Introduction
The Touch of Death. Old Adam Farrel lay dead in the house wherein he had lived alone for the last twenty years. A silent, churlish recluse, in his life he had known no friends, and only two men had watched his passing… little did they know the Fearsome Touch of Death had not left the house…
In this tale, first published in the February 1930 edition of Weird Tales Magazine, a man spends a night alone with a corpse.
‘The Touch of Death’ was presented to Argosy, Ghost Story, and was accepted by Weird Tales in late fall 1928. It was published with the title ‘The Fearsome Touch of Death’. Howard got $18 for this short story.
In a letter (#118) circa January 1930 to Tevis Clyde Smith he says:
Many thanks for the letter you wrote Farnsworth. It appeared in the Eyrie this month. I sure appreciate it. Also appeared in this issue an illegitimate child of mine. By that I mean I had no idea it was to be published this month as I never got any advance sheets for it. If you don’t mind, I wish you’d read it. It’s purely psychological; I’ve told you of it before. No other magazine except Weird Tales would publish such a story — I know because I tried most of them with this one.
Alternate title:
Published in:
- THE NEW HOWARD READER #2, Marek, August 1998
- ROBERT E. HOWARD’S STRANGE TALES, Dennis McHaney, January 2005
- ROBERT E. HOWARD’S STRANGE TALES, Dennis McHaney, December 2005
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Del Rey, October 2008
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Tantor Media, Inc., March 2010 (audio)
- KROK ZE TMY, Albatros Media, 2010 (Czech)
- THE HORROR STORIES OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, Subterranean Press, March 2011
- LES OMBRES DE CANAAN, Bragelonne, February 2013 (French)
- DER SCHWARZE HUND DES TODES, Festa Verlag, June 2013 (German)
- LES OMBRES DE CANAAN. LA PIERRE NOIRE, Bragelonne, February 2014 (French)
- I FIGLI DELLA NOTTE. RACCONTI DELL’ORRORE VOLUME 1, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, March 2015 (Italian)
- БОГИ БАЛ-САГОТА (THE GODS OF BAL-SAGOTH), AST, November 2017 (Russian)
- RATTLE OF BONES & OTHER TERRIFYING TALES, Clover Press, July 2020
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