From Robert E. Howard's fertile imagination sprang some of fiction's greatest heroes, including Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, and Solomon Kane. But of all Howard's characters, none embodied his creator's brooding temperament more than Bran Mak Morn, the last king of a doomed race.
In ages past, the Picts ruled all of Europe. But the descendants of those proud conquerors have sunk into barbarism . . . all save one, Bran Mak Morn, whose bloodline remains unbroken. Threatened by the Celts and the Romans, the Pictish tribes rally under his banner to fight for their very survival, while Bran fights to restore the glory of his race.
Lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Gary Gianni, this collection gathers together all of Howard's published stories and poems featuring Bran Mak Morn-including the eerie masterpiece "Worms of the Earth" and "Kings of the Night," in which sorcery summons Kull the conqueror from out of the depths of time to stand with Bran against the Roman invaders.
Also included are previously unpublished stories and fragments, reproductions of manuscripts bearing Howard's handwritten revisions, and much, much more.
Special Bonus: a newly discovered adventure by Howard, presented here for the very first time.

Conan the Cimmerian--the boy-thief who became a mercenary, who fought and loved his way across fabled lands to become King of Aquilonia. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the barbarian warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian age. Collected here in the chronological order they were first published are Robert E. Howard's definitive stories of Conan, exactly as he wrote them. A foreword and afterword by Stephen Jones provide a biography of Howard along with a comprehensive overview of his writing and background on the world of pulp fiction. World Fantasy Award-nominee Les Edwards contributes a black and white frontispiece, along with a gold embossed work on the leather-style cover, while Hugo Award- and Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and author Stephen Jones provides an insightful afterword.

