For a young man, Howard seems to have had an exaggerated sense of growing old. When he was only 24 he wrote to Harold Preece, “I am haunted by the realization that my best days, mental and physical, lie behind me.” Novalyne Price recalls that during the time they were dating, in 1934–35, Bob often said that he was in his “sere and yellow leaf,” echoing a phrase from Macbeth: “I have lived long enough, my way of life | Is fal'n into the sere, the yellow leaf . . .”
Also in his May 1936 letter to Derleth, Howard mentioned that “I haven't written a weird story for nearly a year, though I've been contemplating one dealing with Coronado's expedition on the Staked Plains in 1541.” This suggests that “Nekht Semerkeht” may well have been the last story Howard started, and if so, it is of interest here, in that it dwells upon the idea of suicide. “The game is not worth the candle,” thinks the hero, de Guzman:
“‘Oh, of course we are guided solely by reason, even when reason tells us it is better to die than to live! It is not the intellect we boast that bids us live–and kill to live–but the blind unreasoning beast-instinct.'
“Hernando de Guzman did not try to deceive himself into believing there was some intellectual reason, then, why he should not give up the agonizing struggle and place the muzzle of his pistol to his head; quit an existence whose savor had long ago become less than its pain.”
And in the end, it may be that stress played an important role in his decision to take his own life. His mother's worsening illness had necessitated frequent absences from home, to take her to medical facilities in other parts of the state, and even when the Howards were home, Bob had little uninterrupted time, or peace, in which to write. He worried constantly about his mother. It may be that a complex array of forces coalesced to convince him of the futility of existence, and to impel him to take a long-contemplated course of action.
Howard planned for his death very carefully. He made arrangements with his agent, Otis Kline, for the handling of his stories in the event of his death. He carefully put together the manuscripts he had not yet submitted to Weird Tales or the Kline agency, with instructions on where they were to be sent. He borrowed a gun, a .380 Colt automatic, from a friend who was unaware of his plans. Dr. Howard may have hidden Bob's own guns, aware of what he might be contemplating. He said that he had seen his son make preparations on earlier occasions when it appeared Mrs. Howard might die. He said that he was trying to keep an eye on his son, but that he did not expect him to act before his mother died.
Hester Howard sank into her final coma about the 8th of June, 1936. On the 10th, Bob went to Brownwood and purchased a cemetery lot for three burials, with perpetual care. He asked Dr. J.W. Dill, who had come to be with Dr. Howard during his wife's final illness, whether anyone had been known to live after being shot through the brain. Unaware of Bob's plan, the doctor told him that such an injury meant certain death.
Dr. Howard related that Robert had disarmed him of his intentions the night before, assuming “an almost cheerful attitude”: “He came to me in the night, put his arm around me and said, buck up, you are equal to it, you will go through it all right.” He did not know, he said, that on the morning of the 11th, Robert asked the nurse attending Mrs. Howard if she thought his mother would ever regain consciousness, and that the nurse had told him she would not.
He then left the room, and was next seen leaving the house and getting into his car. The cook he and his father had hired said later that, looking through the kitchen window, she saw him raise his hands in prayer, though what looked to her like prayer may have been holding up the gun to get it ready. She heard a shot, and saw Robert slump over the steering wheel. She screamed. Dr. Howard and Dr. Dill ran out to the car and carried Bob back into the house. Both were country doctors, and they knew that no one could live with the kind of injury Bob had sustained. He had shot himself above the right ear, the bullet emerging on the left side.
Robert Howard's robust health allowed him to survive this terrible wound for almost eight hours. He died at about 4:00 in the afternoon, Thursday, June 11, 1936, without ever regaining consciousness. His mother died the following day, also without regaining consciousness. A double funeral was held on June 14, and the mother and son were transported to Brownwood for burial.
In Robert's room, a four line couplet was reportedly found on his typewriter:
All fled, all done
So lift me on the pyre.
The feast is over
And the lamps expire.
Gary Gianni
Gary Gianni graduated from The Chicago Academy of Fine Art in 1976. From there, he worked for the Chicago Tribune as an illustrator and Network Television News as a courtroom sketch artist. His artwork has appeared in numerous magazines, children's books and paperbacks.
1990 marked his debut in the illustrated graphic novel field with adaptations of The Tales of O. Henry and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for the Classics Illustrated series.
At Dark Horse Comics, he wrote and drew Indiana Jones and the Shrine of the Sea Devil, collaborated with such major writers as Harlan Ellison and Andrew Vachss and teamed up with Michael Kaluta to work on the enduring pulp hero, The Shadow. He is the creator of Corpus Monstrum Mysteries running as a back-up feature in Mike Mignola's Hellboy.
Gianni says: “I have always wanted to produce a book that may stand the test of time. I hope somebody could pick this thing up and say, oh, this is a very classically, traditionally illustrated book. It doesn't look like it's rooted in the 1990s when it was done. I tried to stay away from things that might pinpoint when it was actually produced. That way, maybe it'll always have some merit, like the old Harryhausen films, the old Thief of Baghdad. They have certain qualities to them because the people really cared about what they were doing. I care about Howard and I have grown to care for Kane, hopefully this will have that same feel as those masters of genres.”
Al Williamson said of Gianni, “He is a wonderful artist, he brings to his work the feeling and love of the great pulp illustrators.” Scott Gustafson compares his work with the old Brandywine painting tradition of N.C.Wyeth with his “sheer love of drawing.”
Gary's work harks back to the golden age of illustrating, to people like Vierge, Clement Coll, Booth and Krenkel.
In 1997, his illustrations won him The Eisner Award for Best Short Story, Heroes, in Batman: Black and White, for DC Comics.
Notes on the Original Howard Text
The texts for this edition of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane were prepared by Rusty Burke and David Gentzel, with the assistance of Glenn Lord, Rob Jones, Bill Cavalier, and Steve Trout. The stories which appeared in Weird Tales have been carefully checked against the magazine appearances; the whereabouts of the typescripts for these stories is unknown, and they are presumed lost. Other stories have been checked against Howard's original typescripts, provided by Lord, or against the first known publication, when typescripts were unavailable. Every effort has been made to present the text as written by Robert E. Howard, as faithfully as practicable.
Deviations from original sources are detailed in these textual notes. In the following notes, page, line, and word numbers are given as follows: 21.3.2, indicating page 21, third line, second word. Story titles, chapter titles, and breaks before and after chapter headings or titles are not counted; in poems, only text lines are counted. The page/line number will be followed by the reading in the original source, or a statement indicating the type of change made.