Letter from R.E. Howard to P.S. Miller

In the first part of this post I want to cover the essay sent to Robert Howard. This version of "A Probable Outline of Conan's Career" is the original, un-altered, and un-edited version as it first appeared in the Robert E. Howard fanzine, The Hyborian Age, published in 1938. A rough draft of the following essay was sent to Robert E. Howard shortly before his death by P.S. Miller. Howard, flattered that someone would be "so interested in Conan as to work out an outline of his career," then reviewed it, made some small corrections, and praised "A Probable Outline of Conan's Career," stating that Miller's timeline followed his visualization of Conan's career "pretty closely." Miller and Clark made the corrections indicated by Howard, added an additional Conan tale, and published the timeline in The Hyborian Age two years later. This essay and Howard's letter to P.S. Miller dated March 10, 1936 are the best starting points to begin to see Conan's history as Robert E. Howard may have seen it, un-edited and un-altered...

A Probable Outline of CONAN'S CAREER

By P. Schuyler Miller & John D. Clark, Ph.D.

The career of Conan, the Cimmerian adventurer, as described in thepublished chronicles dealing with his adventures, is divisible into a number of fairlywell-defined periods or stages. The chronological order of his adventures, asdeduced from the chronicles, is based largely on circumstantial evidence, save fora few definite and sometimes contradictory statements as to things which havegone before. Information on his earlier days, his age at various states in hiscareer, and on some intermediate periods has been taken from a letter from therecorder of his history, the late Robert E. Howard.

A. Conan, the barbarian, was born into a clan claiming an area in thenorthwest of Cimmeria. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe whofled from his own people because of a blood-feud, and after long wanderings tookrefuge with the people of the north. Conan himself was born on the battlefield,during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir. There is no recordto show when he got his first sight of civilized people; however, at the age of 15,he received his baptism of blood at the siege of the border city of Venarium,between Gunderland and Cimmeria. At that time, though he was far from havingattained his full growth, Conan stood six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. Afterthe siege of Venarium, he returned to his tribe and spent some months with a bandof the AEsir, fighting with the Vanir and the Hyperboreans. Captured by theHyperboreans, he escaped and made his way south into the thief-city of Zamora.At this time he was about 17. Green to civilization, and entirely lawless by nature,he found the most congenial life that of a professional thief in Zamora and later inthe small city-states to the west of that exotic kingdom. Taking service in one ofthese nameless states with the harried Prince Murilo, he has a taste of fighting as aprofession, and being tired of the decadent life of a thief he sets out to look overthe rest of the civilized world, with an eye to making it his oyster.

1. The Tower of the Elephant (Weird Tales, March 1933): The earliestof the published chronicles, and one of Conan's first adventures in the thief-city ofZamora. He is still a youth, more daring than adroit at thievery, and has yet toearn a reputation among other followers of his profession.

2. Rogues in the House (WT, Jan. 34): Conan may by this time be 19 oreven 20. He is temperamentally older and more experienced, as well as verydefinitely a harder customer. Getting his first taste of professional fighting andHyborian intrigue, he rather likes the idea, and with a horse of his own he sets outto crack the western world.

B. Riding westward into Corinthia, Conan becomes a mercenary soldierunder one of the many roving generals of that time. He fares well and learnsmuch of the art of civilized war among the Hyborian kingdoms. During a lull inthe wars, he returns for a short time to his native Cimmeria, but the love ofadventure again draws him south. He continues to prosper as a soldier, finallyarriving in the seacoast kingdom of Argos, where a brush with the law forces himto ship with a coastwise trader, southward bound. Off the coasts of Kush the shipis boarded by black corsairs under the Shemitish she-devil, Belit. Conan joins hercrew, becomes her consort, and for a long time they harry the Hyborian andStygian ports. During this stage of his career, Conan gains the name of Amra, theLion, which is to follow him throughout his later life, especially among the blacks. He becomes quite familiar with some of the more southerly Kushite kingdomsthrough raids for slaves and on traders. When, at length, Belit is killed by thesurvivors of an ancient race of winged men, Conan is left afoot somewhere on thesouthern coasts of Kush. Belit has been the first great love of his life, and he willprobably not follow the sea again for some time to come.

