“All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre:
The feast is over, and the lamps expire.”
A prolific author who wrote with a fiery passion and visceral immediacy, Robert E. Howard captured my attention at a very young age. Idly browsing through the fantasy genre section of the Marion, Indiana Kole’s Bookstore in 1975, I was a nine year old boy with fiery passions of my own. I happened upon a paperback called Conan the Freebooter with glorious John Duillo cover art. I remember quite vividly opening that book to its table of contents, then flipping to the final story in the collection, A Witch Shall Be Born. I sat down on the floor and read that story to the end — captivated by the sheer elegance and primordeal swagger of the prose — I was forevermore to become entralled by Howard’s creations.
Robert E. Howard left us too soon. That he did so by his own hand makes his passing all the more painful. But in those few years that Howard painted vivid landscapes with his typewriter he gave to us a truly remarkable gift. His writing has become the stuff of legend and it continues to inspire legions of fans and devotees.
As a writer myself, I can only hope that some small spark of Robert E. Howard’s genius finds its way into my own work.
He was a man like no other and though he is long gone from this world it is heartening to know that his spirit remains.
