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Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936) was a classic Americanpulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, anddetective fiction. Howard wrote "over three-hundred stories and seven-hundredpoems of raw power and unbridled emotion" and is especially noted for hismemorable depictions of "a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure anddarkling horror." He is well known for having created - in the pages of thelegendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales - the character Conan theCimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprintcan be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes, andJames Bond. Between Conan and his other heroes Howard created the genrenow known as sword-andsorcery in the late 1920s and early 1930s, spawning awide swath of imitators and giving him an influence in the fantasy field rivaledonly by J.R.R. Tolkien and Tolkien's similarly inspired creation of the moderngenre of High Fantasy. There is no evidence that Tolkien was influenced by theearlier author, however. A full century after his birth, Howard remains a seminalfigure, with his best work endlessly reprinted. He has been compared to otherAmerican masters of the weird, gloomy, and spectral, such as NathanielHawthorne, Herman Melville, and Jack London