The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

Introduction

“The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” is a fantasy short story by American author Robert E. Howard, one of his original short stories about Kull of Atlantis, first published in Weird Tales magazine in September 1929. It is one of only three Kull stories to be published in Howard’s lifetime. The story was submitted to Weird Tales in 1927 and accepted in the fall of that year. He got $20 on publication two years later.

Set in the fictional Prehistoric Thurian Age, it deals with a disillusioned King Kull questioning the meaning of existence, leading him to seek the assistance of a two-faced wizard.

Howard commented on this story in a letter (#101) to Tevis Clyde Smith, circa February 1929:

more of the Shadow Kingdom, occult and mystical, vague and badly written; this is the deepest story I ever tried to write and I got out of my depth

In a letter (#107) to Tevis Clyde Smith, circa April 1929 we learn:

On my return here I found a returned mss. from Adventure, with a line or two from the assistant editor, telling me to submit some more of my work, and soon after returning I got a letter from Argosy, accepting that story that I told you about. They said it was still far too long but they’d cut it down and make the necessary changes themselves. The day after getting that letter I got a check from them for $100. 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. I believe he’s paving the way to publish the serial I sold him,4 but of course I may be wrong. He may not publish that for years, if at all.

The shorter story mentioned is ‘The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune’.

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