Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age by Robert E. Howard

by Gary Romeo

Neither the Gnome Press nor the Lancer/Ace Conan series included this essay by Robert E. Howard. Most likely the manuscript hadn’t been discovered yet. In any event, it was first published in A Gazeteer of the Hyborian World of Conan, Starmont House, 1977. 

Starmont House also published a beautifully detailed Hyborian Age map that measured 41″ X 28″ and featured “The World of Kull” in the lower right corner. I did not purchase the map when it was published and kick myself daily.

The author of the Gazeteer is listed as Lee N. Falconer which is a pseudonym for Julian May. She was publisher Ted Dikty’s wife. (Dikty and pulp scholar Darrell C. Richardson were also responsible for the Fax Collector’s Editions of Robert E. Howard books.) Prior to their marriage she had published a fanzine and had sold a story to Astounding Science Fiction. Why a pseudonym was chosen for this book is unknown by me. 

Before discussing Robert E. Howard’s essay, I’ll briefly review this book. It was designed to be a companion to the map. There is a preface, the gazeteer, and four appendices. The preface is very good in describing what sources were used (mainly REH’s stories but supplemented with material from the Lancer Conan series and the Marvel Comics) and map projection techniques along with concern for terrain and national boundaries. It makes for an interesting read.

The gazeteer is an alphabetical listing of place names. Most of the descriptions are short but some are quite lengthy. See the back cover reproduced below for examples. Although this information is not needed to enjoy the original stories, it does satisfy those of us who want to dig deeper into Conan’s world.

The appendices feature a chronology of all the stories published at that time, the essay “Notes on Various Peoples” by REH, information about how the “coats of arms” illustrated on the map were determined, maps by REH, the 1936 map John D. Clark and P. Schuyler Miller sent to REH, and a map by artist Tim Conrad. 

When “Notes on Various People” was reprinted in the Del Rey Conan series it was separated into two articles. The first part discussing Aquilonians, Gundermen, and Cimmerians was published in The Coming of Conan, the later portion discussing “The Westermarck” was published as “Untitled Notes” in The Conquering Sword of Conan and preceded the story “Wolves Beyond the Border.”

REH’s “Notes” are not extremely extensive. Physical characteristics are described: ”The Aquilonians were a tall race, averaging five feet, ten and three-fourths inches in height, and were generally inclined to be rangy, though in the last generations the city dwellers inclined toward portliness.” ”… the people of Gunderland were uniformly tawny haired and grey eyed.” ”[Cimmerians] were a tall powerful race, averaging six feet in height. They were black-haired and grey or blue-eyed.” More interestingly, a province of Aquilonia, which was never sufficiently developed in an actual story, is described in some detail in the “Notes.” (In “The Phoenix on the Sword” Dion of Attalus is one of the conspirators attempting to replace Conan as king.)

Seemingly, based on these notes, REH meant for Attalus to be the premiere Aquilonian province. One supposes that once REH had Thoth Amon kill Dion of Attalus any interest in further developing its history dissipated. Perhaps some worthy new author will give us an “Attalus” story someday. 

Here is what the Gazeteer has to say about Attalus: ”a barony (or perhaps a province) of Aquilonia. Its baron boasted descent from the old royal house of Aquilonia and had designs on Conan’s throne at one time. Not much about Attalus is put forth in the Saga. However, Howard said of it: “[Aquilonia’s] most important provinces were Poitain in the south, Gunderland in the north, and Attalus in the southeast … The people of Attalus boasted the greatest advances in commerce and culture, though the whole level of Aquilonian civilization was enviable.” Because of this statement, we have placed Attalus in the region about Tarantia, the Aquilonian capital.”

The section of the “Notes” dealing with “The Westermarck” (along with REH’s map and “The Hyborian Age” itself) shows that REH was quite a “world builder” and took his imaginary settings seriously enough to strive for a high level of verisimilitude for his readers.

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.

The Lancer Conan Series: The Hyborian Age by Robert E. Howard

“The Hyborian Age” was first published in 3 issues of The Phantagraph. Part 1 in Volume 4, Number 3, February 1936; Part 2 in Volume 4, Number 5, August 1936; Part 3 in Volume 5, Number 1, October 1936. The Phantagraph series stops at the time of Conan. The first complete publication was in The Hyborian Age, LANY Cooperative Publications, 1938. It was reprinted in two parts in the Lancer Conan series. Part 1 in Conan, 1967 and Part 2 in Conan the Avenger, 1968.

February 1936 issue. Contains Part 1 of ‘The Hyborian Age.”

