Trails in Darkness - First edition

Even though best known as the creator of such heroic fantasy legends as Conan the Barbarian and Kull of Atlantis, Robert E. Howard was also a prolific writer of horror tales. Several of his best were set in his own backyard--the rural Southern and Western states where he lived out his own tragically short life. Trails in Darkness is a representative collection of his regional horror and fantasy stories, many of which originally appeared in the famous pulp magazine Weird Tales. These dark tales of supernatural hatred and revenge were occasionally written to honor his colleagues Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft; yet style and atmosphere were never as vitally important to Howard as wild action and copious bloodshed. For anyone who thought the author was capable only of time-lost swords and sorcery, these (relatively) modern tales show Howard working his distinctive sorcery just as masterfully with vengeful cowboys, haunted racists, and obsessed explorers. --Stanley Wiater