3. Queen of the Black Coast (WT, May 34): Covering Conan's careeras chief of the black corsairs and lover of Belit. He may be about 23 at the timehe arrives in Argos, and 26 or 27 when Belit is killed.

C. Penniless after his long trek north through the black kingdoms, where hisreputation as Amra has stood him is good stead, Conan reenters mercenary servicein the western nations, working up to the position of captain under Amalric, theNemedian. Amalric has hired out to fight the battles of Yasmela, the queen-regentof the little border kingdom of Khoraja. Her brother, King Khossus, is thecaptive of the penurious King Amalrus of Ophir; and Strabonus of Koth, withother enemies, is eager to reabsorb Khoraja into his empire. Conan is chosen bychance to lead Yasmela's defense against an attack from the south, and has whatmay be the first brush with high-power sorcery, as dealt out by the resurrectedThugra Khotan of Kuthchemes. He wins the war and the queen, but his priderefuses to let him be "Mister Queen" to any woman, and he drops out of sightagain, to return for a short time to Cimmeria and possible skirmishes with thenorthern tribes, including his old enemies the Hyperboreans.

4. Black Colossus (WT, June 33): The Khoraja episode. At this time,Conan may be about 27. He stays in Cimmeria only for a short time beforewandering again.

D. Conan's life as a corsair and a mercenary have stirred the spirit of fightingand rich plunder in his blood, and when he hears of war in the south he returns tothe Hyborian kingdoms. A rebel prince of Koth is fighting to overthrowStrabonus, and Conan enlists with many of his ilk in the rebel army. Unfortunatelythe prince makes peace with Strabonus, and Conan, with his fellow mercenaries, isthrown out of work and reduced more or less to the level of an outlaw. Bandedtogether as the Free Companions, they harry the borders of Koth, Zamora, andTuran, and finally gravitate to the steppes west of the Sea of Vilayet, where aruffian band known as the kozaks has been building itself up over a period ofmany years. Becoming their leader, he ravages the outposts of the Turanianempire until King Yildiz sends out a small force under Shah Amurath, who routsthem for the time being. Escaping, Conan joins the Vilayet pirates for a time, butfinding his kozaks scattered, leaves them and works west again into the borderstates. Meanwhile, King Yildiz of Turan has died or been deposed, and hissuccessor, Yezdigerd, embarks on a program of imperialism which is to make himmaster of the greatest empire on Earth.

5. Shadows in the Moonlight (WT, Apr 34): The short episode betweenthe defeat and scattering of the kozak hordes by Shah Amurath and Conan's takingover of Sergius' pirates. He is about 28.

E. After minor adventures, Conan becomes captain of the royal guard in thefrontier kingdom of Khauran, on the eastern edge of Koth. Taramis, the queenof Khauran, is overthrown by her sorceress sister, and Conan's life is saved by aformer kozak companion, Olgerd Vladislov, who has become chief of the Zuagirtribesmen of the desert after the breakup of the kozaks. Conan promptlydeposes him, rallies Taramis' adherents to revolt, and retakes the kingdom, butchooses to remain with the Zuagirs as their chief. A year or more later, tiring ofthe desert life, he leaves them, far to the south in the city of Zamboula, thewestern-most outpost of Yezdigerd's growing empire. Here, after rescuing theTuranian satrap, Jungir Khan, from the magic of a priest of Hanuman, he stealsthe satrap's ring and heads north and west for Ophir, where the queen will redeemit for a sizable reward if no better market offers.

6. A Witch Shall be Born (WT, Dec 34): The adventure in Khauran. Yezdigerd's empire-builders are already being felt along the border, but thewestern states seem too busy with internal bickering and intrigues to notice thedanger. v Conan is 30 when he joins the Zuagirs; 31 when he leaves them.

7. Shadows in Zamboula (WT, Nov 35): Conan has just left the Zuagirs,far to the south along the north-eastern border of Stygia, where black slaves arecommon and dangerous. After his brush with a mixture of cannibals and sorcery,he sets out for Ophir with a gem and a horse.

