Birthday Book Haul 2017 #2: And Their Memory Was a Bitter Tree – Queen of the Black Coast and Others by Robert E Howard – mightythorjrs

It was my birthday earlier this month so I had a little birthday cash to spend. What else am I going to spend it on, BOOKS!

The Second book I added to my collection was And Their Memory Was a Bitter Tree – Queen of the Black Coast and Others by Robert E Howard.

If you know me then you should know I love Robert E. Howard Conan stories, hell I even love non Howard Conan stories. I am just a sucker for this Barbarian! Flashback to a impressionable young Mighty Thor JRS hanging out in his dad’s book store, looking though paperbacks on a spinning rack next to the comic books I loved so much. Seeing those wonderful Conan covers. Sneaking and reading those fantastic stories. Flash forward to I think about 2010, I started to read again and came across the Del Rey Conan collections and my love of fantasy books was renewed. Which led to me starting this blog. My fantasy love started with Conan (and my love for Norse mythology, but that’s a whole other long story) I owe much to Robert E. Howard.

This is a hefty coffee table type book. Has some wonderful maps and artwork. I am excited to sit down with it and really dig into it. Beautiful book that I was surprised to find at my local used book store.

I will be sharing the rest of my Birthday book Haul all week.

Hope everyone enjoys!

Thanks,

James

(My Conan/Robert E. Howard collection)

And Their Memory Was a Bitter Tree – Queen of the Black Coast and Others

by Robert E Howard

As one of the three most important American pulp fantasy authors of the 1930s (with Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith), Robert E. Howard captivated readers with his indomitable, battle-scarred barbarian hero Conan. Though Howard’s life ended prematurely in 1936 at the age of 30, Conan lives on as one of the genre’s most enduring icons. This beautifully designed collection contains nine essential Conan stories along with a full-length Conan novel. Also included is The Hyborean Age, Howard’s fascinating history of the raw, blood-drenched world Conan inhabited, an alternative Earth that preceded Tolkien’s Middle Earth. And Their Memory Was a Bitter Tree features a color map of this realm and an interior painting by cult artist Brom, along with a series of Frank Frazetta’s seminal Conan paintings, appearing for the first time with the stories for which they were created.

Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.

Howard was born and raised in Texas. He spent most of his life in the town of Cross Plains with some time spent in nearby Brownwood. A bookish and intellectual child, he was also a fan of boxing and spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding, eventually taking up amateur boxing. From the age of nine he dreamed of becoming a writer of adventure fiction but did not have real success until he was 23. Thereafter, until his death at age 30, Howard’s writings were published in a wide selection of magazines, journals, and newspapers, and he had become successful in several genres. Although a Conan novel was nearly published in 1934, his stories never appeared in book form during his lifetime. The main outlet for his stories was the pulp magazine Weird Tales.

In the pages of the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales, Howard created Conan the Barbarian. With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre now known as sword and sorcery, spawning many imitators and giving him a large influence in the fantasy field. Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted.