Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Nov 1929
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I have just been reading the September WEIRD TALES, which blossomed out on the news stands today. I was especially taken with A Jest and a Vengeance, by E. Hoffmann Price. I've never been east of New Orleans, but as far as I am concerned Price has captured the true spirit of the East in his tales, just as Kipling did. His stories breathe the Orient. In this latest tale I note, as in all his others, that patterned background of beauty for which he is noted. The action is perfectly attuned to the thought of the tale and that thought goes deep. More, through the weaving runs a minor note of diabolical humor, tantalizing and enthralling.
Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Apr 1930
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Thirsty Blades is fine. It moves like a cavalry charge, with an incessant clashing of steel that stirs the blood. Gigantic shadows from the outer gulfs fall across the actors of the drama, yet the sense of realism is skillfully retained.
Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Jan 1931
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I was particularly fascinated by the poem by Alice l'Anson in the latest issue. The writer must surely live in Mexico, for I believe that only one familiar with that ancient land could so reflect the slumbering soul of prehistoric Aztec-land as she has done. There is a difference in a poem written on some subject by one afar off and poem written on the same subject by one familiar with the very heart of that subject. I have put it very clumsily, but Teotihuacan breathes the cultural essence, spirit and soul of Mexico.
Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Mar 1932
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Congratulations on the appearance and excellence of the current Weird Tales. The make-up and all the illustrations are unusually good, and the contents are of remarkably uniform merit. That is what struck me—the high standard of all the stories in the issue. If I were to express a preference for any one of the tales, I believe I should name Derleth's Those Who Seek—though the stories by Smith, Long, Hurst and Jacobi could scarcely be excelled. In the latter's tale especially there are glimpses that show finely handled imagination almost in perfection—just enough revealed, just enough concealed. Smith's sweep of imagination and fantasy is enthralling, but what captivates me most is the subtle, satiric humor that threads its delicate way through so much of his work—a sly humorthat equals the more sublte touches of Rabelais and Petronius. Yes, I consider the current magazine uniformly fine, of an excellance suprizing considering the fact that neither Lovecraft, Quinn, Hamilton, Whitehead, Kline nor Price was represented.
Robert E. Howard to Weird Tales, Jun 1936
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Enthusiasm impels me to pause from burning spines off cactus for my drouth-bedeviled goats long enough to give three slightly dust-choked cheers for the April cover illustration. The color combination is vivid and attractive, the lady is luscious, and altogether I think it's the best thing Mrs. Brundage has done since she illustrated my Black Colossus. And that's no depreciation of the covers done between these master-pictures. I must also express my appreciation to Mr. Napoli, who has done a splendid job of illustrating my serial. I hope the readers have liked the yarn as well as I liked writing it.
Personal Letters:
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To Robert Barlow
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Dear Mr. Barlow:
Thank you very much for the copy of the Goblin Tower; a neat, attractive job of printing and binding which does credit to Long's splendid verse.
Robert E. Howard
To August Derleth
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Reverse:
This card was purchased in Lincoln, N.M. from a descendant of a participant in the Bloody Lincoln County War.
REH
To Harold Preece
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Robert E. Howard to Harold Preece, Oct 20, 1928
Salaam:
Your stationery is alright. How is the university? Frankly, I know very little about the school and the little I do know is bad, but I'm prejudiced against all colleges—to Hell with them.
The American Legion—gah! They're supposed to be running the fight club here and won't put on a decent show; been expecting me to rustle some good hard slugging boys who'll fight for little or nothing. I worked up a good grudge bout between two boxers who hated each other, but it fell through and I'm done with the damned business. I was going to San Antonio to the convention, mainly because Sammy Baker was supposed to fight there, but I didn't make it. I wish to Hell I had; I'd have liked to have been there.
About O. Henry and the ostrich feather business—I can't work up much resentment against a girl who's that childish—too much like the action of a little kid who isn't responsible for her thoughts.
"The King of Kings" gripped me. I though it was powerful, though I think Joseph Schildrkraut ran away with the picture as Judas. And William Boyd, that fellow is the most human actor in the world. H.B. Warner lacked fire of course, but I don't know who else could have done even as good as he did…
I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.
About Atlantis—I believe something of the sort existed, though I do not especially hold any theory about a high type of civilization existing there—in fact, I doubt that. But some continent was submerged away back, or some large body of land, for practically all peoples have legends about a flood. And the Cro Magnons appeared suddenly in Europe, developed to a high stage of primitive culture; there is no trace to show that they came up the ladder of utter barbarism in Europe. Suddenly their remains are found supplanting the Neanderthal Man, to whom they have no ties of kinship whatever. Where did they originate? Nowhere in the known world, evidently. They must have originated and developed through the different basic stages of evolution in some land which is not now known to us.
The occultists say that we are the fifth—I believe—great sub-race. Two unknown and annamed races came, then the Lemurians, then the Atlanteans, then we. They say the Atlanteans were highly developed. I doubt it. I think they were simply the ancestors of the Cro Magnon man, who by some chance, escaped the fate which overtook the rest of the tribes.
All my views on the matter I included in a long letter to the editor whom I sold a tale entitled "The Shadow Kingdom", which I expect will be published a a foreword to that story—if ever. This tale I wove about a mythical antediluvian empire, a contemporary of Atlantis.
I wish I had money—I'd take several courses in anthropology and the various phases of antiquity, and spend the rest of my life exploring ruins in out-of-the-way corners of the globe. The guture of the race interests me little; the present but a little more; the past, greatly. An occultist of my acquaintance, who has gone deeper in the matter than any man I ever knew, says I have a very ancient soul, am a reincarnated Atlantean, in fact! Maybe if there's anything to this soul business, or to reincarnation, that theory is maybe right. Sure I live in the dust of the past and my dreams are seldom of present or future, but I am ever treading roads of the dim ages and strange are some of the figures whom I meet and strange the shapes who stare at me.