Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, King Kull, and others that defined heroic fantasy, lived and died in the small town of Cross Plains, Texas. While his books remain in print, Howard himself has fallen into obscurity, his life mired in speculation and half-truth. This engaging biography traces the roots of his writings, correcting long-standing misconceptions, and offers a tour of Howard's world as he saw it: through his own incomparable imagination.This is the updated and expande...

We all started at his wild shriek and he reeled from the corner screaming, a thing like a black cable writhing about his arm. As we looked aghast, he crashed down in the midst of the tiled floor and there tore to fragments with his bare hands the hideous reptile which had struck him."Oh Heavens!" he screeched, writhing about and staring up at his mates with wild, crazed eyes. "Oh, Grand Dieu, I burn, I die! Oh, saints, grant me ease!"Even Bellefonte's steel nerves seemed sh...

And then came another Turk to report that a soldier had been found murdered in the upper corridors.A Turkish surgeon was brought who informed Kemul Bey that the soldier had evidently been slain by a blow from a bare fist. Kemul Bey mused upon the statement."By Allah," said the Turk, "I know of no man who could slay such a man as that soldier with his bare hands-except Gordon, whom they call El Borak."A soldier rushed into the room."Your Excellency!" he shout...

Before Conan, before Solomon Kane, Robert E. Howard was going toe-to-toe with roughnecks at the local icehouse-trading blows with oilfield bruisers, seasoned pros, and anyone gutsy enough to step in the ring. Around town, folks called him Bob. In the ring, they called him unbeatable.Fists of Iron - Round 1: The Ultimate Edition is the explosive first volume in a four-part series collecting Howard's boxing fiction, poetry, fragments, and articles. These are not just boxing stories-t...

Those who are familiar with the previously published versions of the stories presented here in Spicy Adventures are in for a surprise in this volume. For if Howard's agent, Otis Kline - and us - thought that Howard's stories were perhaps too tame for publisher Armer, it turned out, upon examination of the surviving carbons and drafts, that it was in fact exactly the opposite: all of the stories had been heavily censored when first published in Spicy Adventures (and thus in the 198...