Today, January 22nd, is Robert E. Howard's 113th birthday.
On this day (January 22nd) back in 1906, Hester Ervin Howard gave birth to Robert. Just prior to Robert's birth, the Howard's were living in an area called Dark Valley. Toward the time Hester was to deliver, Dr. Howard took her to a little bit bigger community, Peaster, Texas to give birth to their boy. At the time of Robert's birth, the attending doctor documented the wrong day—January 24th, 1906—as seen in the Register of Births pictured below.
Interestingly, the date from the Register of Births—January 24th, 1906—also appears on the historical marker that sits next to the Howard Family headstone in the Greenleaf Cemetery, Brownwood, TX. Apparently, according to Damon Sasser, the person who wrote the application for the marker took the erroneous date from de Camp's biography, Dark Valley Destiny. The Historical Society of Texas declared that they could replace the marker for a sum of $1200.00. Perhaps a fundraiser for this cost can be performed and a new marker with more accurate verbiage can be created.
Little did the Howards know at the time of their son's birth, he'd grow to be a world renown writer, creating some of the most memorable characters and establishing a sub-genre for adventure and heroic fantasy. Because of Isaac M. Howard's occupation, a family doctor, the Howards moved around quite frequently until Robert was thirteen, in 1919 when the family settled in Cross Plains, Texas. At the time the Howard family settled in Cross Plains, it was in the midst of an oil boom. During these oil boom periods, the town would see a strong surge in population. Once the boom abated, the population would drop back down to the regular residency size. These oil booms had a strong impact on young Robert. He would encounter some unusual and wild characters, fodder for his future writing career. Later in adulthood, Howard discussed these oil booms in his correspondence with fellow writer H.P. Lovecraft.
In his later teen years, Howard had some success at writing which helped to prompt him to submit stories for some of the magazines he was reading at the time. In July 1925, at the age of just nineteen, Howard's story "Spear and Fang" was published by a struggling pulp magazine called Weird Tales. This was all it took, Howard would spend the next eleven years creating stories around memorable characters such as Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Kull, El Borak, sailor Steve Costigan, Cormac Mac Art, Breckinridge Elkins, Buckner J. Grimes, Pike Bearfield, and of course, Conan the Cimmerian along with many others; one of my personal favorites is Corcoran. Howard also was a prolific poet, writing some 700 or so poems.
Howard's most popular character, Conan the Cimmerian, has crossed several pop culture boundaries. Conan can be seen in books, comic books, movies, television shows, board games, role-playing games, graphic novels, and video games. In the last 80 plus years, Conan's popularity has only increased. Another of Howard's characters, Solomon Kane, has also seen the silver screen in a relatively recent film titled after the character's name. Michael J. Bassett placed the character in a European film that garnered so much success the film was able to make a U. S. debut on August 24th, 2012. While the character and story line in Basset's film was different from Howard's Kane, at least, the film helped various viewers who had no idea who Robert E. Howard was, find out about the author. One such person was Anne Rice, who on her Facebook wall announced that she saw the film and wanted to read more works from Robert E. Howard.
The general tradition in Howard fandom is to read a story by Howard and while doing so, imbibe your favorite beverage!
So . . . Here's to the first of all dog brothers . . . Cheers!
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