Well, the auction for #93 is over, with Mark Corrinet taking home the prize for $46.00. Given the rarity of these mailings and the prevailing prices of many Howard items these days — pulps, first editions, etc. — I’d say Mark got a deal. Those of you who underbid will be waiting a loooooong time before another #93 comes up for sale again.

Which brings us to our next auction, the one for #94 (November 1988).

This mailing is only in two sections compared to #93’s four, yet it nevertheless holds much of interest for the Howard collector. The previous Official Editor, Mark Kimes, is dropped from the a.p.a. with the words, “All Fled, All Done…”; REHupa would never discover what caused Mark to abandon his post and jump ship without any explanation. Indy Cavalier performs the Emergency OE duties for the very first time, giving out an assortment of interesting news. Charles Hoffman and Marc Cerasini, the authors of the Starmont Reader’s Guide to Robert E. Howard join with this mailing (they wouldn’t stay long), as does Tim Arney (who would stay long, indeed to this very day). Also, this is the first mailing that Bo Cribbs participated in — the very copy you are buying belonged to Bo, and was purchased by me several years ago.

Section #1 has cover art by Indy Cavalier, and contains among many other things nice letters from L. Sprague de Camp, Glenn Lord, and Karl Edward Wagner. Don Herron’s zine presents the first appearance of his essay “Swords at the Academy Gates” — Rusty read the essay here and asked Don if he could use it to anchor the premier issue of The Dark Man, at this time still several years in the future. Steve Trout has a little article called the “Howard Library Poetry Corner,” Marc Cerasini prints his essay “Come Back to Valusia Ag’in, Kull Honey!”, there is a huge “bibliography of the Cthulhu Mythos” by one Chris Jarocha-Ernst, Charles Hoffman gives much Howard commentary plus a map of Kull’s world, something you don’t see a lot.

Section #2 has some nice art on the cover by Rick McCollum, and contains a long trip report by Rusty Burke on NolaCon II, and another long one by Indy Cavalier. Vern Clark includes a huge listing of the books Howard owned, including many cover scans, and many ultra-rare pictures from a banquet where Novalyne Price gave a speech on Howard. And of course, there are dozens of book reviews and mailing comments about everything under the sun. All in all, a fun mailing with several first printings and a lot to read.

According to the Table of Contents, apparently there were several items franked (i.e. included by a member as an extra bonus) in this mailing that are no longer here. One was a copy of Dennis McHaney’s The Howard Review #8 (still available from Dennis, I think, or if not then from eBay for those who are patient). The other franked item that is no longer there was a bunch of Weird Tales and Amra flyers which it says were franked by Darrell Schweitzer. I’m pretty sure I don’t have these misplaced in the huge pile of mailings I have, but if I ever do run across them I will send them along to whoever wins this auction.

But as if to make up for that deficiency, this mailing has something special that no other copy has: a personal letter written from REHupan Steve Trout to new REHupan Bo Cribbs (who owned this mailing). I found the letter stuck in Section #2 in front of Indy Cavalier’s zine Cold Steel, and that’s exactly where you will find it if you win the auction. It talks about various sundry matters, and serves to give this copy a personal touch and provenance that no other copy will have. For the collector interested in such details, a very nice touch.

Happy bidding!

Dateline September, 1988. The Official Editor of REHupa has just disappeared from the a.p.a. without explanation, absconding with the mailings, the treasury, even the friggin’ stapler. The members of REHupa desperately try to reestablish contact with their Editor, to no avail, dude’s not talking. Meanwhile the deadlines pass and no mailing appears. What to do?The beginning of the modern REHupa began with this, its 93rd Mailing. Read as Emergency Officers Vern Clark and Bill Cavalier step in to save the mailing and the a.p.a., an act which directly led to Bill Cavalier taking over the Oeship and instigating a renaissance of competent stewardship that alowed the a.p.a. to recover from previous years of disasterous management. A fairly massive mailing, it contains all manner of goodies — letters from Charlotte Laughlin and Glenn Lord, a zine from Howard pasticher Leonard Carpenter, the blazing return of Don Herron to the a.p.a. after a hiatus of over a decade, a screen treatment of Dark Valley Destiny, essays from Rusty Burke refuting the de Camp claim of a Robert Chambers influence on Howard’s western and pseudo-western stories, a portion of an interview with Novalyne Price, excerpts from Tevis Clyde Smith’s Pecan Valley Days, a reminiscene of E. Hoffmann Price, Howard excerpts from the book Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, a listing of library titles Howard owned with book cover scans, and many other articles about Howard, plus tons of pictures, cartoons, and Howardian artwork.

