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        ← Back to Characters
        Works✓Poetry✓Letters✓Characters✓
        Human · Fictional / created

        Hans Groper

        bakery owner/employer from Dutchy Heinbock’s past

        Kind
        Human
        Historicity
        Fictional / created

        Works

        Night EncounterPrimary text
        Hans GroperMentioned · first: Fists of Iron Round One UE p. 305

        Poetry

        Poetry appearances come from the exhaustive exact-state census of all 765 currently catalogued Poetry textual states.

        Correspondence

        ABOUT THE CATALOGUE

        REH Writings
        guide & credits

        A searchable research catalogue of Robert E. Howard’s writings and the people, animals, vessels and other story entities found in them—built for REH readers and fans as well as editors and scholars.

        701 catalogued Works709 catalogued Poems914 catalogued Letters5,587 catalogued Characters
        START HEREWhat REH Writings is

        The REH Writings plugin brings together permanent identities for Howard’s prose Works and Poetry, their distinct textual states, correspondence to and from Howard, title and name forms, dates, manuscript witnesses, publication appearances and Characters.

        It is a catalogue and research guide rather than a claim that every record is finished or that every surviving text is reproduced here. Coverage grows as reliable sources and exact texts are reviewed.

        WORKS & POETRYCompositions and textual states

        A Work is the underlying composition. One Work may survive in several Textual Versions: drafts, submitted or final typescripts, false starts, fragments, synopses, outlines, published versions or later revisions.

        • Search Howard and publication titles, manuscript titles, bylines or pseudonyms, and TSS numbers.
        • Filter by form, genre, written or published year, and recorded income.
        • Open a Work to see its textual family; open one state to inspect its exact Characters, publications and manuscript evidence.
        • The catalogue’s primary/default state is a navigation choice, not an automatic declaration of textual authority.
        • Poetry Character/entity coverage is exact-state exhaustive: all 765 currently catalogued Poetry textual states have an explicit reviewed census, including states with no qualifying entities.
        LETTERSCorrespondence, dates and participants

        Letters are correspondence documents rather than merely another publication format. The catalogue can include letters from Howard, letters to Howard, and third-party correspondence that substantially mentions Howard.

        • Filter by direction, correspondent and year, or search public extracts, subjects, letter state and TSS references.
        • Exact, circa, uncertain, before/after, date-range and postmark evidence retain their source wording instead of being collapsed to a guessed day.
        • Every distinct surviving draft, unsent or sent text is a Letter of its own; reviewed draft/later relationships remain visible. Edited printed transcriptions and original TSS pages are source evidence rather than extra Letters.
        • A complete transcription or facsimile appears only when permission and an individual user capability both allow it; restricted text is never included in public search or page HTML.
        CHARACTERSPeople, animals, vessels and names

        “Character” is the catalogue’s broad story-entity term. It includes humans, historical people, animals, ships and vessels, supernatural beings and other identifiable entities.

        • Search canonical names, aliases, nicknames, spellings and draft-specific name forms. Enable Include contextual mentions when you want broader discovery through descriptions, appearance roles and Letter context.
        • Combine Kind, Historicity, Species / type and Role / occupation filters, then limit “Found in” to Works, Poetry or Letters.
        • Appearances are tied to exact Textual Versions or correspondence roles, so a Character found in one draft or letter is not silently asserted to occur elsewhere.
        • The same name never proves the same identity. Howard reused names, while one developing Character may also change name between drafts.

        Appearance totals outside a completed exact-state audit report the evidence currently reviewed and are not always an exhaustive census of every surviving state. Poetry pages explicitly identify when the live Poetry audit still matches the complete current textual-state set.

        MANUSCRIPTSTypescripts and TSS numbers

        A TSS number is a catalogue reference for a physical manuscript or typescript unit. It is not a Work ID, a Textual Version ID or necessarily a draft number. Several TSS units may belong to one surviving textual witness.

        • You can enter a TSS number in Writings search to find its catalogued Work and state.
        • Exact manuscript features—such as strikeouts, insertions, page order, authorial corrections, bylines and wording changes—are recorded only when the available evidence supports them.
        • First Cuts or direct manuscript/typescript evidence can support page-level detail. An overview catalogue or spreadsheet may establish that a unit exists without proving everything written on its pages.
        SOURCESWhere the information comes from

        The catalogue began with earlier REH World Stories records and Howard Works (howardworks.com) bibliographic evidence, then reconciled those records into stable Work and Textual Version identities. Publication records and Contents are supplied through the companion REH Publications catalogue.

