Introduction
“The Black Stranger” is a fantasy short story by American writer Robert E. Howard, one of his works featuring the sword & sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s, but not published in his lifetime. When the original Conan version of his story failed to find a publisher, Howard rewrote “The Black Stranger” into a piratical Terence Vulmea story entitled “Swords of the Red Brotherhood”. This story was also not accepted.
L Sprague de Camp rewrote the original Conan story into a different Conan story (“The Treasure of Tranicos”). For publication in Fantasy Magazine #1, the story was abridged, edited by L Sprague de Camp, and re-written further by Lester del Rey.
Hence, there are 3 different versions of this story: THE BLACK STRANGER (REH1), SWORDS OF THE RED BROTHERHOOD, and THE TREASURE OF TRANICOS (REH/LSDC).
Published in:
- FANTASY MAGAZINE #1, Future Publications Inc., March 1953 (abridged, REH/LSDC/Del Rey)
- ECHOES OF VALOR, TOR, February 1987 (REH1, first appearance in complete form)
- MUSTAN JUMALAN SUUDELMA, WSOY, 1993 (Finnish)
- THE CONAN CHRONICLES Volume 2, Millennium, April 2001 (REH1)
- THE BLACK STRANGER, Wandering Star, July 2002 (REH1)
- ALMÚRIA, Cherubion Könyvkiadó, 2002 (Hungarian)
- ÖSSZES CONAN TÖRTÉNETE I, Szukits Könyvkiadó, 2004 (Hungarian)
- THE BLACK STRANGER AND OTHER AMERICAN TALES, Bison Books, April 2005 (REH1)
- THE CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN, Del Rey, November 2005 (REH1)
- THE CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN, Science Fiction Book Club, December 2005 (REH1)
- THE COMPLETE CHRONICLES OF CONAN, Gollancz, January 2006 (REH1)
- CONAN 3, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, March 2007 (German, REH1)
- CONAN – LES CLOUS ROUGES, Bragelonne, November 2008 (French, REH1)
- 新訂版コナン全集5: 真紅の城砦 (SHINTEIBAN KONAN ZENSHŪ 5: SHINKU NO JŌSAI)(THE AUTHORIZED CONAN CHRONICLES 5: THE SCARLET CITADEL), Tōkyō Sōgensha, March 2009 (Japanese)
- CONAN – LES CLOUS ROUGES, Bragelonne, June 2009 (French, 2nd printing, REH1)
- THE CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN, Tantor Media Inc., October 2009 (audio) (REH1)
- CONAN III, Aurora, 2009 (Czech)
- COMPLETE CONAN OF CIMMERIA VOLUME 3, Book Palace Books, March 2010 (REH1)
- CONAN THE INDOMITABLE, Gollancz, December 2011
- CONAN I MIECZ ZDOBYWCY, Rebis, August 2013 (Polish)
- CONAN – DIE ORIGINAL ERZÄHLUNGEN BAND 5, Festa Verlag, September 2015 (German)
- CONAN IL BARBARO, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, October 2016 (Italian)
- КОНАН TOM 2, Изток-Запад (East West), 2016 (Bulgarian)
- CONAN, O BÁRBARO – LIVRO 2, Pipoca e Nanquim, September 2018 (Portuguese)
- EL DIABLO DE HIERRO, Sportula, April 2019 (Spanish)
- LES CLOUS ROUGES (CONAN, TOME 3), Le Livre de Poche, October 2019 (French, REH1)
