The Miscast Barbarian: A Biography of Robert E. Howard (1906 – 1936)

The Miscast Barbarian: a Biography of Robert E. Howard is a biography by science-fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover and trade paperback in 1975 by Gerry de la Ree.

The book is an expansion of de Camp’s article “The Miscast Barbarian”, which appeared in the magazine Fantastic in June, 1971. Later, in collaboration with Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin, he expanded the text again, into Dark Valley Destiny: the Life of Robert E. Howard (1983), the first major independent biography of Howard.

Sword & Fantasy #17

Contents include Jack Jackson’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound” from 1972 (and which he gave Van Hise permission to reprint back in 1984). Skip Olson color art of Cthulhu. “HPL On Edgar Rice Burroughs.” Reviews of Robert E. Howard books from 1971 & 1977. Folio of HPL inspired art by R.F. McCann. “Introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos” by J. Vernon Shea. A Roy Hunt fantasy illo from 1948. An article on Mark Schultz by James Van Hise. A long fantasy comic strip by Ron Wilber and more.