F. Whether Conan reached Ophir and redeemed his gem, or lost it to somethief along the road, there is no record. In any case, the proceeds cannot havelasted him long. Perhaps he pays another short visit to Cimmeria, then, movingeast after his welcome has worn off, he hears that the kozaks have regained theirold vim and vigor, and are making Yezdigerd's life as miserable as possible. Arriving among them with nothing but his sword, and finding a few old friendswho remember his former leadership, he cuts his way through whatever oppositionmaterializes and becomes their leader again. His old friends the pirates are handin glove with the kozaks, and between them they succeed in making KingYezdigerd's position very uncomfortable. Efforts to trap him fail, and he managesto build up the kozaks into a pretty formidable gang before deciding to adventuresoutheastward to the borders of Vendhya. Here, as war-chief of the Afghulitribesmen in the foothills of the Himelias, he seriously annoys both the Vendhyansand Yezdigerd's frontier-breakers, who are busily carrying out the Turanian king'spolicy of expansion on the southeastern frontier. He thwarts one plot to defeatthe Devi of Vendhya, on the part of a group of sorcerers linked with theTuranians, and himself makes her eat dirt before he leaves his Afghulis to return tothe kozaks.

8. The Devil in Iron (WT, Aug 34): The height of the second kozakepisode. Somewhere about 32 or 33, he makes the kozaks a real threat to KingYezdigerd, before feeling the urge to be off and riding south to Vendhya.

9. The People of the Black Circle (WT, Sep 34): The Vendhyanepisode. Conan rises quickly to chieftainship of the Afghulis, who understand thelanguage of the sword, and may be nearly 34 when he goes back to his kozaks.

G. There are big wars in the west. Almuric, prince of Koth, has againrebelled against the unpopular King Strabonus, and this time has enough backing togarner an army from far and wide. Conan finds that most of his kozaks,ex-mercenaries like himself, have scented loot and joined in on one side or theother. Conan follows suit, signing up with his old employer Amalrus. The rebelcause fails, and Amalrus and his army are driven south, cutting their way throughShem and Stygia into the grasslands of Kush, where they are wiped out by thecombined black and Stygian forces at the edge of the southern desert. Escapingwith Natala, a Brythunian camp-follower, Conan heads into the desert, and after ashort session with magic at the forgotten city of Xuthal, reaches the southerngrasslands of the black kingdoms, where he is known of old. Making his way tothe coast, he is picked up by Barachan pirates and goes back to the sea for hisliving.

10. The Slithering Shadow (WT, Sep 33): The episode in Xuthal, withmention of the campaign with Amalrus. Conan should now be about 35, andbeing completely broke will not waste time in the relatively poor country of theblack tribes, south of the desert.

H. For a considerable length of time, Conan remains one of the Barachanpirates, but the organization of the various bands is rather loose, and Conan findslittle opportunity for one even with his background to gain a high position. Heslips out of a tight spot and is valiantly swimming the ocean when he is picked upby the Zingaran buccaneer, Zaporavo, whom he promptly deposes, taking over theZingaran's mistress, Sancha, with his ship and his crew for a long voyage to thesouth and west. Returning after an unpleasant brush with black magic on anunknown isle, Conan is for a while highly successful as a buccaneer, until otherZingaran ships bring him down off the coasts of Shem, and he is forced to escapeinland.

11. The Pool of the Black One (WT, Oct 33): The end of Conan's staywith the Barachans, and the beginning of his career as a Zingaran buccaneer. Heis about 37 at the end of this episode.

I. Hearing that wars are in the offing along the borders of Stygia, Conanjoins the Free Companions, a seemingly generic name for mercenary companies,under Zarallo. Dispatched to the post at Sukhmet, on the frontier between Stygiaand Darfar, he grows weary of black men and women, and when Valeria, awoman pirate who has joined the Brotherhood, leaves the camp and heads south,Conan follows her into the black kingdoms far to the south of Stygia and Kush. Here another brush with a lost race in the jungle city of Xuchotl leaves themstranded in the wilderness on their way west to the more familiar kingdoms whereConan is known.

12. Red Nails (WT, July 36): The end of Conan's buccaneer days, andthe story of his trek to the south with Valeria, to Xuchotl and its dragons, andother parts unknown.