        Textual and Character research is expanded from reviewed source material, including:

        • Howard’s surviving manuscripts, typescripts and carbons, together with documented TSS catalogue evidence;
        • REH Foundation Press First Cuts volumes, which preserve draft and manuscript detail;
        • REH Foundation Press Ultimate Editions, used as restored reading-edition witnesses for the practical final/final-submission state;
        • original magazine, pulp and other publication texts when publication evidence is the available textual source;
        • source notes, bibliographies and other reviewed research used to reconcile titles, dates, relationships and surviving states.

        Source data is treated as evidence to be reviewed and reconciled, not as something to copy blindly. Documented manuscript holdings represented in these sources include material associated with the Glenn Lord collection at the University of Texas at Austin, the Robert E. Howard collection at Texas A&M University and the typescript collection at Cross Plains Library. A catalogue entry does not imply that every physical page has been directly inspected.

        Correspondence sources represented in the live Letter catalogue

        This list is generated from the retained source provenance, so it grows automatically as reviewed Letter sources are added.

        • "So Far the Poet . . ." and Other Writings
          16 source states · Edited Excerpt, Edited Transcription
        • “New” Letter from Herbert Klatt
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • A Means to Freedom, second softcover edition (2017)
          102 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Amra
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, second edition
          373 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Crypt of Cthulhu #63
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith
          57 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Dime Sports Magazine Volume 2 Number 6
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • E. Hoffmann Price → H. P. Lovecraft supplied transcription
          39 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Essential Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
          43 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Glenn Lord bibliography / archived REH Two-Gun Raconteur posting
          1 source state · Edited Excerpt
        • Glenn Lord’s Ultima Thule
          3 source states · Edited Transcription
        • H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight
          45 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Harold Preece and Robert E. Howard
          7 source states · Edited Excerpt
        • Herbert C. Klatt — letters and biographical notes prepared by Rob Roehm
          9 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Herbert C. Klatt — letters and memorial correspondence prepared by Rob Roehm
          2 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Howard History
          3 source states · Edited Excerpt
        • Howard History — The Vinson Papers
          4 source states · Edited Excerpt
        • Legacy reh.world Letters archive
          31 source states · Legacy Web Record
        • Locus #433
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Lone Scout of Letters
          4 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Magazine of Horror #14
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Mooney’s Musings — Rob Roehm
          5 source states · Edited Excerpt
        • Nyctalops #6
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard, The Final Years
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Return to Wonder #8
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter
          39 source states · Edited Excerpt, Edited Transcription
          28 represented issues/editions
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 2 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 3 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 4 Number 1
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 4 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 4 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 5 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 5 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 5 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 6 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 6 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 7 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 8 Number 1
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 8 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 11 Numbers 1 and 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 11 Numbers 3 and 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 16 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 16 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 16 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 17 Number 1
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 17 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 17 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 18 Number 1
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 18 Number 2
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 18 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 18 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 19 Number 3
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 19 Number 4
          • Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter Volume 20 Number 1
        • Star-Studded Comics #15
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • Sword & Fantasy #11
          11 source states · Edited Excerpt
        • The Collected Letters of Doctor Isaac M. Howard
          146 source states · Edited Excerpt, Edited Transcription
        • The Howard Collector
          7 source states · Edited Transcription
        • The Howard Collector #11 (Volume 2 Number 5)
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • The Howard Collector #15
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • The Howard Collector #7 (Volume 2 Number 1)
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • The Howard Collector #8
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • The Science Fiction Collector #14
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        • The Selected Letters of Novalyne Price Ellis
          11 source states · Edited Transcription
        • The Selected Letters of Novalyne Price Ellis, Volume II
          72 source states · Edited Transcription
        • Yorick Fantasy Magazine 6/7
          1 source state · Edited Transcription
        CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTSProject and research foundations

        REH Writings is created and maintained by Ståle Gismervik for reh.world. The catalogue is built on decades of bibliographic, textual, archival and editorial work by the Robert E. Howard research community.

        Major source foundations currently represented include:

        • Howard Works (howardworks.com), an important bibliographic foundation for title and publication evidence;
        • the Robert E. Howard Foundation and REH Foundation Press, including First Cuts and Ultimate Editions used in exact-text research;
        • the live Correspondence sources listed above, including The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard and every additional reviewed Letter source currently represented;
        • surviving manuscript, typescript and TSS evidence represented by material associated with the Glenn Lord collection at the University of Texas at Austin, the Robert E. Howard collection at Texas A&M University and the typescript collection at Cross Plains Library;
        • original magazines, books and other primary publication witnesses;
        • the companion REH Publications catalogue on reh.world for publication records and Contents relationships.

