REH’s Writings

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1 Poem

SearchWritten yearPublished year

GenresCombine genres⌄

AdventureArticleAutobiographical FictionBoxingDesert AdventuresDetectiveDetective ParodyEssayFantasyFunny WesternsHistorical AdventuresHistorical FictionHorrorHumorMythosNotesPirate AdventurePlaySatirical FictionSchool WorkScience FictionSpeculative FictionSpicyStrange DetectiveSword & PlanetSword & SorceryWeird MenaceWeird TalesWeird WesternWestern

Every selected genre must match — for example Boxing + Weird or Western + Humor.

Date & incomeWritten, published & payment⌄

Written span1920–1936

19201936

Published span1922–2026

19222026

Howard received$8–$300

$8$300

Uses Howard's net receipt when known; older recorded income is used only as a fallback. Leave at the full span to include Works with unknown income.

Poem

Flaming Marble (poem)

Flaming Marble is a 14-line sonnet.1 textual state0 Characters2 publicationsExplore Poem →

ABOUT THE CATALOGUE

REH Writings
guide

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.

703 catalogued Works1 catalogued Poems363 catalogued Letters3,532 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.

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 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.
Drafts, sent letters, edited printed transcriptions and original TSS pages remain distinct source or textual states.
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.
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 report the evidence currently reviewed; they are not always an exhaustive census of every surviving state.

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.

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.
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 person + 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.

0.78.1-alphaCollected Letters guarded metadata intakeCURRENT

Add a guarded Collected Letters intake under Review & authority. It preflights the bundled metadata against the live permanent catalogue, requires the typed confirmation IMPORT LETTER METADATA, writes in one transaction and is idempotent by stable source keys.
Reconcile the supplied three-volume Collected Letters audit into 363 letter events, 373 source states, 52 correspondents, 108 correspondent name forms, 414 date assertions, 78 addresses, 1,041 TSS evidence rows, 24 reviewed letter/Work relations and 373 REH Publications relations.
Reuse only four reviewed permanent Character identities: H. P. Lovecraft #1821, Richard Harold Preece #3350 for source correspondent Harold Preece, Robert E. Howard #3352 and Tevis Clyde Smith #462. The other 48 people/organizations remain correspondent-only; spelling alone never creates a Character link.
Link every Collected Letters source state to the exact supplied REH Publications volume (#421, #422 or #423) while leaving all bibliographic metadata and Contents ownership in REH Publications.
Advance schema to 3.6.0 with correspondence_works for an independent Work/Text contained in, enclosed with or discussed by a letter, and correspondence_tss_evidence for letter-specific physical-catalogue evidence that must not be forced into Work-scoped manuscript identity.
Preserve two photograph/TSS number collisions as explicit review evidence without linking them to the same-number story manuscript units. A catalogue number alone never proves identity.
Extend public letter search and detail to include reviewed related Work titles and display those Works separately from the letter's own source states.
Keep this intake strictly metadata-only: it creates no complete transcription, modern editorial note, facsimile, public extract, rights grant, protected media row, correspondence entity mention or new Character ID.

0.78.0-alphaCorrespondence, Poetry & restricted letter reader

Begin the correspondence/poetry expansion with four fixed public catalogue tabs: Works, Poetry, Letters and Characters. Equal widths and a reserved right-hand current-view marker keep the tab group position-stable when switching views.
Separate prose Works and Poetry in public browsing without changing permanent Work/Textual Version identity. Existing poem Works appear under Poetry; letter is reserved for correspondence-linked material.
Add a dedicated Letters catalogue with public-only search across correspondents, dates, editorial extracts/summaries, subjects and TSS references; filters for From REH, To REH and Mentions REH; year selection; and quick correspondent links including Tevis Clyde Smith, H. P. Lovecraft and Novalyne Price when represented.
Add letter-like result cards and detail dossiers with sender, recipient, uncertain/source date wording, origin/address display, public extract, date assertions, distinct textual/source states, TSS references, indexed entities and REH Publications links.
Extend public Character search with Found in: All sources / Works / Poetry / Letters. Letter sender, recipient, mentioned and subject links remain correspondence roles rather than fictional appearances, and Character detail receives a separate Correspondence section.
Advance schema to 3.5.0 with permanent correspondence events, people/organization/unknown correspondents and name forms, participants, multiple date/address assertions, source-edition states, item-specific rights, restricted text, protected-media metadata, Character/entity links and Publication relationships.
Add the rehw_read_restricted_letters capability and assignable REH Letter Reader role. Login alone never grants access: a complete transcription requires both the capability and an active item-specific permission record.
Fetch complete text only through a separately authenticated, no-store/noindex endpoint after an authorized reader opens the large letter reader. Restricted content is never embedded in public HTML, public filters/search, feeds or snippets; items default to metadata-only and permission-review-required.
Keep illustrations and facsimiles outside transcription HTML. The schema records protected-media metadata separately so a normal public WordPress attachment URL cannot bypass letter-specific rights.
Document the correspondence identity, TSS/witness, uncertain-date, REH Publications ownership and rights/access boundaries. The source audit found 363 provisional letter events / 373 letter source states across the three supplied Collected Letters volumes; no extracted complete text, modern editorial notes or facsimile files are bundled or imported by this release.

