Biography

January 22, 1906 · Peaster, Texas, USA

June 11, 1936 · Cross Plains, Texas, USA (suicide)

Robert Erwin Howard

Maintained a friendly correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft.

Portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio in the biographical film: The Whole Wide World (1996).

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 283-284. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

All fled--all done, so lift me on the pyre;

The feast is over, and the lamps expire. - Robert E. Howard's suicide note

[Talking about the Conan character]: "He is the most realistic character I ever evolved. He is simply a combination of a number of men I have known. Some mechanism in my subconscious took the dominant characteristics of various prize fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I called Conan the Cimmerian."

I hated school as I hate the memory of school. It wasn't the work I minded; I had no trouble learning the tripe they dished out in the way of lessons - except arithmetic, and I might have learned that if I'd gone to the trouble of studying it. I wasn't at the head of my classes

• except in history - but I wasn't at the foot either. I generally did

just enough work to keep from flunking the courses, and I don't regret the loafing I did. But what I hated was the confinement - the clock-like regularity of everything; the regulation of my speech and actions; most of all the idea that someone considered himself or herself in authority over me, with the right to question my actions and interfere with my thoughts.