Hyborian vs. Hyborean

by Gary Romeo

I’m on vacation so this will be short. It is definitely a silly thing to concern myself over. But the spelling difference keeps popping up every now and then. As far as I’ve been able to determine the spelling difference first occurred in Conan the Conqueror, Gnome Press, 1950.

One of the countries on the Hyborian Map is Hyperborea. Hyperborea is borrowed from Greek Mythology. The Hyperboreoi lived in a northern paradise of constant sunshine. The word combines hyper meaning above and boreas meaning the north wind. Hyberborean appeared as a word in the 1500s and became a general term for the far north and the people who lived there.

The first story in Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborea cycle is “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros”. It was written in 1929 and first published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales thus predating the first Conan story.

REH’s Hyperborea and CAS’s Hyperborea are different places but when I was a 13-year-old reader with no internet to help me I did wonder about the same name being used by both authors. However, those days are long gone. Google can straighten out my confusion on most things these days. In any event REH referred to Conan’s time as the Hyborian Age not the Hyperborean Age so bringing Hyperborea into this discussion was only due to the similarity in spelling, not meant to add further confusion!

I was reminded again of the spelling difference between Hyborian and Hyborean when I re-read an interview with REH Scholar Rusty Burke conducted by REH Biographer Mark Finn that was published in Conversations With Texas Writers, University of Texas Press, 2005.

The editor of this book chose the “Hyborean” spelling. I can’t say why? My guess is that the editor was aware of, or had access to, the Gnome Press book. Conan the Conqueror: The Hyborean Age is the way that Gnome Press book is listed in the “Bibliography of Author’s Works” provided therein.

As an aside I do recommend this book. The Finn/Rusty section, while not providing anything new for longtime REH fans, is a nice introduction to show others since it is wrapped in a University of Texas wrapper. Robert E. Howard is name-checked under overviews of two other Texas authors as well. Joe Lansdale is quoted as saying, “Most of the writers that influenced me early on were not Texas writers particularly, but as I got into my teens, I discovered Robert E. Howard. I liked the fact that here was a guy who lived in a small Texas town, had a tremendous imagination, and made a living by his own wit – which is what appeals to me perhaps more than the literary side. You don’t have some sonofabitch standing over you telling you what to do. I think that’s exactly what Howard said, or something very close to that. I related to that too. I was always independent. I didn’t want to work for someone else.” REH is mentioned again in an article about Bruce Sterling. A comparison is made about both writers being prolific. Dozens of other Texas authors are looked at as well. It’s a good book for any Texas writer or reader to own.

This spelling difference is so trivial a matter that I hesitated to do a blogpost about it, but the little things sometimes get blown up into big things. Especially when they concern Gnome Press and, by association, L. Sprague de Camp. Some fans find malfeasance in even the minor changes de Camp made in the Lancer Books edition of Conan the Conqueror, where he corrected the names of different types of helmets. Is that any different from changes made in one of the “pure-text” Del Rey books? Specifically, when the series editor changed the names of characters in stories collected in the Sword Woman book, giving the rationale reproduced below:

In any event, Sprague de Camp cannot be credited or blamed for the spelling difference between Hyborian and Hyborean. That was done before de Camp popularized Conan. REH Scholar Lee Breakiron reminded me that there is the precedent of using “ean” instead of “ian” for Atlantean. My guess is David Kyle made the spelling change, as he was responsible for the “look” of the book. “Hyborean” looks more antique and exotic than “Hyborian” (and is reminiscent of Atlantean). I believe it was as simple as that.

Why not jazz up the spelling?

Postscript: Since writing this article Bobby Derie has informed me of the following:

This may be the fault of Forrest J. Ackerman, who had a tendency to meddle with spellings. An ad for sale in Voice of the Imagi-Nation #37 (1942) mentions for sale “The Hyborean Age”–REHoward, $1. Considering that the 1938 booklet uses “The Hyborian Age” on the cover, this feels like an Ackermanism. That being said, how much influence would Ackerman’s spelling have on Martin Greenberg at Gnome Press? Perhaps they both arrived at the misspelling from common conflation between Hyborian and Hyperborean; they certainly wouldn’t be alone in that.

There’s no doubt, however, that the Gnome Press adoption of “Hyborean” was a sizable influence on its common adaption, as with Amra and the Hyborean Legion in the 1950s later corrected to Hyborian (and not to be confused with the Hyperborian League APA in the 70s, which was often “corrected” as Hyperborean.) Lin Carter’s 1975 wargame was Armies of the Hyborean Age, etc. etc.