WritingPermanent catalogue Work

The Diablos Trail

3textual states9Characters
Genres
Funny WesternsWestern

Introduction

The Diablos Trail features Pike Bearfield.

Textual states

Shown in a practical developmental order where possible: synopsis/outline, numbered drafts, submission states, then published or posthumous states. This display order does not itself assert exact chronology or textual authority.

From the letters

Howard wrote a letter (#346) to Jack Byrne on April 21, 1936 including a draft for a story. The story ends in the middle of the page and seems to be a part of the letter so it's probably never sent. Howard began writing this story but did not finish it; Glenn Lord assigned the unfinished, untitled draft the title “The Diablos Trail.”

Mr. Jack Byrne,
Editor Munsey Publications,
New York City.

Dear Mr. Byrne:
My agent, O.A. Kline, tells me that you have suggested that I try my hand at a series of humorous yarns for Argosy, on the general type of the Breckinridge Elkins stories.
I have in mind a new character, Pike Bearfield, of Wolf Mountain, Texas, about as big, dumb, and ludicrous as B. Elkins. Here is an outline of the first yarn of the series, as I have conceived it. It begins in the form of a letter written by Bearfield to his boss, William Westphal.

You can read the rest of the incomplete letter in The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume 3.

Characters in this Work

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Publication appearances