ABLAZE is proud to present its bestselling line of UNCENSORED Robert E. Howard Cimmerian graphic novels, now available in a handsome slipcase box edition, collecting Volumes 1-4. Each Cimmerian volume contains two complete stories, plus bonus material, including the original prose stories, in one epic hardcover collection! VOLUME 1 - Featuring "QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST" & "RED NAILS" QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST - Conan seeks refuge on a merchant ship, after being pursued for killing a judge. But soon after setting sail, the Cimmerian and his new companions face a threat: the legendary Belit, self-proclaimed Queen of the Black Coast! Soon finding himself smitten by the lovely Belit, Conan agrees to joins up with her and her crew to brutally pillage and sail the poisonous river Zarkheba, encountering ancient ruins, lost treasure, and winged, vicious monstrosities! RED NAILS - Conan finds himself in the Darfar region, whose territory is almost entirely covered by a huge forest. Here Conan pledges himself a mercenary, promising his sword to the highest bidder, fighting alongside fellow mercenary and fierce female warrior Valeria. After a clash against a terrible dragon, the two go to a strange fortified city, apparently deserted...but the duo will quickly discover that a civilization lives hidden inside, and that the citadel hides a heavy secret. VOLUME 2 - Featuring "PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE" & "THE FROST-GIANT'S DAUGHTER" PEOPE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE - The king has just died in the kingdom of Vendhya, struck down by the spells of the black prophets of Yimsha. The king’s sister, Yasmina, decides to avenge him…and contacts Conan, then chief of the Afghuli tribe. But several of Conan’s warriors have just been killed by the men of the kingdom of Vendhya, further complicating the matter. The princess thought she could use the Cimmerian, but rather it is she who will serve his interests... THE FROST-GIANT'S DAUGHTER - Conan, the only survivor of a ferocious battle, sits in the midst of a bloodstained snow field. When the fight is over, the Cimmerian suddenly finds himself overcome with deep weariness and disgust. Until the moment he meets a redheaded woman of supernatural beauty, blinding like the glow of the sun on the snow. Moved by a burning desire, Conan decides to follow her but finds himself caught in a trap, attacked by two titans. In his ardor, he was not suspicious…he did not imagine for a second that his bride was none other than Ymir's own daughter: the frost-giant! VOLUME 3 - Featuring "IRON SHADOWS IN THE MOON" & "THE MAN-EATERS OF ZAMBOULA" IRON SHADOWS IN THE MOON: A young woman in danger is pursued by her vile master. Conan, whose family has just been wiped out by this same master, puts an end to the beauty's pursuer, and saves her with a blow of his sword. Bound by fate, the couple decide to hit the road together. Their journey takes them to an island where they discover strange ruins inhabited by dark magic. Their paradise-like refuge soon turns into a suffocating nightmare where shadows lurk. Who knows the extent of the dangers that lie there? They will quickly learn that on an island, the biggest threat does not always come from the outside... THE MAN EATERS OF ZAMBOULA - The Cimmerian finds himself in the land of a thousand and one nights! A crossroads of beliefs, languages & cultures, the mythical trading city of Zamboula is also the scene of many dark legends. Upon paying the city a visit, Conan is warned of the dangers of Aram Baksh's home. It is said that most of the foreigners who stay there disappear under obscure circumstances...and it is precisely there that the Cimmerian is spending the night. But by lifting the veil on these mysterious cases of kidnappings, the Cimmerian will discover another secret, even more terrible, linked to the whole of the city of Zamboula... A story imbued with orientalism and macabre witchcraft, The Man-Eaters of Zamboula offers writer/artist Gess the opportunity to deliver his vision of Robert E. Howard's hero in a comic book story of exotic and dark beauty. VOLUME 4 - Featuring "BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER" & "HOUR OF THE DRAGON" BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER: The Picte country is an obscure jungle where the border between civilization and barbarism is thin. Only one thing symbolizes it: the Black River, which it is claimed that no white man was able to cross and come back alive. None, except Conan. It is in the heart of this green hell that the Cimmerian meets Balthus, a young voluntary peasant whom he saves at the last minute from the clutches of fierce Pictish warriors. Together, they will try to lend a hand to the colonists who have established themselves here, on these hostile lands, in the last bastion of civilization. With a dozen men, they will have to find the powerful sorcerer Zogar Sag before he succeeds in uniting the clans and initiating his bloody invasion… HOUR OF THE DRAGON: Under the funeral vaults of the mausoleum belonging to the ancient and cruel Emperor Xaltotun of Python, three men devoured by ambition come to offer to the inert body of the deceased sovereign the heart of Ahriman, a source of immor-tality which once belonged to him. Taken away at the cost of his life. In exchange for this offering, the three men claim a single thing: the world. However, there is only one person able to stand in their way, a Cimmerian who seized the throne of Aquilonia: Conan!

Here are Howard's greatest horror tales, all in their original, definitive versions. Some of Howard's best-known characters-Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and sailor Steve Costigan among them-roam the forbidding locales of the author's fevered imagination, from the swamps and bayous of the Deep South to the fiend-haunted woods outside Paris to remote jungles in Africa.
The collection includes Howard's masterpiece "Pigeons from Hell,"" "which Stephen King calls "one of the finest horror stories of [the twentieth] century," a tale of two travelers who stumble upon the ruins of a Southern plantation-and into the maw of its fatal secret. In "Black Canaan" even the best warrior has little chance of taking down the evil voodoo man with unholy powers-and none at all against his wily mistress, the diabolical High Priestess of Damballah. In these and other lavishly illustrated classics, such as the revenge nightmare "Worms of the Earth" and" ""The Cairn on the Headland,"" "Howard spins tales of unrelenting terror, the legacy of one of the world's great masters of the macabre.

With Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard created more than the greatest action hero of the twentieth century--he also launched a genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery. But Conan wasn't the first archetypal
adventurer to spring from Howard's fertile imagination.
""He was . . . a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan. . . . A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things. . . . Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect--he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane."
"Collected in this volume, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Gary Gianni, are all of the stories and poems that make up the thrilling saga of the dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. Together they constitute a sprawling epic of weird fantasy adventure that stretches from sixteenth-century England to remote African jungles where no white man has set foot. Here are shudder-inducing tales of vengeful ghosts and bloodthirsty demons, of dark sorceries wielded by evil men and women, all opposed by a grim avenger armed with a fanatic's faith and a warrior's savage heart.
"This edition also features exclusive story fragments, a biography of Howard by scholar Rusty Burke, and "In Memoriam," H. P. Lovecraft's moving tribute to his friend and fellow literary genius.
"

This is a collection of some of the best ficiton by Robert E. Howard. The stories feature all of his most famou creations including Conan, King Kull, Solomon Kane and more.

