Conan the Barbarian

Lore & Background

Conan is a Cimmerian, a descendant of the Atlanteans and ancestor of the modern Gaels. He was born on a battlefield and raised by his father, a blacksmith. The stories are set in the legendary Hyborian Age, between the destruction of Atlantis and the beginning of recorded history. Conan is characterized as pragmatic and ruthless, possessing great strength, combativeness, intelligence, agility, and endurance. His appearance is iconic: square-cut black hair, blue eyes, tanned skin, and giant stature. Note: The idea that Conan is a descendant of Kull of Atlantis is not part of Howard's original canon; it was a later invention by other writers.

Reader's Guide

Conan the Barbarian's significance stems from his creation by Robert E. Howard in the early 1930s, which helped define the sword and sorcery subgenre. The character's popularity grew through pulp magazines, and later through paperback collections edited by L. Sprague de Camp, which added new stories by other writers. Frank Frazetta's covers and Marvel Comics' 1970s comics cemented Conan's popular image, including the iconic loincloth. The most popular cinematic adaptation is the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Howard's original stories were later restored and published in scholarly editions by Wandering Star Books and Del Rey. Conan's legacy endures as a foundational figure in fantasy, influencing countless adaptations and remaining a staple of the genre.

Did You Know?

• The first appearance of the Hyborian Age Conan was in the 1932 story 'The Phoenix on the Sword', not in 'People of the Dark' (which features a different Conan).
• Robert E. Howard wrote 17 complete Conan stories; the count of 21 includes fragments and posthumous completions.
• Conan is not a descendant of Kull of Atlantis in Howard's original writings; that connection was added later by other authors.
• Conan is not chivalric; he is a pragmatic, often ruthless barbarian with a personal code, not a medieval knight.

Origins & Creation

Robert E. Howard first glimpsed a Conan-like figure in his 1931 short story "People of the Dark," where a protagonist recalls a past life as a black-haired barbarian who swore oaths to a deity named Crom. However, the character we know today crystallized during a February 1932 vacation at a border town along the lower Rio Grande. There, Howard further developed the barbarian's identity and composed the poem "Cimmeria," drawing on passages from Plutarch's Lives. Some scholars credit Howard's reading of Thomas Bulfinch with helping him merge his literary ambitions with deeply personal, physical elements into a unified creation. Back from his trip, Howard took a rejected 1929 story called "By This Axe I Rule!" and swapped out his earlier hero Kull of Atlantis for the new Cimmerian, retitling it "The Phoenix on the Sword." He also penned "The Scarlet Citadel" and "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," the latter inspired by the Greek myth of Daphne. Weird Tales accepted the Phoenix story for its December 1932 issue and the Citadel the following month, launching what would become a defining fantasy franchise.

The Hyborian World & Character

Conan's stories unfold in the Hyborian Age, a fictional epoch Howard placed between the fall of Atlantis and the dawn of recorded history. The Cimmerians, Conan's people, are described as descendants of the Atlanteans and ancestors of the modern Gaels, and Conan himself is a descendant of Kull of Atlantis, another of Howard's earlier adventurers. Born on a battlefield and raised by a blacksmith father, Conan carries the weight of ancient lineage into a world of princesses, wizards, and heroic quests. His character is defined by a blend of raw physical power—great strength, agility, endurance, and combativeness—and a surprisingly chivalric spirit, as he repeatedly rescues damsels in distress and champions causes that offer him no personal gain. His iconic look, with square-cut black hair, blue eyes, tanned skin, and towering stature, became a visual signature of the sword-and-sorcery genre. Editor Farnsworth Wright even prompted Howard to write an 8,000-word essay outlining the Hyborian Age, which Howard then used as a blueprint for "The Tower of the Elephant," the first story to fully integrate this world.

Publication History & Literary Legacy

Howard wrote 21 complete Conan stories during his lifetime, 17 of which saw publication in Weird Tales before his suicide in 1936, along with several unfinished fragments. After his death, the Conan copyright passed through multiple hands until L. Sprague de Camp was entrusted with managing the fiction line. Beginning in 1967 with Lancer Books, de Camp oversaw a paperback series collecting Howard's originals, which he edited, and he commissioned new stories from collaborators like Björn Nyberg and Lin Carter—some built from Howard's incomplete fragments, others entirely new pastiches. De Camp also crafted prefaces that wove the tales into a single biographical timeline. For roughly four decades, Howard's original texts remained out of print. In 1977, Berkley Books attempted to issue three volumes using the earliest Weird Tales versions without de Camp's edits, but the project was halted before all five planned volumes could appear. During the 1980s and 1990s, demand for sword and sorcery waned, and the stories went fully out of print, though occasional new novels by authors like Leonard Carpenter and Harry Turtledove kept the name alive. In 2000, British publisher Gollancz Science Fiction finally released a two-volume complete edition of Howard's Conan stories.

Cultural Adaptations & Popularity

Conan's reach far exceeded the pulp pages of Weird Tales. Frank Frazetta's painted book covers in the 1960s and 1970s locked in the character's visual identity for a new generation of readers. In the 1970s, Marvel Comics brought Conan to a wider audience, and their depiction of the barbarian in a simple loincloth became one of the most recognizable images in comic-book history. The character also spread into animated and live-action television series, video games, and role-playing games, cementing his place across multiple media. Yet the defining cinematic moment arrived in 1982, when John Milius directed Conan the Barbarian, casting Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. The film's success spawned a sequel, Conan the Destroyer, and introduced the character to moviegoers worldwide. Beyond Howard's original 21 tales, numerous other writers have continued to expand the Conan canon over the decades, ensuring the Cimmerian hero remains a living figure in popular culture rather than a relic of 1930s pulp fiction.