For the first time ever, a collection featuring all of Howard’s drafts and fragments. The first volume in a four-part series from the REH Foundation Press collects all the drafts for Howard’s drafts for the first six of the Breckinridge Elkins stories. All from Howard’s original typescripts, manuscripts, and carbons. Howard’s raw text, including typos and weird spellings, is preserved. Footnotes describe where Howard inserted text either by typing in between lines or by hand.

These books will be print-on-demand, and first out is a beautiful boxed set with 4 hardcover books with matching covers, gold-foiled dust jackets, and sprayed edges. Later, there will be more regular, normally priced hard- and softcover books. 

For the first volume, Howard scholar Patrice Louinet kindly allowed me to use an essay he wrote in 2012, slightly updated. The perfect essay for this first volume.

Contents

• iii • Acknowledgments
• ix • The Underwood Trails of Breckinridge Elkins
• xv • Foreword by Ståle Gismervik
• xv • On Editing Robert E. Howard • A Note on Language, Style, and Fidelity
• xix • One Gent Too Many on Bear Creek • by Patrice Louinet

Mountain Man

• 5 • Editorial Notes
• 5 • Mountain Man – draft 1 • (untitled, complete)
• 23 • Mountain Man – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)
• 41 • Mountain Man – draft 3 • (untitled, complete)

Guns of the Mountain

• 61 • Editorial Notes
• 61 • Guns of the Mountains – draft 1 • (untitled, complete)
• 71 • Guns of the Mountains – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)
• 87 • Guns of the Mountains – draft 3 • (untitled, complete)
• 101 • Guns of the Mountains – draft 4 • (untitled, incomplete)

A Gent from Bear Creek

• 107 • Editorial Notes
• 107 • A Gent from Bear Creek – draft 1 • (untitled, complete)
• 129 • A Gent from Bear Creek – draft 1-1 • (continued from page 17)
• 141 • A Gent from Bear Creek – draft 1-2 • (continued from page 17)
• 153 • A Gent from Bear Creek – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)
• 181 • A Gent from Bear Creek – draft 3 • (titled and complete)

A Stranger in Grizzly Claw / The Scalp Hunter

• 205 • Editorial Notes
• 205 • A Stranger in Grizzly Claw – draft 1 • (untitled, maybe complete)
• 221 • A Stranger in Grizzly Claw – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)

The Road to Bear Creek

• 243 • Editorial Notes
• 243 • The Road to Bear Creek • (untitled synopsis)
• 245 • The Road to Bear Creek – draft 1 • (untitled, incomplete)
• 253 • The Road to Bear Creek – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)
• 269 • The Road to Bear Creek – draft 3 • (untitled, complete)

Mayhem and Taxes

• 289 • Editorial Notes
• 289 • Mayhem and Taxes – draft 1 • (untitled, maybe complete)
• 299 • Mayhem and Taxes – draft 2 • (untitled, incomplete)

The Haunted Mountain

• 311 • Editorial Notes
• 311 • The Haunted Mountain – draft 1 • (untitled, complete)
• 319 • The Haunted Mountain – draft 2 • (untitled, complete)
• 335 • The Haunted Mountain – draft 3 • (untitled, complete)