Published in 1938. Contains the complete “The Hyborian Age,”

Conan, Lancer Books, 1967 reprints “The Hyborian Age” starting from REH’s original line: “(Nothing in this article is to be considered as an attempt to advance any theory in opposition to accepted history.” to “They are stubborn defensive fighters, and centuries of warfare against northern and western barbarians have caused them to evolve a type of defense almost impregnable against direct attack.” De Camp added an introduction:

The preceding letter refers to the “Letter from R. E. Howard to P. S. Miller” that was reprinted in this same book. De Camp also added an observation about the “Lemurian Migration.”

De Camp made no other edits to the first part of the essay. He did copy the line that Donald Wollheim (most likely) added to the essay when it appeared in The Phantagraph.

Conan the Avenger, Lancer Books, 1968 reprints the rest of “The Hyborian Age” with no changes except for a brief interjection in the first sentence: “Five hundred years later [that is, after the reign of Conan the Great –de C.] the Hyborian civilization was swept away.”

The 1938 publication of The Hyborian Age also included “A Probable Outline of Conan’s Career” by P. Schuyler Miller & John D. Clark, Ph.D. Miller and Clark’s outline pretty much had REH’s endorsement (which is why de Camp reprinted REH’s response letter in Conan, Lancer Books, 1967.) This essay was later revised by the authors and L. Sprague de Camp and retitled “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian” and published in Amra, V2,N4. De Camp used excerpts from this essay as biographical paragraphs between the stories in the entire Lancer series.

When the very first Conan story “The Phoenix on the Sword” was printed in Weird Tales, December 1932, Robert E. Howard provided a brief introduction and credited the authorship to “The Nemedian Chronicles.”

This cleverly set the stage that all the Conan adventures were documented in ancient scrolls recently unearthed. De Camp removed this introduction from “The Phoenix on the Sword” and used it as the introduction to the first story in the Lancer Conan series “The Thing in the Crypt.” He also added an excerpt from “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian” to that story’s introduction. By doing that de Camp effectively made “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian” a part of “The Nemedian Chronicles.” (Of course as continuing adventures appeared after the Lancer series and with a new Conan adventure being published this year “The Nemedian Chronicles” is in a constant state of update and revision!)

“The Hyborian Age” being printed before this reference to “The Nemedian Chronicles” makes it more of a separate historical overview and not a part of “The Nemedian Chronicles” to my way of thinking. (Boy, these distinctions I’m making are getting really nerdy! Nevertheless, I’m compelled to make them!)

Marvel Comics adapted “The Hyborian Age” in The Savage Sword of Conan #7, 8, 12, 15, 16, and 17. All the parts are by Roy Thomas and Walt Simonson. Walt’s artistic style seems well suited to the scope of this story. Walt has said that the below illustration of King Kull is probably his first published illustration of a Marvel published character:

Anyway, onward… H. P. Lovecraft is the only REH fan that can getaway with criticizing REH without too much histrionic feedback. HPL forwarded “The Hyborian Age” to The Phantagraph for publication. His criticisms are mild but I think apt:

The first Conan story was a rewritten Kull story; so obviously REH had invented an imaginary age before ever conceiving of Conan. Kull’s world was more fantastical than Conan’s though. It included lands like Atlantis and Lemuria, which already had imaginary histories of their own. Other kingdoms like Valusia and Grondar were wholly imaginary. REH incorporated Kull into “The Hyborian Age” but apparently never felt the need to write it all down until the success of Conan.

REH wrote in the introduction to “The Hyborian Age,” “… I prepared this “history” of [Conan’s] age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness.” Had I been editing the Lancer Conan series I would have separated REH’s introduction from the actual start of the essay. Why spoil the verisimilitude that this history provides with that disclaimer from REH?

The barbarians of Kull’s time, The Thurian Age (aka the Pre-Cataclysmic Age), were the Picts, Atlanteans, and Lemurians. Valusia was the dominant civilized kingdom. Far to the south was a pre-human civilization. Per REH the Atlanteans eventually founded a kingdom (heightened more by legend than accurate history.)

Then the Cataclysm rocked the world.

I’m not going to summarize the rest of what REH wrote. The essay is short and can be studied by those who really want the details. I agree with HPL that some of the names REH uses are too closely aligned with known history but like HPL I wink at the weak spots and revel in the historic scope that REH provides.

De Camp defended REH’s practice by saying, “Names from ancient sources convey a glamour of antiquity without being too unfamiliar to the modern reader. Besides, few are knowledgeable enough to be troubled by the true derivation of names in a fantasy tale, even when they recognize the source.” De Camp also had this to say about the Conan series:

This concludes my overview of The Lancer Conan Series. In the future I might go back and revisit the introductions in depth (as well as the back covers, which were as important as the front covers, to my way of thinking) and do new overviews of key characters like Thoth-Amon and key references like “The Book of Skelos.” But I’m done with Conan for a bit. Next up will be The Lancer Kull Series. I plan to continue with the same format: textual changes, comic adaptations, and hopefully interesting commentary.