The second volume in a four-part series collecting the boxing fiction of Robert E. Howard. This 378-page edition features stories, fragments, and essays presented in restored and corrected form, based on Howard’s original typescripts, manuscripts, and carbons whenever possible. Most materials were sourced from the Glenn Lord collection (now at the University of Texas at Austin), the Robert E. Howard collection at Texas A&M University, and the Cross Plains Library archive.

This Ultimate Edition includes does not contain many changes from the first edition, but text source for the untitled fragment (”It was the end of the . . .”) was switched from Glenn Lord retype to original typescript.

The introduction is by Mark Finn, with cover art by Mark Wheatley.

Contents

• iii • Acknowledgments
• vii • Tall Lying in the Far East – Robert E. Howard, Sailor Steve Costigan, and the Narrative Idyll • an introduction by Mark Finn

Fists of Iron – Round 2

• 3 • The Pit of the Serpent
• 21 • By the Law of the Shark
• 41 • The Bulldog Breed
• 59 • Sailors’ Grudge
• 77 • Fist and Fang
• 101 • Winner Take All
• 117 • Waterfront Fists
• 137 • The Champion of the Forecastle
• 153 • Alleys of Peril
• 173 • Waterfront Law
• 189 • Hard-Fisted Sentiment
• 205 • The Yellow Cobra (originally untitled)
• 219 • A Student of Sockology
• 239 • Texas Fists
• 261 • The Fightin’est Pair
• 279 • Cultured Cauliflowers

Appendix 1

• 299 • Blue River Blues (untitled and incomplete)
• 317 • Sailors’ Grudge (untitled synopsis)
• 319 • The Battling Sailor (untitled fragment)
• 327 • “It was the end of the fourth round . . .” (untitled fragment)
• 331 • “The night Sailor Steve Costigan . . .” (untitled fragment)
• 335 • Alleys of Peril (untitled synopsis)
• 337 • “Help! Help! They’re murderin’ me!” (untitled Mike O’Brien fragment)

Appendix 2

• 343 • The Lord of the Ring (part 2) • by Patrice Louinet

Notes