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!
I just finished rereading one of my favorite L. Sprague de Camp books: Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers. Following is my review. Here goes:
(1.): I first wrote Sprague in April of 1974. His little biographies of the men who created heroic fantasy as we know it were appearing in Fantastic Stories magazine. I subscribed to Fantastic to make sure I saw the biographies! Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers came out in 1976. It was a 5,000 copy print run by Arkham House. The black and white cover is by Tim Kirk.
(2.): The introduction is by Lin Carter. I must be mellowing in my old age but I actually enjoyed the introduction this time around and did not mind Carter “puffing” his own work. Lin Carter really did love fantasy fiction and it shows in this introduction. At this point Carter was a good friend and admirer of Sprague and if you can ignore Carter’s conceit the introduction is actually a lot of fun.
(3.): From pages 3-30 is Sprague’s first chapter “The Swords of Faerie.” This is an excellent and concise and learned history of heroic fantasy fiction from the Ancient World up to the end of WW2, where Sprague writes that “it seemed that fantasy had become a casualty of the Machine Age. Then came a surprising revival, beginning with the publication of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.”
(4.): Chapter #2 is about William Morris. Sprague gives Morris credit for actually getting modern fantasy going but he does point out that Morris was weak when it came to plotting his tales. Also, on page 41 Sprague points out that “Another weakness of Morris the storyteller also appears. His stories suffer not from Victorian prudery-his characters enjoy a good roll in the hay as the next- but Victorian optimism. His imaginary worlds are just too mild and safe; there is too much sweetness and light and not enough conflict.” Sprague points out that this is the opposite of REH, who’s heroes are usually rightly convinced that practically everybody they meet are out to cheat, rob, or murder them.
(5.): In Chapter #3 Sprague writes about one of his favorite authors, Lord Dunsany. Dunsany led a fascinating life and at the end of the chapter Sprague writes “Dunsany’s tales are a necessary possession for any lover of fantasy. Like first-rate poetry, they are endlessly rereadable. Those who have not read them have something to look forward to.”
(6.):H. P. Lovecraft’s biography is in Chapter #4. Sprague describes Lovecraft’s life and his writings. Sprague very much enjoyed “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.” And he points out what a shame it was that Lovecraft died just 2 years before science fiction fandom really got going. Sprague thought HPL was a kind of literary midwife to SF Fandom, and it was sad he missed it growing into a major social literary movement.
(7.): Chapter #5 describes the life of E.R. Eddison. Sprague writes that you could make an argument that “The Worm Ouroboros” is the greatest single novel of fantasy. Sprague, though, does point out the flaws with Eddison’s writings. His worlds within worlds are very complicated and don’t really make a lot of sense. On page #130 Sprague does his best to put the writings in order but even Sprague can not make the order of the stories totally satisfactory. On page #132 Sprague writes: “In short Eddison’s ‘great men’ are cruel, arrogant bullies.” It’s hard to identify or sympathize with his characters. I recall in the letters of Tolkien, Tolkien writing about the time Eddison visited The Inklings. Eddison and Tolkien got into it over the cruelty and nastiness of Eddison’s characters. So it wasn’t only Sprague who noticed the flaws in Eddison’s characters.
(8): Chapter #6 is Sprague’s little life of REH. On page #145 Sprague writes “Even Howard’s friends found him an enigma. One of them told me: ‘He just didn’t give a damn for a lot of things that other people do.’ The informant added: ‘Bob had a funny habit. He’d be walking along the street, and you’d see him suddenly start to shadow box. He’d box for a few seconds and then go back to walking again.’ ” On page 154 Sprague writes ” In assembling Howard, the gods somehow left out the cogwheel that furnished love of life.” On page #176 Sprague reminds us that Howard is surpassed in sales only by Tolkien- who once told Sprague that he rather liked the Conan stories. Howard also begat a flourishing school of imitators.
(9.): Sprague tells the story of his friend Fletcher Pratt in Chapter #7. Pratt was quite a colorful character and there is a lot of good information about how Pratt and Sprague worked together.
(10): Chapter #8 tells the story of Clark Ashton Smith. It is interesting that most of the stories we remember from Smith were basically written over a six year period. Smith primarily thought of himself as a poet. Of “The Three Musketeers of the Weird Tales Magazine” Smith was the author that Sprague actually met shortly before Smith died. Sprague considers Smith “Perhaps the most brilliant single member of the Lovecraft Weird Tales circle of the 1930s.”
(11.): J.R.R. Tolkien is the subject of Chapter #9. Sprague describes the life of Tolkien and how he came to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. On page #224 Sprague writes that the “Hobbit” prose had a juvenile flavor and that juvenile prose is maintained throughout the story. I don’t agree with Sprague. I think C.S. Lewis was correct when he wrote that one of the fascinating things about The Hobbit was the way the story imperceptibly moved into the world of the saga and epic. In Chapter #4 of The Hobbit Tolkien writes “They did not sing or tell stories that day, even though the weather improved; nor the next day, nor the day after. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away on either side.” To me this is not kiddie book prose. Sprague does an excellent job describing C.S. Lewis and the Inklings and how The Lord of the Rings came to be written. Sprague visited Tolkien in 1967.
(12.): Sprague writes about T.H. White in Chapter #10. Sprague gives a fine mini history of the Arthur legends. I had not realized that T.H. White was such an unhappy man who had so many problems.
(13.): The last chapter is Chapter #11 and Sprague writes about C.L. Moore and several other authors but then spends most of the chapter writing about Fritz Leiber and his stories. Sprague very much enjoyed the tales of The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd. And then Sprague concludes the book by writing about the attraction of fantasy literature.
All in all this 313 page book is one of my very favorite L. Sprague de Camp books. I truly wish I could wave a magic wand and have The Easton Press or The Folio Society reprint this book as a special collector’s edition. I wish Sprague had written a chapter on Jack Vance but you can’t have everything.
I have merely scratched the surface in this review so be sure to find a copy of this book! You won’t regret it!
Tales of Conan was published by Gnome Press in 1955. It has a red cloth binding with black lettering, 219 pages, 4,000 copies printed. There is a map credited to both David Kyle and L. Sprague de Camp. The print run is 1,000 more than the last volume but still 1,000 less than the first book.
The print run possibly increased due to de Camp publishing three of these stories in SF/Fantasy digest magazines.
This book contains the following: Introduction by P. Schuyler Miler, Note by L. Sprague de Camp, The Blood-Stained God, Hawks Over Shem, The Road of the Eagles, and The Flame Knife.
Excerpts from “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian” are sandwiched between the individual Conan stories.
All of the stories in this book are rewrites of unsold REH stories that de Camp turned into Conan stories (something REH himself did, most famously with turning “By this Axe I Rule” into the first published Conan story “The Phoenix on the Sword.”). The first three were discussed in the last installment. “The Flame Knife” is a rewrite of REH’s El Borak story “Three Bladed Doom.” There was both a long (42.000 words) and a short (24,000 words) version. De Camp rewrote the long version. The REH version was published by Zebra Books under the original title in 1977.
Curiously, publisher Donald M. Grant announced another version of this story in his catalog at one time. Darrell Crombie, a Canadian writer that Grant favored was working on his own rewrite of this tale to be called Lair of the Hidden Ones. Sadly the book never appeared (big thanks to Howard Scholar, Lee Breakiron, for providing the scan below.)
De Camp later apologized for the “blowing his silly head off” statement in the pages of Magazine of Horror.
spraguedecampfan 