Rattle of Bones

Introduction

First published in Weird Tales, June 1929. It was submitted in 1928. Howard got $20 for the story. 

In Germany, Kane meets a traveler named Gaston L’Armon, who seems familiar to Kane, and together they take rooms in the Cleft Skull Tavern. At this time in his career, Howard was an inexperienced professional writer. Several times when he sent his drafts story to Weird Tales, he was careful to prepare carbons.

When the first draft of Rattle of Bones was written, Howard decided that it needed another ending. The draft consisted of seven pages of which he rewrote the last two and changed the ending. This was what he sent to Weird Tales and what was published. The REH Foundation printed the first version of the 1928 story in their very first issue of ‘The Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter’ in the spring of 2007.

In a letter (#101) to Tevis Clyde Smith circa February 1929 he had the following notes:

“Rattle of Bones”* no thought s.s. Weird Tales $20 
Solomon Kane, bandits, maniacs, ghostly vengeance as usual

And later, in another letter (#107) we learn:

Also a letter from Weird Tales with the advance sheets of a story appearing in the next issue. Farnsworth said he intended publishing a sonnet in the next issue after that and then “The Shadow Kingdom” which is a $100 story, and after that a shorter story.

The reference of the story appearing in the next issue is ‘Rattle of Bones’.

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