This mailing is in four sections.

As with most mailings for sale, these have been read, dog-eared, and occassionaly stained by errant drops of coffee. Almost any mailing you’ll ever buy will have such defects; although there are some people out there who have bagged and stored their mailings in mint condition, they aren’t selling.

Most Howard fans who pride themselves on the size and scope of their collections think that their holdings are impressive simply by virtue of owning many hardcover first editions and fanzines, along with perhaps one or two bits of authentic Howard via an original letter or typescript. The truth, however, is that there is a sizable amount of ephemera that must be hunted down before one can boast one of the best Howard collections in the world. Near the top of this list is a Holy Grail achieved by only three or four people over the years: a complete collection of REHupa mailings.REHupa stands for The Robert E. Howard United Press Association, an organization that has served as the intellectual center of Howard studies and research since its inception in 1972. Every two months for thirty-four years, REHupa has released a “mailing,” i.e. a printed, stapled 8 1/2 x 11 publication ranging anywhere from a half dozen to 500+ pages in length. These mailings contain “zines,” small fanzine publications written and published by individual REHupa members. The quality and content of each zine varies depending on the author and luck of the draw, but over the years a vast store of Howardia has been published within REHupa’s pages. Some mailings contain never-published Howard letters, or constitute the real first printing of various Howard stories or poems. All manner of essays, indexes, articles, trip reports, and pictures have been printed in REHupa, which together form a virtual history of Howard fandom for the last thirty-four years. Rare artwork, REH calendars, bookmarks, buttons, and other miscellany have been handed out with the mailings. Any Howard fan who has seen a complete collection of REHupa in person doesn’t soon forget it. Stacked up together, they would stretch almost to the ceiling of your room. All told there are nearly thirty thousand pages of material between the covers of all those mailings, with the authors reading like a laundry list of Howard notables.

And perhaps the most important thing of all is how rare REHupa mailings are. For most of its history there has been a limit to how many members can be in REHupa, and hence for most mailings only thirty or so copies were made and distributed. Allowing for damaged and lost copies over the years, the potential collecting universe is small indeed. Mailings are seldom sold or traded, making it hard for an interested Howard collector to begin acquiring them, even if they have lots of money to burn. It’s a collecting nightmare, yes, but the challenge can be a fairly pleasant one.

Mailings do come up on eBay or at Howard Days often enough to tantalize collectors without becoming a common sight like so many other Howard treasures. But while it’s fairly easy to get a hold of some issues of REHupa, amassing a complete collection is next to impossible. Perhaps only a half-dozen copies of the first fledgling issue was printed. Still, such issues have been known to come up as old fans die off or sell off their collections, and so the hunt for a complete collection of REHupa can be thrilling, while not nearly as frustrating as acquiring, say a Herbert Jenkins Gent From Bear Creek. It behooves hardcore Howard collectors to consider starting a collection of REHupas, one that will grow over the ensuing years into an impressive array of mailings.

To those who accept the challenge, many fascinating discoveries await you. Some mailings have never-before-published REH pictures, documents, and writings. Luminaries like L. Sprague de Camp and Glenn Lord contributed to REHupa for decades, offering many insights about REH that have not otherwise seen the light of day. Lengthy, wide-ranging discussions about Howard are preserved in REHupa in fascinating detail, offering the collector hours of fun reading. Thousands of drawings of REH and his characters have appeared in REHupa, both on the covers and in the interior pages, including rare sketches and roughs from artists such as Frazetta, Krenkel, and Gianni. All of this should convince collectors that a sizable holding of REHupas is a cornerstone to any REH collection wishing to call itself great.

