Adventure June 3, 1921 |
As
best as I can determine, the Adventure magazine Howard purchased that summer evening was
most likely the June 3, 1921 issue. The issue featured two writers who would
make a lasting impression on fifteen-year-old Howard: Arthur O. Friel and
Rafael Sabatini. Both writers are similar in style and content (e.g.
swashbuckling sword fights, etc.), though the settings of their adventure
stories are worlds apart; many of Friel’s stories are typically set in South
America (Amazon/Brazil) and Sabatini’s in various different locales. Howard
would utilize (and mimic) both writer’s style. From Friel, Howard borrows vast
jungle settings, from Sabatini Howard borrows rapier sword duels (and other
things). Sabatini also fueled Howard’s passion for pirate stories. We will
examine Rafael Sabatini’s influence on Howard in a future post. For now,
let’s turn our attention to Arthur O. Friel.
That
June 3 1921 issue of Adventure was most likely the first time Howard had
encountered Arthur O. Friel’s work. Friel’s story “The Barrigudo” was in that
issue. After this first encounter with the magazine, Howard indicated that he
continued to purchase Adventure for years, when he could afford it. By
fall of 1921, October the 10th to be precise, Howard began reading Friel’s
four-part series “The Pathless Trail.” The subsequent parts appeared in these
issues of Adventure: October 20 (part 2), October 30 (part 3), and
November 10 (part 4). This series and other
stories by Friel would be paramount for Howard’s stylistic prose for several of his Solomon Kane and his latter adventure fantasy stories (e.g. Conan) stories.
Arthur Olney Friel |
The columns below show the
similarities between Friel’s and Howard’s use of language, description, style, and
sentence structure.
“Day
by day the downflowing jungle river pushed steadily, sullenly against its
prow, as if striving to repel the invasion of its secret places.” From
Friel’s “The Pathless Trail”
|
“He
gazed at the huts, wondering why the thatch roofs of so many were torn and
rent, as if by taloned things seeking entrance.” From Howard’s “Wings in the
Night”
|
“The
bushman turned at once and stole away. The others turned the canoes,
transported the necessary duffle to the base of the hollow tree, made camp,
and squatted against the trunk to smoke, watch, and wait. Several times they
heard calls receding in the distance. Then came silence.” (Ibid)
|
“When
all were buckling from exhaustion. The sun dipped, night rushed on, and a
halt was called. Camp was pitched, guards thrown out, and the slaves were fed
scantily and given enough water to keep life in them – but only just enough.”
From Howard’s “The Footfalls Within”
|
“Worming
around gigantic columns, crawling over rotting trunks, changing directions
abruptly when blocked by some great butt too high to be scaled, sinking
ankle-deep in clinging mud, the venturesome band wound along through the
wilderness. The general trend of the march was southeast, but impassable
obstacles encountered at frequent intervals necessitated not only detours,
but sometimes actual backtracking.” (Ibid)
|
“The
littoral of the great river altered. Plains turned into swamps that stank
with reptilian life. Where fertile meadows had rolled, forests reared up, growing
into dank jungles. The changing ages wrought on the inhabitants of the city
as well. They did not migrate to fresher lands. Reasons inexplicable to
humanity held them to the ancient cities and their doom.” From Howard’s
“Queen of the Black Coast”
|
These examples demonstrate
that Howard, as a reader of stories and writers he loved, paid attention to
what he was reading. Friel’s influence on Howard’s early and later writing
style is certainly present in these three examples. There are a host of other
examples between the two writers, but these three examples work well to drive home my point.
A use of hearty pronouns to vividly describe landscapes and action in each of their stories was frequently utilized. In fact, the language
and style between the two writers was fairly common among pulp writers. The
writers who stood out among the hundreds of pulp writers from this era are,
however, the ones who not only utilized these techniques, but chose their words
carefully to help control their story’s pace, creating a much better tone and rhythm. Even though other pulp writers like Friel influenced Howard. Howard stood out due to his signature prose,
distinct writing voice, and his ability to astutely control the pace of his
narrative, taking hold of his reader and pulling them through the scenery and
action. In other words, Howard took what he liked in Friel’s work, made it his
own, and then wrote better and far more enduring tales.
The Pathless Trail Time-Lost Series Centaur Press, 1969 |
With all this in mind, it’s interesting that Arthur O.
Friel is mentioned only once in all of Robert E. Howard’s letters. In a letter
to Carl Jacobi from the Summer of 1934, Howard declares, “I was much interested
to note that you are acquainted with Arthur O. Friel. He has been one of my
favorite authors for years.” That’s it, one simple statement indicating that
Howard had read Friel’s work for years and that Friel was one of Howard’s favorite
authors. We have certainly seen why this is the case. Interestingly,
Arthur O. Friel never broke free from Adventure
magazine into the wider publishing community. Although, in 1950 he managed to
publish a collection of his stories from Adventure. Some of these same stories were
republished in 1969 by Centaur Press for their Time-Lost series. It’s
worth noting that three of the volumes in this same Time-Lost series
from Centaur Press are Robert E. Howard collections containing several Solomon Kane tales and
fragments. The two writers certainly complement each other in this series and,
Howard would be proud to know his work was published in a series of
works that included one of his favorite writers, Arthur O. Friel.
Works Cited
CL Collected Letters
REHB The Robert E. Howard Bookshelf
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Del Rey, 2004
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian Del Rey, 2003
The Pathless Trail Centaur Press, 1969
Works Cited
CL Collected Letters
REHB The Robert E. Howard Bookshelf
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Del Rey, 2004
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian Del Rey, 2003
The Pathless Trail Centaur Press, 1969
1 comment:
As always an excellent and interesting article. Thank you
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