by Gary Romeo
L. Sprague de Camp did his best to promote the Lancer Conan series. There was his participation in AMRA (the fanzine devoted to Conan and Sword & Sorcery published by George R. Heap and later George H. Scithers), his numerous talks at SF Conventions, and his active pursuit of endorsements (something rarely mentioned.)
Remember those blurbs on the back covers of the Lancer Conan books? The first in the series was Conan the Adventurer. Along with the byline “A Hero Mightier Than Tarzan… Adventures More Imaginative Than “Lord of the Rings”” was a paragraph written by de Camp:
Larry Shaw at Lancer Books made the final decision in these things and most likely felt the de Camp quote was helpful. De Camp was a known name in the science fiction field and his ringing endorsement of Robert E. Howard’s Conan carried some weight. But for whatever reason, the next book, Conan the Warrior, was without any back cover quote.
Conan the Conqueror quoted artist Roy G. Krenkel who was well-known among the Edgar Rice Burroughs fans that the Conan series was initially trying to appeal to. The back cover for the following volume, Conan the Usurper only featured a brief paragraph about the contents.
So, at this point, we have only two books with endorsement quotes. The first book published has the de Camp quote, and the third book has the Krenkel quote. The second and fourth book published were without quotes. Either Shaw or de Camp must have thought these endorsement quotes were a good idea. De Camp wrote to Shaw on August 4,1967 mentioning his search for endorsements.
The Fritz Leiber endorsement appears below. I was glad to learn of de Camp’s hesitancy to manufacture a Heinlein quote. There is no doubt that a quote from Heinlein would have been a sales booster. But a “synthetic” quote did not satisfy de Camp’s standards.
The rest of the books were pretty much quote free. Conan the Avenger featured a brief sentence from Damon Knight, “A triumphant epic of swords and sorcery … “A vividness, a color, a dreamdust sparkle …”” Conan the Freebooter featured a paragraph from John D. Clark. Conan the Wanderer, Conan of the Isles, Conan of Cimmeria, and the final book published Conan the Buccaneer were without any quotes.
The one quotable figure that de Camp pursued the most was J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien declined to be quoted for the record. The best we have is de Camp’s recalling his visit and correspondence in an issue of Mythlore:
spraguedecampfan 
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Cool to read that Tolkien enjoyed REH’s tales, even if he wouldn’t go on record for it, for some reason.
Sprague sent Tolkien a copy of SWORDS & SORCERY (the first sword & sorcery anthology). So, when Sprague visited him in person, Tolkien knowing of Sprague’s enthusiasm for Robert E. Howard was maybe just being polite. Tolkien, in all likelihood, only read “Shadows in Zamboula” but hopefully, since he said so, he actually “rather liked Conan” in at least the one story we can be almost certain he read. George R. R. Martin credited SWORDS & SORCERY and the Lancer Conans as his gateway drug on Stephen Colbert’s late-night TV show in front of millions. So we can be 100% sure that Martin rather liked Conan!
interesting!
It seems there’s a tale behind everything! I would not have thought to wonder where the blurbs on the Lancers came from. Usually such things seem to be lifted (with any negative reactions cut) from contemporary reviews. I suspect the Knight blurb, for instance, was so curated. But de Camp, it appears, was a blurb chaser! Pity he couldn’t have caught a few more big fish!