynamic covers by Frank Frazetta,
brought Robert E. Howard a measure of fame equal to that of
J.R.R. Tolkien and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the 1970s, shepherded
by Glenn Lord, a ‘Howard boom’ erupted and readers
became aware of the tremendously varied range of the prolific
writer’s output. This boom period extended into the next
decade thanks to the comic books and magazines that were nominally
devoted to Conan, but occasionally featured Howard’s other
characters or stories and published articles about the author
and his work. In the 1980s, Conan came to the screen, though
in a manner scarcely recognizable as Howard’s, catapulting
the character to worldwide recognition. At the same time, a
growing movement among writers and critics of fantasy fiction
had begun to take Howard’s work seriously as literature,
rather than dismissing it as mere escapist fare. Toward the
end of the ‘80s, Project Pride, a community organization
in Cross Plains, purchased the Howard home and through their
efforts and those of his fans around the world, the author’s
house is now restored and listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. Each June, Project Pride and the City of Cross
Plains sponsor Robert E. Howard Day, and welcome the many visitors
who come to tour the Howard House and see first-hand the environment
in which the author lived.
By the time of his death, Robert E. Howard had been spinning
his tales of myth and mystery for a mere dozen years, only four
of which he devoted to his most famous creation, Conan. Yet
today, over 60 years after his death, the adventures of the
Hyborian hero and much of Howard’s other work endures.
Unlike many of his contemporaries writing for the pulps, Howard’s
fertile imagination and powerhouse storytelling gains him new
fans in each successive generation. His work has inspired countless
imitations and has been translated not only into many other
languages, but into other media as well - comics, movies, television.
In their wake have followed fan clubs and publications, an amateur
press association founded in 1972 and still going strong, and
now a growing presence on the World Wide Web. Truly, Robert
E. Howard, like Conan, is one for the ages.