Conan (collection)

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Conan is a 1967 collection of seven fantasy short stories and associated pieces written by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines. The book has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers, and has also been translated into German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. It was later gathered together with Conan of Cimmeria and Conan the Freebooter into the omnibus collection The Conan Chronicles (1989).

Contents:

• "Introduction" (L. Sprague de Camp)
• "Letter from Robert E. Howard to P. Schuyler Miller" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hyborian Age, Part 1" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Thing in the Crypt" (L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)
• "The Tower of the Elephant" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hall of the Dead" (Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp)
• "The God in the Bowl" (Robert E. Howard)
• "Rogues in the House" (Robert E. Howard)
• "The Hand of Nergal" (Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter)
• "The City of Skulls" (L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)

[edit] Plot

After a letter by Conan's creator reflecting on the hero's life and an essay on the invented prehistory in which his adventures are set tracing its development up to Conan's own time, the stories gathered in this collection follow the Cimmerian from his escape from slavery in Hyperboria through his days as a youthful thief in Zamora, Corinthia and Nemedia, to the beginning of his stint as a soldier for King Yildiz of Turan. To Conan's discomfiture, the supernatural is his constant companion.

Chronologically, the seven short stories collected as Conan are the earliest in Lancer's Conan series; the stories collected as Conan of Cimmeria follow.

Preceded by None

Lancer/Ace Conan series Conan

Succeeded by Conan of Cimmeria