Books What to do in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas Make This Your Home Page Get GuideLive Newsletters Home The Arts ... Search Archives Prolific Texas writer Robert E. Howard was a pulp prodigy 12:00 AM CST on Sunday, January 20, 2008 JUDY ALTER Not many Texans know Robert E. Howard. Some overlook him deliberately, resenting comparisons to J. Frank Dobie and other greats of Texas literature. Maybe it's because he didn't write much about Texas. Or because he was, in his time, the king of the pulps, best known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, and better compared to Edgar Allan Poe or Dashiell Hammett. Author of 800 stories, poems and novels written over 12 years, Howard was one of the most prolific Texas writers. Texas fantasy writer Joe Lansdale suggests he was a writer of importance, even if his impact was on the "dirty corner of literature." Myths persist: Howard, affectionately known as REH to fans, was rumored to be a recluse or unnaturally close to his mother, who was a semi-invalid much of his life. Neither is true, as Mark Finn reports in his 2006 biography, . Within the limits of Cross Plains, his lifelong home, Howard lived a normal life, had a girlfriend, went drinking with friends, traveled, corresponded with other authors and wrote tirelessly, pounding on an ancient typewriter in the sleeping porch that was both his bedroom and workroom. | |
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