The Hyborian Age

"The Hyborian Age" is an essay by American writer Robert E. Howard pertaining to the Hyborian Age, the fictional setting of his stories about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published during Howard's lifetime. Its purpose was to maintain consistency within his fictional setting. Howard opens the essay stating "When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness."^[1]

The essay sets out in detail the major events of Howard's fictional prehistory, both period before and after the time of the Conan stories. In describing the

In addition to its use as underpinning to his Kull and Conan stories, Howard drew on his invented prehistory in tales with later settings. For instance, "Kings of the Night" brings King Kull forward in time to fight the Roman legions, while "The Haunter of the Ring", set in the modern age, makes use of a Hyborian artifact.

An unnamed Howard fragment published by

Howard's story "Men of the Shadows" includes a long historical narrative, similar in style to "The Hyborian Age" but different in detail. The Hour of the Dragon, the only Conan novel authored by Howard, expands upon the history of the world presented in this essay by introducing a new ancient empire called Acheron that had ruled the Hyborian kingdoms in the past.

Robert Yaple wrote a semi-historical essay entitled "Acheron – A Revisionary Theory", emulating the style of Howard's The Hyborian Age, tracing systematically the history of Acheron and integrating it within the data provided in Howard's essay.^[4]

The Hyborian Age was also the name of a fanzine published in the 1930s.

The essay has been published as follows:^[5]

• The Phantagraph (fan publication) February – November 1936 (first part of essay only – up to Conan's time)
• The Hyborian Age (Los Angeles-New York Cooperative Publications, 1938)
• Skull-Face and Others (Arkham House, 1946)
• The Coming of Conan (Gnome Press, 1953, first part of essay only)
• Conan (Lancer Books
  , 1967, first part of essay only)
• Conan the Avenger (Lancer Books, 1968, second part of essay only)
• Skull-Face Omnibus (Neville-Spearman [Jersey] Ltd., 1974, reprinted as 3-volume paperback,
  Panther Books Ltd
  ., 1976)
• G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977, also published in paperback, Berkley Books
  , 1977)
• The Conan Chronicles (Sphere Books, 1989, first part of essay only)
• The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Millennium/Gollancz, August 2000)
• Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933), Wandering Star Books, London, 2003, published in the United States as The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, New York, Ballantine/Del Rey, December 2003
• The Hyborian Age: Facsimile Edition (Skelos Press), 2015

Adaptations

An illustrated adaptation was made in Savage Sword of Conan running through issues #7, #8, #12, #15, #16, #17.

See also

• Devolution
• Dysgenics

References

1. ISBN 978-0-575-07766-9
   .
2. ISBN 0-553-20582-X
   .
3. ^ Glenn Lord, The Howard Collector, Ace Books, 1979, p. 36-38
4. ^ Glenn Lord, "The Howard Collector", Ace Books, 1979, p. 245-250
5. ^ "The Barbarian Keep". www.barbariankeep.com. Retrieved May 25, 2020.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Hyborian Age

• An omnibus of Howard's public domain works, including The Hyborian Age at Standard Ebooks
• The Hyborian Age title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• An illustrated version of The Hyborian Age essay
• The Hyborian Age