by Gary Romeo
The Return of Conan was published by Gnome Press in 1957. It has a red cloth binding with black lettering, 191 pages. There is no map included.
Gnome Press publisher, Marty Greenberg teased a fan about the impending publication of this book in a letter dated July 26, 1956. Greenburg wanted to keep adding to the Conan Saga. Had Greenberg better business practices he might have made a success of Conan before de Camp did.
The title page lists the book as by Bjorn Nyberg with the collaboration of L. Sprague de Camp based upon and continuing the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. This is a full-length novel.
There is a dedication:
There is no formal introduction. The same brief “excerpt” from “The Nemedian Chronicles” that appeared in the magazine version (shown below) introduces the story. This novel first appeared in Fantastic Universe September, 1957 as “Conan the Victorious” in truncated form.
Bjorn Nyberg was interviewed in ERBania #6:
Update: Brian Kunde had this to add: ” […] information on [Bjorn Nyberg] is quite scant. Despite his plans, he only finished two more Conan stories, “The People of the Summit,” appearing in 1970, and “The Star of Khorala,” appearing in 1978. The first, under his name alone, appeared in the anthology The Mighty Swordsmen, and the second in Conan the Swordsman, which also republished the first. Both tales in Conan the Swordsmen were listed as collaborations with de Camp, so the latter probably touched up the first tale for its reappearance. Nyberg also published two non-Conan stories in his lifetime, one of them only in Swedish. He supposedly lived in France in his later years and died in 2004, at the age of 75.”
Gnome Press listed a new book as “to be published,” The Legacy of Conan. I have no idea what the contents were supposed to be. But, sadly it never appeared. The Return of Conan was the last REH/Conan book from Gnome Press.
This completes my “Before the Lancers” series. Hopefully it was enjoyable and informative. Let me know if I forgot anything or need to revise or make corrections and additions. Hope everyone enjoyed these posts.
As a final teaser here is a catalog mailer from Gnome Press. Imagine if you could have ordered these at the time!
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spraguedecampfan 
Thank you for the series. Nyberg’s article shows his passion for the genre and I am curious is the story worth reading? I am currently reading Savage Sword comics, which adapted a lot of Conan pastiches, and I am curious about this even if it is sub-par pastiche.
I enjoyed it. Some things I didn’t like but all in all worth a read. IMHO.
Good article Gary. I can’t remember if I ever read that Nyberg letter before, but it sounds familiar. Glad to reread it anyway as it fills in some gaps in my memory about how he got involved. For instance I ha heard he wrote the book to practise his English, but he states it was more to practise typing. Well I suppose really it was both regardless. Was a nice series, no new revelations as most of this had been examined a long time ago, but great for people new to Howard as background on the first attempt to collect the Conan stories. Well done.
Thanks. I wasn’t trying for anything new. Just present the scans to inform those that never saw them. Most had probably seen the covers before but reproducing the intros was undoubtedly new for some.
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