Robert E.Howard Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sword and sorcery

Robert Ervin Howard, born in Texas in 1906, began writing stories for American pulp fiction magazines in the 1920s. Though his output was varied, including Westerns, detective stories, historical fiction, and ghost stories, Howard is best remembered today as the creator of the "Sword and sorcery" genre of fantasy/adventure stories.

Answer: Solomon Kane

First appearing in the story "Red Shadows" in the August, 1928 issue of "Weird Tales", Solomon Kane is described as a large, dour 17th century English Puritan who travels the world fighting evil. Howard wrote nine stories and three poems featuring Kane, as well as leaving outlines of five more stories which were finished by other writers and published in several collections.

Answer: November 1924

While Howard had had two of his stories published in his high school newspaper in 1923, his first work that he was paid for was a short story about cavemen, called "Spear and Fang", which he sold to the pulp fiction magazine "Weird Tales" in November, 1924. Howard was paid sixteen dollars for the story, which was published in the July, 1925 issue.

Answer: Boxing

In the early 1920s, Howard took up the sport of boxing and became a fairly proficient amateur at the sport. A number of Howard's stories, some of them autobiographical, featured boxing or boxers.

Answer: Weird Tales

"Weird Tales", founded in 1922, published its first issue in March, 1923. The magazine was a major outlet for fantasy and horror fiction. Robert E. Howard's first published work in the magazine was in July, 1925, after which he was a regular contributor until his death.

The original "Weird Tales" magazine ceased publication in 1954, but there have been numerous attempts to re-launch the publication in the years since then.

Answer: "The Shadow Kingdom"

"The Shadow Kingdom" was the first of Howard's stories about Kull, a warrior-king from Atlantis. The story was first published in "Weird Tales" in August, 1929. Howard went on to write a total of ten short stories featuring Kull, while later writers have adapted the character and published comic books and short stories about Kull.

A 1997 film starring Kevin Sorbo was loosely based on Howard's stories.

Answer: 1932

Howard published a story in "Strange Tales" magazine in June, 1932 that featured a character called "Conan", but the character known by later fans was not fully developed until the story "The Phoenix on the Sword" was published in the December, 1932 issue of "Weird Tales". The story was actually a re-write of a rejected "Kull" story from 1929 called "By This Axe I Rule".

Answer: Sam Walser

In the 1930s, writing stories for pulp fiction magazines was mostly a hand to mouth existence, with payment for published material often late. Howard, who had always written stories in various genres, had his greatest financial success writing Western stories during this period, and he also sold stories that were akin to modern romance novels under the pseudonym Sam Walser.

Answer: None

While Howard wrote a semi-autobiographical novel in 1928 entitled "Post Oaks and Sand Roughs", the book was rejected and not published until 1989. Howard also completed one Conan novel, "The Hour of the Dragon", which was published in "Weird Tales" in serial form, beginning with the December, 1935 issue.

Answer: Nineteen

A total of nineteen "Conan" stories were published in Howard's lifetime. Seventeen of these stories were published in "Weird Tales", while two others were published in "Fantasy Fan" magazine. Three complete stories were not published until they were included in collections of Howard's work in the 1950s and 1960s, while four other stories were found in outline form among Howard's papers and were completed by other writers and published in later collections of his work.