Over the last six years, I have acquired and enjoyed the collections of several vintage REHupans, as well as the mailings I myself appeared in as a member. Not a collector myself, my main reason for snapping them up whenever I saw them on the market was so I could read their contents. Now, having read every REHupa in total, and with my interests in Howard turning into other directions (namely the producing of The Cimmerian every two months) the time has come for me to sell off my REHupa holdings, and allow some other collector to relish them for awhile. Starting now in March, I’ll be offering issues on eBay fairly consistently over the next few months. The cumulative size and scope of this offering is unprecedented — never have eBay collectors had the opportunity to acquire so many issues of REHupa over such a short period of time. For fans convinced of the necessity of a REHupa collection, and wishing to start one of their own, this constitutes an extraordinary opportunity to snatch up an impressive array of issues quickly. Even better, since the mailings will be offered one at a time, you don’t have to worry about one huge cache being priced way out of your league — you can pick and choose which issues to fight for. I’m hoping that by the end, several fans will have gotten a healthy start on building their own REHupa collections, initiating a hunt that will bring you many years of collecting pleasure.

This kind of thing doesn’t come up too often. Heritage Galleries and Auctioneers, the world’s largest collectible auctioneer, is going to be selling the manuscript to one of Howard’s best stories,"The Grey God Passes," along with the rejection letter the story received from Weird Tales. Something like this could go for anywhere from $5000 to $30,000, depending on the players and heat.

Here is the relevant information from their website:

Robert E. Howard Typed Manuscript and Rejection Letter for: The Grey God Passes. This lot features the original typed manuscript of The Grey God Passes, and the rejection letter it got from Weird Tales magazine. The rejection letter states in part, "I am sorry to return your story, THE GREY GOD PASSES. The story itself, the plot, seems very slight, and the weird element is not as strong as I would like it to be." The manuscript itself is 36 pages long and contains editorial marks and occasional notes. Accompanying the manuscript and letter is a typed letter from the original consigner which explains the provenance of the manuscript. Robert E. Howard is best known for his creation, "Conan the Barbarian!" Conan got his start in Weird Tales magazine, so this lot is significant in that it features both the work of a great science fiction author and the magazine that gave his most popular character his start.

The manuscript is in good condition, with some minor problems. The paper is beginning to yellow and turn brittle. There is already some mild flaking around the ages and some rust stains from a paper clip on the first page. The letter is also yellowing slightly, and has rust stains from a paper clip on its upper edge. Bring the axe down on this lot today! *****  

The Consignment Deadline for this auction has passed, but we are always accepting quality consignments. E-mail us at Consign@heritageamericana.com if you are interested in information.

Auction Information 
Location:   Dallas, TX
Auction:   2006 February Dallas Books, Autographs and Manuscripts Auction "New York City" #626
Internet Bidding Begins   February 1, 2006
Auction Dates:   February 20-21, 2006
Note:   Internet Absentee Bidding Ends at 10 PM CDT the night before the floor session of any particular lot. See the individual lot page for specific times. 

This is a special centennial issue of The Cimmerian. For details on the contents, visit here.

I recently read some perceptive comments on the TTA Press Discussion Forum about two of the Big Names in the Weird Fiction field, S. T. Joshi and Don Herron. The posts were intriguing because they did not come from the usual crowd. These are not fans plugged into the main Howard scene, and hence are people who are judging the merits and demerits of Joshi and Herron objectively.

On the forum, under the Joel Lane folder, there is a discussion thread about Joshi. It gets interesting when Joel says on Wednesday, November 24, 2004:

There should be an emoticon for the pensive but resigned frown… I’m continuing this topic from the Nemonymous board to canvass thoughts on this extraordinary critic and archivist–a man whose sharp insights and sarcastic barbs are as impressive as his blind spots and biases are frustrating.