J. Somewhere Conan loses Valeria. Hearing of the fabulous Teeth ofGwahlur, legendary jewels hidden somewhere in the black kingdom of Keshan, hesigns up as a trainer for Keshan's armies. Losing the jewels, he goes over to theneighboring kingdom of Punt to see how much he can make at simple swindling,from there to the trade-centers of Zembabwe, and via various caravans northwardinto Turan and the Hyborian realms.

13. Jewels of Gwahlur (WT, Mar 35): The adventure in Keshan. Conan may be a little over 38 at the this stage in his career.

K. After another trip home to Cimmeria, Conan enlists as a scout inConajohara, on the Aquilonian border, where a fierce war with the Picts is inprogress. Numedides of Aquilonia is a feeble sort of king, and when the borderbarons revolt against his injustices and his handling of the Pictish wars, Conanseizes his chance, kills Numedides on his throne, and becomes the king ofAquilonia.

14. Beyond the Black River (WT, May 35): Conan as a scout inConajohara, fighting against the Pictish wizard, Zogar Sag. This is very shortlybefore he seized the throne; he may be 39.

L. As King of Aquilonia, Conan's life is no bed of houris. His first majorconflict is a civil war in which an attempt is made to put an Aquilonian king on thethrone. This is followed by a plot between Amalrus of Ophir and Strabonus ofKoth, in which both enemy kings lose their lives. Throughout this battling to holdhis throne, Count Trocero of Poitain and his general, Prospero, remain faithful tohim. The greatest threat to his kingdom comes when Nemedia actually succeedsin deposing him for a time, but Conan overcomes hostile sorcery to return andregain his kingdom and the loyalty of his people. His career from this point, withthe more important of the barons, led by Trocero, solidly behind him, is relativelysmoother. There are more wars, both of defense and aggression - probably abrush with Turan as the two empires become more and more rivals - and duringhis life as king, Conan frequently travels into far corners of the world - in Khitaiand Hyrkania, and the regions beyond, and even to a nameless continent in thewestern hemisphere. At the time of the Nemedian war, he had no heirs, and noqueen, though it seems probable that he gave that honor to the girl, Zenobia. How far he spread the bounds of Aquilonia, or where his career finally ended,not even legend tells.

15. The Phoenix on the Sword (WT, Dec 32): The first revolt againstConan's rule. He was about 40 when he seized the throne of Aquilonia, and isnearly 41 at this time.

16. The Scarlet Citadel (WT, Jan 33): The war with Koth and Ophir. This is Conan's first war with other kingdoms. It follows very shortly after thecivil war, when Aquilonia is still weakened by revolt.

17. The Hour of the Dragon (WT, Dec 35): The last of the publishedchronicles, describing the war with Nemedia in which Conan came within a hair'sbreadth of losing life and kingdom completely. The episode itself takes well overa year, and Conan is about 45 when he finally regains his throne. He has still along and adventurous career before him, as king of Aquilonia and as a wandererover the face of the Earth. Zenobia, the girl who helped him in his escape fromNemedia, has become his queen, so that he will have heirs to carry on after hisdeath, unless the kingdom is split apart by quarreling barons.

Just three months before Howard's death, Robert reply's to Miller in a letter which sheds light on Howard's concept of Conan and of the setting for the stories:

Letter from R.E. Howard to P.S. Miller

Lock Box 313

Cross Plains, Texas

March 10, 1936

Dear Mr. Miller:

I feel indeed honored that you and Dr. Clark should be so interested in Conan as to work out an outline of his career and a map of his environs. Both are surprisingly accurate, considering the vagueness of the data you had to work with. I have the original map--that is the one I drew up when I first started writing about Conan-- around here somewhere and I'll see if I can't find it and let you have a look at it. It includes only tbe countries west of Vilayet and north of Kush. I've never attempted to map the southern and eastern kingdoms, though I have a fairly clear outline of their geography in my mind. However, in writing about them I feel a certain amount of license, since the inhabitants of the western Hyborian nations were about as ignorant concerning the peoples and countries of the south and east as the people of medieval Europe were ignorant of Africa and Asia. In writing about the western Hyborian nations I feel confined within the limits of known and inflexible boundaries and territories, but in fictionizing the rest of the world, I feel able to give my imagination freer play. That is, having adopted a certain conception of geography and ethnology, I feel compelled to abide by it, in the interests of consistency. My conception of the east and south is not so definite or so arbitrary.

