The Robert E. Howard Foundation Robert E. Howard Biographyby Rusty Burke. Robert Ervin Howard 1. The creator of Conan the Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, El Borak, Sailor Steve Costigan and many other memorable characters, Howard known as REH to his millions of fans, in a career that spanned barely 1. While he is widely regarded as the father of Sword and Sorcery and the creator of Conan the Barbarian, this reputation has been something of a double edged sword. It has helped keep his work in the public eye for six decades since his death, but it has also obscured the astonishing breadth of his imagination, his talent for mastering a variety of genres and his ability to weave his magic in both prose and poetry. Robert E. Howard contributed his most celebrated work to the pre eminent fantasy pulp magazine of the era, Weird Tales. However, his stories also appeared in such diverse publications as Action Stories, Argosy, Fight Stories, Oriental Stories, Spicy Adventure, Sport Story, Strange Detective and a number of others. That his stories were a consistent hit with readers of the time is not surprising, for he created thrilling, vividly realized adventures populated by colorful, larger than life characters. He was a consummate and dynamic storyteller. Even after his death publishers continued for some time to publish his stories or reprint them under other by lines. So enduring is the appeal of his work that over a half century later he continues to gain new fans, introduced to his tales through paperbacks, comics, and movies. His work has also inspired subsequent generations of fantasy writers and a loyal following that has taken to cyberspace to spread the word. Robert E. Howard was born on January 2. January 2. 4, 1. Peaster, Texas, in Parker County, just west of Fort Worth. The confusion surrounding his date of birth arises from Howard celebrating January 2. Whos Who Among North American Authors, while his record of birth in Parker County reads January 2. As his father also gave Roberts birthday as 2. January, it is probably safe to assume that is the correct date. At the time of Roberts birth, the Howards lived in Palo Pinto County, on the banks of Dark Valley Creek. Expert repair of vintage and antique pocket watches and wristwatches in Bellevue, Washington. Repairing Hamilton, Illinois, Elgin, Waltham, Hampden, Ball, Gruen. His father, Dr. Isaac Mordecai Howard, presumably moved his wife temporarily to the larger community of Peaster to allow readier access to medical care during her pregnancy. Hester Jane Ervin Howard, Roberts mother, did not enjoy robust health, to put it mildly there was a history of tuberculosis in her family and Hester Howard was sickly for much of Roberts life. Isaac Howard was a country doctor, a profession that entailed frequent lengthy absences from home, and thus he may have wished to be certain that his wife of two years would have adequate medical attention when she delivered their first, and as it transpired, only child. Isaac Howard seems to have been possessed of a combination of wanderlust and ambition that led him to frequently move his family in search of better opportunities. By the time he was eight, Robert had lived in at least seven different and widely scattered Texas towns. In 1. 91. 5, the family moved to the community of Cross Cut in Brown County, and they would live in this vicinity with moves to Burkett in Coleman County in 1. Cross Plains Callahan County in 1. Roberts and his mothers lives. E Howard Pocket' title='E Howard Pocket' />More About Pocket Mouse and Predation. The rock pocket mouse is found in two color variants, or morphs light and dark. In different environments, their visibility to. Jasper Pdf Encoding Utf 8. Waltham Pocket Watch Repair The Waltham Watch Company is so deeply responsible for groundbreaking manufacturing innovation, that their contribution to instrument. E Howard Pocket' title='E Howard Pocket' />Cross Plains in the 1. Like much of the Central West Texas region, though, it went through periodic oil booms that brought hundreds, perhaps thousands, of temporary inhabitants who set up camps just outside the town limits, jammed the hotels beyond capacity, and rented rooms or beds in private homes. The lease men, riggers, drillers, tool dressers, and roughnecks who followed the oil were followed in their turn by others who sought to make a quick buck off them, from men or women who set up temporary hamburger stands to feed them, to gamblers and whores who provided recreation, to thugs, thieves and con men who simply preyed on them. An oil boom could transform a sleepy little community into a big city in no time at all, in those days, and bring with it much social upheaval. The few extra thousand who swelled the population of Cross Plains managed to make it a far wilder and rowdier town than usual. One resident recalls her family driving into town on Saturday night just to watch people, hoping fights would break out. Of the atmosphere in a boom town, Howard wrote Ill say one thing about an oil boom it will teach a kid that lifes a pretty rotten thing about as quick as anything I can think of. Just as fast as the town grew, however, it could decline when the oil played out, the speculators, oil field workers and their camp followers moved on. E Howard Pocket' title='E Howard Pocket' />The influence of this boom and bust cycle on Howards later ideas about the growth and decline of civilization that societies are built by hardy pioneers, who are then followed by others who grow decadent and enjoy the fruits of the society but contribute nothing to its continued growth, and thus inevitably the society will decay or be overthrown by a new generation of pioneers has often been overlooked. Robert Howard attended the local high school, where he was remembered as polite and reserved. To make pocket money he labored at a variety of jobs, including hauling trash, picking up and delivering laundry for dry cleaners, working as a store clerk and loading freight at the train station. He had some close friends among the local boys, but none shared his literary interests, which had probably been nurtured from an early age by his mother, an ardent lover of poetry. He was an avid reader, claiming even to have raided schoolhouses during the summer in his quest for books. While this story is no doubt exaggerated, it demonstrates his love of reading, a rarity in these outlying communities, most of which had no libraries, much less bookstores. Howard devoured books at an extraordinary rate, astonishing his friends with his ability to pick up a book and turn the pages faster than they thought anyone could actually read. Yet later he could remember what he had read with perfect clarity. His friend Lindsey Tyson claimed that Howard had memorized The Rime of the Ancient Mariner after only two readings. Howards library, presented by his father to Howard Payne College after his death, reveals the breadth of his interests history and fiction are dominant, but also represented are biography, sports, poetry, anthropology, Texana and erotica. Near the end of his life, Howard wrote to the renowned fantasist H. P. Lovecraft, with whom he corresponded regularly, about his favorite writers. These included Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Mark Twain, Sax Rohmer, Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Walter Scott, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft. A huge fan of poetry, Howard also sought out the verse of Robert W. Service, Kipling, Sidney Lanier, Poe, Walter de la Mare, Omar Khayyam, Henry Herbert Knibbs, G. K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, Tennyson, Alfred Noyes and Lovecraft, among many others. In addition to his reading, Robert Howard had a passion for oral storytelling. It is well attested that he frequently told his stories aloud as he typed them, annoying his neighbors no end with the racket he often made right through the night.