Edgar Rice Burroughs was one of the most successful authors of the twentieth century. He also influenced sword and sorcery authors such as Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock.
Read MoreSo what about this "First Dynasty" business? That would refer to Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner and Fritz Leiber. In that order. Those writers produced the vast bulk of sword and sorcery literature from 1929 through 1939.
Read MoreGustave Flaubert died on this date in 1880. While most famous for his novel, Madame Bovary, and dubbed "The Father of French Literary Realism", Gustave nonetheless had a strong influence on the early formation of sword-and-sorcery through his novels, Salammbo and The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
Read MoreThe literary landscape of the 1920s, when it came to historical adventure fiction, was dominated by Rafael Sabatini. This is the bloody milieu in which sword and sorcery took root.
Read MoreBrian Murphy and I were corresponding the other day, discussing his forthcoming book, Flame and Crimson. He mentioned that Fritz Leiber read H. Rider Haggard; that, in fact, Leiber was reading HRH during the very period that Fritz and his friend, Harry Fischer, were creating Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
Read MoreToday is Rudyard Kipling’s birthday. A fitting occasion on which to bestow the rank of Forefather upon him and it’s an honor he richly deserves. Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and L. Sprague de Camp were all admirers of his work.
Read MoreRobert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber and Karl Edward Wagner. If Sax Rohmer’s influence upon those S&S titans isn’t enough to rank him as a Forefather, then hardly anybody else rates the honor, either.
Read MoreMachen’s influence upon REH is patent. Yarns like “Worms of the Earth” would not exist without the fiction of Arthur Machen. Clark Ashton Smith, the other co-founder of Sword and Sorcery was also a huge Machen fan, citing “The White Powder” as one of his ten favorite weird tales.
Read MoreSir Arthur Conan Doyle would have turned one hundred and sixty today. He had a major and lasting influence on sword and sorcery, especially on Robert E. Howard.
Read MoreMundy's main venue was the pulp magazine Adventure. It was primarily through the tales that appeared in its pages that Mundy influenced the First Dynasty of sword and sorcery authors. He affected Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber strongly.
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