Concerning Kush, however, it is one of the black kingdoms south of Stygia, the northern-most, in fact, and has given its name to the whole southern coast. Thus, when an Hyborian speaks of Kush, he is generally speaking of not the kingdom itself, one of many such kingdoms, but of the Black Coast in general. And he is likely to speak of any black man as a Kushite, whether he happens to be a Keshani, Darfari, Puntan, or Kushite proper. This is natural, since the Kushites were the first black men with whom the Hyborians came in contact--Barachan pirates trafficking with and raiding them.

As for Conan's eventual fate--frankly I can't predict it. In writing these yarns I've always felt less as creating them than as if I were simply chronicling his adventures as he told them to me. That's why they skip about so much, without following a regular order. The average adventurer, telling tales of a wild life at random, seldom follows any ordered plan, but narrates episodes widely separated by space and years, as they occur to him.

Your outline follows his career as I have visualized it pretty closely. The differences are minor. As you deduct, Conan was about seventeen when he was introduced to the public in "The Tower of the Elephant." While not fully matured, he was riper than the average civilized youth at that age. He was born on a battle field, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir. The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cimmerian, but Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood-feud and after long wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north. He had taken part in many raids into the Hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in Conan, as a child, a desire to see them. There are many things concerning Conan's life of which I am not certain myself. I do not know, for instance, when he got his first sight of civilized people. It might have been at Vanarium, or he might have made a peaceable visit to some frontier town before that. At Vanarium he was already a formidable antagonist, though only fifteen. He stood six feet and weighed 180 pounds, though he lacked much of having his full growth.

There was the space of about a year between Vanarium and his entrance into the thief-city of Zamora. During this time he returned to the northern territories of his tribe, and made his first journey beyond the boundaries of Cimmeria. This, strange to say, was north instead of south. Why or how, I am not certain, but he spent some months among a tribe of the AEsir, fighting with the Vanir and the Hyperboreans, and developing a hate for the latter which lasted all his life and later affected his policies as king of Aquilonia. Captured by them, he escaped southward and came into Zamora in time to make his debut in print.

I am not sure that the adventure chronicled in "Rogues in the House" occurred in Zamora. The presence of opposing factions of politics would seem to indicate otherwise, since Zamora was an absolute despotism where differing political opinions were not tolerated. I am of the opinion that the city was one of the small city-states lying just west of Zamora, and into which Conan had wandered after leaving Zamora. Shortly after this he returned for a brief period to Cimmeria, and there were other returns to his native land from time to time. The chronological order of his adventures is about as you have worked it out, except that they covered a little more time. Conan was about forty when he seized the crown of Aquilonia, and was about forty-four or forty-five at the time of "The Hour of the Dragon." He had no male heir at that time, because he had never bothered to formaliy make some woman his queen, and the sons of concubines, of which he had a goodly number, were not recognized as heirs to the throne.

He was, I think, king of Aquilonia for many years, in a turbulent and unquiet reign, when the Hyborian civilization had reached its most magnificent high-tide, and every king had imperial ambitions. At first he fought on the defensive, but I am of the opinion that at last he was forced into wars of aggression as a matter of self-preservation. Whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide empire, or perished in the attempt, I do not know.

He travelled widely, not only before his kingship, but after he was king. He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former. He even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. How much of this roaming will get into print, I cannot foretell with any accuracy. I was much interested in your remarks concerning findings on the Yamal Peninsula, the first time I had heard anything about that. Doubtless Conan had first-hand acquaintance with the people who evolved the culture described, or their ancestors, at least.

Hope you find "The Hyborian Age" interesting. I'm enclosing a copy of the original map. Yes, Napoli's done very well with Conan, though at times he seems to give him a sort of Latin cast of the countenance which isn't according to type, as I conceive it. However, that isn't enough to kick about.

Hope the enclosed data answers your questions satisfactorily; I'd be delighted to discuss any other phases you might wish, or go into more details about any point of Conan's career or Hyborian history or geography you might desire. Thanks again for your interest, and best wishes, for yourself and Dr. Clark.

Cordially,

Robert E. Howard

P.S. You didn't mention whether you wanted the map and chronology returned, so I'm taking the liberty of retaining them to show to some friends, if you want them back, please let me know.