Robert E. Howard’s correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft inspired the two-fisted creator of Conan the Barbarian to pit his square-jawed modern heroes against cosmic horrors, colossal beasts, and cannibalistic children of the night, in a short-lived effort to open new markets for his fiction.

In this book, the first in the “Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard” series, Howard scholar Fred Blosser analyzes each of REH’s Cthulhu Mythos stories, unpacking their plots, their themes, and their unexpected linkages to Howard’s other works.