        Individual records retain source and provenance where available. Researchers, editors, collectors and readers can be credited at the relevant source or record level when a specific contribution is known, rather than forcing every contribution into one undifferentiated master list.

        SEARCHINGUseful ways to explore
        • Try a familiar published title even when Howard used another title; reviewed title forms remain searchable.
        • Search a pseudonym or credited byline such as a publication-supplied name.
        • Search a TSS number without needing to know its Work, poem or letter title.
        • Character search is forgiving about middle initials and word order: Robert Barlow can find Robert H. Barlow.
        • Works, Poetry, Letters and Characters all support the same compact search syntax: use -word to exclude a term, for example Conan -Cimmerian, and -"exact phrase" to exclude a phrase.
        • Use quotation marks to keep a phrase together and +word when a term must be present. Keep structured questions such as Kind, Historicity and Role in the existing filters rather than building a complex Boolean query.
        • Use correspondent shortcuts for Tevis Clyde Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, Novalyne Price and other frequently represented people.
        • Combine filters: for example, a genre and year under Works, From REH plus a correspondent under Letters, or Historical / real + Letters only under Characters.
        • Open result cards for the full evidence. Compact cards deliberately summarize rather than reproduce the complete record.
        INTERPRETATIONHow evidence is treated
        • No one source is automatically best for every question. A Howard typescript may be strongest for authorial wording; a pulp proves what readers received; a restored edition may best represent the normalized final reading text.
        • Missing pages or an incomplete source cannot prove that a Character or passage was absent from the missing material.
        • A publication relationship applies to the whole Work unless the evidence identifies one exact Textual Version.
        • Stable identities are corrected conservatively: evidence is preserved, same-title and same-name records are not merged by guesswork, and uncertain points remain identified as uncertain.
        DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

        REH Writings
        changelog

        A running record of public catalogue, editorial, research and migration changes. The newest release is shown first.

