I have been adding many new books to my collection recently. My interest in reading has shifted to older books and authors. So I thought instead of just a simple book haul post I would do more of a spotlight/introduction post as well. So in the post below you will not only find the usual book haul photo’s, but book and author info as well. I hope you will take the time to look it over and maybe take a chance at checking out books and authors that you may have forgot about or discover in these post!
I found this copy at my local used book store! Yes a REH collector must have sold their collection and I have been trying to get as much of it as I can.
More REH to add to my collection!
Very happy to find this treasure!
Today we have:
A Gent from Bear Creek (Donald M. Grant, 2nd edition 1975)
by Robert E. Howard
A Gent from Bear Creek is a collection of Western short stories by Robert E. Howard. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1937 by Herbert Jenkins. The first United States edition was published by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in 1966. The stories continue on from each other, like chapters in a book.
The stories are humorously written as if told by Breckinridge Elkins, a hillbilly with no schooling. He and his kin live in the Humboldts in Nevada. Elkins is six feet six inches tall, is as strong as a grizzly bear, and he can be just as bad tempered if riled. And there is a lot to rile him, especially his relatives.
Though a dead shot, he prefers to use his fists, feet, teeth, etc. In numerous fights he attacks whole groups of armed men and commits mayhem. No one actually dies but limbs are broken, jaws shattered, faces are trod on, skulls fractured, ribs broken, and so on. Even buildings do not always survive such an attack. He picks up many injuries himself, but being shot, getting many cuts with Bowie knives, head bashed with numerous objects, having his ear chewed, scratched up by a mountain lion he then threw into a room full of feuding men and such are just minor nuisances to him.
He previously rode an old mule called Alexander, the only animal that could carry him till he came across Cap’n Kidd, his equine equivalent, and tamed him. Elkins is the only man tough enough to ride the giant, pugnacious horse. Glory McGraw (a local girl) is his sometimes love interest but he is often too dumb to see it.
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.
Info from Wikipedia
A Gent from Bear Creek
| Year : | 1975 |
| Book No. : | None |
| Edition : | 2nd |
| Format : | Hardcover with dust jacket (5.5 x 7.8 inches) |
| Pages : | 312 |
| Cover art : | Tim Kirk |
| Illustrations : | Tim Kirk |
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| “A Gent from Bear Creek” (Novel) |
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| “A Gent from Bear Creek” is the title of both an original short story, as well as a novel created by combining several previous short stories with some new material; the previously published short stories were altered a little to create chapters with a continuous story line, and new material was added as additional chapters. The chapters are: “Striped Shirts and Busted Hearts” (new) “Mountain Man” “Meet Cap’n Kidd” (new) “Guns of the Mountains” “A Gent from Bear Creek” “The Feud Buster” “The Road to Bear Creek” “The Scalp Hunter” “Cupid from Bear Creek” “The Haunted Mountain” “Educate or Bust” (new) “War on Bear Creek” “When Bear Creek Came to Chawed Ear” (new). |
| Contains three interior full page black and white illustrations. |
Info from Howard Works.
The Online Robert E. Howard Bibliography
A great resource!
mightythorjrs - The Black Blog of Nameless Cults 
Wow! I have never heard of these. Great find!
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I have a Kindle edition that contains all of the Breckenridge Elkins stories. I need to finally get around to reading it.
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Great stuff. I need to do a re-read myself, been quite a while since I have read these stories.
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