"FOR HEADLONG, NONSTOP ADVENTURE AND FOR VIVID, EVEN FLORID, SCENERY, NO ONE EVEN COMES CLOSE TO HOWARD."
-Harry Turtledove
In a meteoric career that covered only a dozen years, Robert E. Howard defined the sword-and-sorcery genre. In doing so, he brought to life the archetypal adventurer known to millions around the world as Conan the barbarian.
Witness, then, Howard at his finest, and Conan at his most savage, in the latest volume featuring the collected works of Robert E. Howard, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Greg Manchess. Prepared directly from the earliest known versions-often Howard's own manuscripts-are such sword-and-sorcery classics as "The Servants of Bit-Yakin" (formerly published as "Jewels of Gwahlur"), "Beyond the Black River," "The Black Stranger," "Man-Eaters of Zamboula" (formerly published as "Shadows in Zamboula"), and, perhaps his most famous adventure of all, "Red Nails."
The Conquering Sword of Conan" "includes never-before-published outlines, notes, and story drafts, plus a new introduction, personal correspondence, and the revealing essay "Hyborian Genesis"-which chronicles the history of the creation of the Conan series. Truly, this is heroic fantasy at its finest.

""Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities . . . there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. . . . Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand . . . to tread
the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."
"
Conan is one of the greatest fictional heroes ever created-a swordsman who cuts a swath across the lands of the Hyborian Age, facing powerful sorcerers, deadly creatures, and ruthless armies of thieves and reavers.
In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years before his tragic suicide, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. Collected in this volume, profusely illustrated by artist Mark Schultz, are Howard's first thirteen Conan stories, appearing in their original versions-in some cases for the first time in more than seventy years-and in the order Howard wrote them. Along with classics of dark fantasy like "The Tower of the Elephant" and swashbuckling adventure like "Queen of the Black Coast," "The Coming of Conan""the Cimmerian" contains a wealth of material never before published in the United States, including the first submitted draft of Conan's debut, "Phoenix on the Sword," Howard's synopses for "The Scarlet Citadel" and "Black Colossus," and a map of Conan's world drawn by the author himself.
Here are timeless tales featuring Conan the raw and dangerous youth, Conan the daring thief, Conan the swashbuckling pirate, and Conan the commander of armies. Here, too, is an unparalleled glimpse into the mind of a genius whose bold storytelling style has been imitated by many, yet equaled by none.

Robert E. Howard is famous for creating such immortal heroes as Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. Less well-known but equally extraordinary are his non-fantasy adventure stories set in the Middle East and featuring such two-fisted heroes as Francis Xavier Gordon--known as "El Borak"--Kirby O'Donnell, and Steve Clarney. This trio of hard-fighting Americans, civilized men with more than a touch of the primordial in their veins, marked a new direction for Howard's writing, and new territory for his genius to conquer.
The wily Texan El Borak, a hardened fighter who stalks the sandscapes of Afghanistan like a vengeful wolf, is rivaled among Howard's creations only by Conan himself. In such classic tales as "The Daughter of Erlik Khan," "Three-Bladed Doom," and "Sons of the Hawk," Howard proves himself once again a master of action, and with plenty of eerie atmosphere his plotting becomes tighter and twistier than ever, resulting in stories worthy of comparison to Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. Every fan of Robert E. Howard and aficionados of great adventure writing will want to own this collection of the best of Howard's desert tales, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artists Tim Bradstreet and Jim & Ruth Keegan.