0.77.23-alphaPublic About & catalogue guide

Add a public About control beside Changelog on every Writings, Textual Version and Character catalogue/detail view.
Open About in the same right-side drawer, backdrop, close control and accordion presentation used by the public changelog.
Provide a reader- and scholar-friendly guide to what the plugin catalogues, how Works differ from Textual Versions, how Character identities and exact appearances are handled, and how to search/filter both catalogues.
Explain manuscript/typescript evidence and TSS numbers without treating a physical catalogue unit as a Work, Textual Version or draft number.
Document the catalogue's principal source layers: reconciled legacy REH World/Howard Works evidence, REH Publications, surviving Howard manuscripts/typescripts/carbons and TSS evidence, First Cuts, Ultimate Editions, publication texts and reviewed bibliographic/source research.
Add live Work and Character totals to the guide and summarize the project's conservative authority rules for incomplete sources, publication scope, same-name identities and textual authority.
No schema, catalogue identity, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

0.77.22-alphaCatalogue polish & Human historicity review

Left-align both fixed Writings/Characters tab labels and move the checked current-view marker into a reserved right-hand status area. Raise the pair by one pixel so both folder bottoms meet the Search/detail panel edge cleanly.
Keep the public Character-card arrow immediately beside Explore Character, matching the Writings-card action.
Expose Not classified in the public Character Historicity filter, so it can be combined with Kind = Human to inspect the exact unclassified backlog.
Add an admin Unclassified Humans metric and Human · not classified Character-catalogue view.
Add a guarded selected-row review action for those active, unclassified Human Characters. An editor may classify reviewed rows as Fictional / created, Historical person or uncertain; the action changes only historicity and snapshot-protects every existing classification from overwrite.
Installation does not infer or mass-classify any Character. No schema, catalogue identity, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

0.77.21-alphaCentered position-stable catalogue tabs

Remove the redundant REH's Writings connector title.
Rebuild the connector as a three-column grid: detail Back/Edit context at left, Writings/Characters locked to the true center, and count/changelog metadata at right.
Give both tabs fixed equal widths and reserve the checkmark footprint in both states. Switching between Writings and Characters no longer changes the pair's width or position.
Preserve the compact responsive treatment: catalogue tabs remain centered on small screens, while detail context receives its own row when necessary.
No schema, catalogue identity, filter, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

0.77.20-alphaCatalogue header clarity & spacing

Change the public connector title to REH's Writings and use dark text against the page background.
Give Writings and Characters equal-height folder tabs. The active tab now includes a visible check marker and semantic aria-current="page" state.
Match the version-number color to the Changelog label for consistent contrast.
Reduce the theme-created gray gap above the catalogue with a conservative responsive negative top margin: strongest on desktop and progressively smaller on tablet/mobile.
No schema, catalogue identity, filter, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

0.77.19-alphaConnected catalogue header & changelog repair

Replace the standalone public catalogue masthead with one transparent connector row that sits directly on the Search panel or detail dossier.
Present Writings and Characters as projecting folder tabs, while retaining the catalogue title, live Work/Character count and changelog control in the same space-saving row.
On Work, Textual Version and Character detail pages, move the contextual back link and administrator edit shortcut into that shared row instead of reserving a second toolbar above the dossier.
Repair the public changelog reader so it recognizes both the current # REH Writings VERSION headings and older ## VERSION — title headings. Recent releases now appear in the public changelog again.
Retain the 0.77.18 compact filter drawers, free-text Species/type field without browser suggestions, and allow-listed Character catalogue-history copy.
No schema, catalogue identity, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

0.77.18-alphaCompact public catalogue filters

Integrate the live Work/Character result count into the shared public masthead and remove the separate helper/count strip.
Reduce masthead and filter-panel spacing while retaining Writings, Characters, version and changelog access.
Keep the primary Writings controls visible and move Genres plus Date & income ranges into compact progressive-disclosure drawers. Active selections reopen their drawer automatically and stay in the same shareable GET/AJAX form.
Remove the Character Species / type browser datalist; the field remains an ordinary combinable free-text substring filter without a misleading suggestion arrow/menu.
Add tightly allow-listed Character-card/detail Catalogue history copy for the omitted-entity research pattern. Reader-facing wording strips the research-import ID and workflow phrasing; all other private Character notes remain private.
No schema, catalogue identity, research-package format or REH Publications API change. Schema remains 3.4.0.

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