        0.82.97-alphaWork-card footer alignment + fuller Introduction teasersCURRENT
        • Public Writings cards now keep the distinctive textual-state symbols on the same footer line as the textual-state, Character and publication counters, right-aligned to save vertical space.
        • Work-level title forms such as Also published as move from directly beneath the title to the lower card footer immediately above the counters. The title evidence and labels are unchanged.
        • Reader-ready Work Introduction prose can now provide a longer card excerpt (up to 52 words, visually clamped to three lines) instead of a single short sentence. Initials and common abbreviations are protected during sentence parsing, preventing fragments such as Robert E. from becoming the whole teaser.
        • The card excerpt remains presentation-only and still excludes recognized migration/review instructions and title-only fragments. No Introduction/Summary content is rewritten.
        • No authority or schema change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.96-alphaTSS provenance compaction + restrained textual-state symbols
        • Public manuscript provenance/source lines now compact embedded consecutive TSS lists with the same ordered presentation formatter used by the main TSS: line. The source text itself is not changed; for example, the *Devil in Iron* Draft 1 provenance now displays TSS 92870–92906 rather than repeating all 37 numbers.
        • Public Writings result folders now reuse the existing monochrome icon language for a small set of distinctive textual-state markers derived only from active permanent text_versions.version_type: synopsis/outline, draft, false start, fragment, alternate ending, published/later state and notes. Tooltips name every symbol.
        • The symbols are deliberately not genre colors and do not label a whole Work as “complete” or “fragmentary.” Completeness can differ between physical witnesses and Textual Versions, so the card only says which textual-state kinds are actually represented in that Work family.
        • No authority, Work/Text identity, TSS order, genre, completeness or schema data is changed. Schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.95-alphaArticle-insensitive public Work/Poetry sorting
        • Public Writings and Poetry catalogue ordering now uses a presentation-only title sort key that moves an initial A, An or The to the end of the key. Display titles remain unchanged: for example, *The Devil in Iron* sorts with D, *A Gent from Bear Creek* with G, and *An Autobiography* with Autobiography.
        • Reusable public embedded Work lists use the same rule for their initial database order, mixed Work/Textual-Version ordering and client-side Title sorting.
        • REHW_Workspace::normalize_title() remains the identity/equality normalization key and is deliberately unchanged. Article-insensitive ordering therefore cannot merge, resolve or otherwise alter Work/Text identity.
        • The four Poetry Work-level physical-evidence cases introduced in 0.82.94 have been reported migrated; the maintained retained-package state is now 150 clean packages / 0 ready / 0 blocked / 0 review / 0 errors.
        • No schema change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.94-alpha2026-09-10
        • Extend the existing generic Manuscripts & TSS research package to format 1.2 with explicit text_mapping_status: exact_text_unresolved for a secure physical witness whose Work identity is known but whose exact Textual Version is not documentarily established.
        • Work-level unresolved witnesses migrate only to the permanent physical manuscript/TSS tables with text_version_id=0. They do not create/move/merge a Textual Version and deliberately skip the generic exact-text text_version_witnesses link.
        • Add Work-level admin/public presentation headed Exact textual state unresolved, preserving physical class, TSS sequence, source labels and documentary d1/d2 annotations without presenting those labels as chronology or exact Text identity.
        • Bundle data/poetry-tss-work-level-closure-2026-09-10.json: five Work-level physical witnesses covering the four historical Poetry holds — *The Tempter* TSS 26218/15774, *Empire’s Destiny* TSS 90009, *The Symbol* TSS 90147, and *The Poets* TSS 90178/90176. No Poetry Work or Textual Version is declared by the package.
        • Correct the read-only TSS closure map so annotated ranges such as 27781–27809 (odd-numbered only) do not manufacture even-numbered candidate gaps, and so a shared TSS number closes a historical hold only when permanent evidence exists under that same Work, not merely elsewhere in the catalogue.
        • Retained packages remain the permanent audit trail. Once the bundled Poetry closure package is reviewed/migrated, the historical four exact-state holds remain preserved as provenance while the active Work-level physical-evidence hold count can fall to zero.
        • No schema change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.93-alpha2026-09-10
        • Extends Review & authority → Manuscripts & TSS → Download TSS closure reference map with every active Work and active Textual Version, including stable IDs and textual-state metadata. This closes a reference-map blind spot: a live Textual Version with no permanent physical witness can now be identified during the external master-TSS census instead of appearing to be an unknown identity.
        • The new indexes are read-only reference material. TSS remains physical catalogue evidence, not Work/Text identity; First Cuts still outranks the working spreadsheet where covered; all additions still use the established Corpus Sources / Manuscripts & TSS / Full-text & Character workflow.
        • No schema change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.92-alphaPost-retained-package manuscript/TSS source-authority census
        • The retained Manuscripts & TSS package phase is now documented as closed after the live bulk audit reported 149 clean packages / 0 ready / 0 blocked / 0 review / 0 errors. That proves retained-package closure only; it does not claim that every surviving manuscript/TSS item existed in those packages.
        • Adds Download TSS closure reference map to Review & authority → Manuscripts & TSS. The read-only JSON export combines active permanent physical witnesses/TSS units, all retained manuscript-package declarations, TSS evidence already registered through generic Corpus Sources, the last retained-package audit, and the documented Poetry source-limit holds.
        • The export explicitly identifies source-declared TSS numbers absent from permanent authority as research candidates only. It never creates or resolves a Work/Text from a TSS number and never treats source order as chronology.
        • The next exhaustive comparison therefore remains source-first: compare this fresh live map with the working master TSS inventory and other source authority; where a First Cuts project covers an item, First Cuts remains the higher authority. Genuine gaps return through the established Corpus Sources → Manuscripts & TSS → Full-text & Character research workflow rather than a new importer.
        • Original Howard typescripts, carbons, fragments and synopses remain distinct from later Glenn Lord retypes/rewrites, Xeroxes, documentary cards and other preservation substitutes; later copies are physical evidence, not automatically new Howard textual states.
        • No schema or permanent catalogue change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.91-alphaExact-Text authority over stale retained witness Work pointers
        • Retained Manuscripts & TSS witnesses that target an exact package-local Textual Version no longer block merely because the witness still carries an obsolete Work ID from an earlier catalogue state.
        • The already-resolved exact Textual Version remains authoritative for its owning permanent Work; the validator reuses that Work and emits a provenance warning instead of moving/creating a Work or Text.
        • This closes the three retained *Politics at Lonesome Lizard* witnesses (Drafts 1–3 / Texts #385–#387) without using TSS numbering as identity evidence.
        • No schema change; schema remains 3.13.0.
        0.82.90-alphaRelease notes
        • Reconcile retained Textual Version declarations with dead legacy Work IDs only when exact title/type uniquely resolves one active Work; otherwise remain blocked.
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