BY CROM! Robert E. Howard's famous Cimmerian UNCENSORED! Discover the true Conan, unrestrained, violent, and sexual. Read the story as he intended! The Cimmerian Vol 2 includes two complete stories, The People of The Black Circle, and The Frost-Giant's Daughter, plus bonus material, including the original prose stories, in one hardcover collection! In The People of the Black Circle, the king has just died in the kingdom of Vendhya, struck down by the spells of the black prophets of Yimsha. The king's sister, Yasmina, decides to avenge him...and contacts Conan, then chief of the Afghuli tribe. But several of Conan's warriors have just been killed by the men of the kingdom of Vendhya, further complicating the matter. The princess thought she could use the Cimmerian, but rather it is she who will serve his interests... Sylvain Runberg and prodigious designer/illustrator Jae Kwang Park adapt one of the most ambitious and complex Conan stories of Robert E. Howard. An adventure where epic battles, witchcraft and plots mingle in a mystical and scary Orient. Where revenge is an art... In The Frost-Giant's Daughter, Conan, the only survivor of a ferocious battle, sits in the midst of a bloodstained snow field. When the fight is over, the Cimmerian suddenly finds himself overcome with deep weariness and disgust. Until the moment he meets a redheaded woman of supernatural beauty, blinding like the glow of the sun on the snow. Moved by a burning desire, Conan decides to follow her but finds himself caught in a trap, attacked by two titans. In his ardor, he was not suspicious...he did not imagine for a second that his bride was none other than Ymir's own daughter: the frost-giant! A mythical tale both in both form and substance, The Frost-Giant's Daughter is masterfully adapted by Robin Recht, who manages to capture the essence of this whirlwind tale of violent desire...a true love trap in which the force of will of the Cimmerian is put to the test.

BY CROM! Robert E. Howard's famous Cimmerian UNCENSORED! For the first time, Robert E. Howard's Conan is brought to life uncensored! Discover the true Conan, unrestrained, violent, and sexual. Read the story as he intended! The Cimmerian Vol 1 includes two complete stories, Queen of the Black Coast, and Red Nails, plus bonus material, in one hardcover collection! In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan seeks refuge on a merchant ship, after being pursued for killing a judge. But soon after setting sail, the Cimmerian and his new companions face a threat: the legendary Belit, self-proclaimed Queen of the Black Coast! Soon finding himself smitten by the lovely Belit, Conan agrees to joins up with her and her crew to brutally pillage and sail the poisonous river Zarkheba, encountering ancient ruins, lost treasure, and winged, vicious monstrosities! In Red Nails, Conan finds himself in the Darfar region, whose territory is almost entirely covered by a huge forest. Here Conan pledges himself a mercenary, promising his sword to the highest bidder, fighting alongside fellow mercenary and fierce female warrior Valeria. After a clash against a terrible dragon, the two go to a strange fortified city, apparently deserted...but the duo will quickly discover that a civilization lives hidden inside, and that the citadel hides a heavy secret.

"Howard's writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks."
-Stephen King
"Robert E. Howard had a gritty, vibrant style-broadsword writing that cut its way to the heart, with heroes who are truly larger than life."
-David Gemmell
In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fiction's most enduring heroes. Yet while Conan is indisputably Howard's greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the brooding intellect of a philosopher, that Howard began to develop the distinctive themes, and the richly evocative blend of history and mythology, that would distinguish his later tales of the Hyborian Age.
Much more than simply the prototype for Conan, Kull is a fascinating character in his own right: an exile from fabled Atlantis who wins the crown of Valusia, only to find it as much a burden as a prize.
This groundbreaking collection, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Justin Sweet, gathers together all Howard's stories featuring Kull, from Kull's first published appearance, in "The Shadow Kingdom," to "Kings of the Night," Howard's last tale featuring the cerebral swordsman. The stories are presented just as Howard wrote them, with all subsequent editorial emendations removed. Also included are previously unpublished stories, drafts, and fragments, plus extensive notes on the texts, an introduction by Howard authority Steve Tompkins, and an essay by noted editor Patrice Louinet.
"Howard was a true storyteller-one of the first, and certainly among the best, you'll find in heroic fantasy. If you've never read him before, you're in for a real treat."
-Charles de Lint
"For stark, living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?"
-H. P. Lovecraft