He is, of course, speaking about the inimitable S. T. Joshi. Gary Fry asks, “Well, I’ve only read the Campbell book. What else should I seek?”, to which Joel responds:

The Lovecraft biography is a serious classic. Joshi’s recent book The Modern Weird Tale is a mixed bag, highly idiosyncratic and unfair, but full of good insights. His new book The Evolution of the Weird Tale, despite its grand title, is basically a collection of review articles; but it’s enormous fun and less narrow than some earlier Joshi stuff. The Weird Tale, published in 1990 and covering the weird fiction genre from Machen to Lovecraft, is ambitious and dynamic but heavy-handed and too fond of extreme statements. Behind the veils of academic objectivity, Joshi can be seen to be a volatile, short-tempered, aggressive and highly intense young man. He has mellowed a little since, though his sarcasm can still wither at forty paces.

Howard fans can only laugh–that’s almost exactly the rep Joshi has acquired in our neck of the woods. Some “good,” “ambitious,” and “dynamic” insights, marred far too often by “highly idiosyncratic,” “unfair,” “heavy-handed,” “extreme,” “volatile,” and “short-tempered” critical judgments.

Joel later adds:

And the latest news is that the two volumes of revised, annotated Lovecraft stories edited by S.T. Joshi for Penguin Modern Classics is to be followed by a third containing… everything else! ‘The Dreams in the Witch-House’ will be out in the UK next year and will complete the set of revised Lovecraft texts in mass market paperback. I’m not sure whether to be impressed by this purposeful rebranding of Lovecraft’s work or disappointed that the opportunity to consign the dozen or so weakest stories to the dustbin of history was missed.

When asked about other books in the field to look up, Joel mentions Herron:

Well, there’s the ‘Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural’, about 20 years old now. And the St James Encyclopedia of Horror, Ghost and Gothic Fiction, a massive and costly volume which I don’t own–I wrote six entries, but didn’t qualify for a comp. copy.

There’s some very good stuff on the horror genre in Ramsey Campbell, Probably, as well as much else of interest (and the occasional foray into the realm of Too Much Information). And Don Herron’s excellent anthology of essays on Robert E. Howard, The Dark Barbarian, has recently been reissued by Wildside Press.

Can anyone recommend other studies of the field?

To which Gary Fry responds “Don Herron is an excellent critic: he wrote some very even-handed reviews of King’s earlier work.” And a bit later says:

Don Herron’s take on King is, in my view, the definitive assessment: he claims King writes the kind of fiction you’d expect from a professor (loaded with theme and symbols, ripe for critical dissemination), rather than a raw artist. However, he also claims that King, at his best, could produce great stuff (not Shakespeare, but great all the same): “Apt Pupil,” The Shining, “The Woman in the Room,” etc. Nevertheless, he also claims that King can’t control the quality, that he only ever hits to high notes occasionally.

Sums the guy up nicely, methinks.

Another reader, “Stu,” chimes in on Don’s take on King with:

Gary, I’ve not read a lot of King but that does sound a more balanced assessment than a lot of people offer on him. Way more charitable than Joshi’s take on King, for example.

There you have it, guys outside of Howard fandom simmering with many of the same evaluations of Joshi and Herron that we have historically had. Joshi is blissfully unaware of how many intelligent fans his criticism has offended on an aesthetic level over the years, how plain wrong many of his opinions are, by any standards. I wonder if he’ll ever figure it out.

Joel finishes the Joshi commentary with:

Yes, I think King’s vast popularity has blinded some critics to the power of his best work. The Dark Half in particular is brilliant. He’s not terribly original, but he is passionate and intense–features that most commercial horror fiction notably lacks. Joshi’s grandstanding denunciation of King is the most disappointing feature of his criticism, though he does offer a fair-minded critique of Straub.

“Disappointing” is one of the words I hear most associated with Joshi’s critical work. Oh well, bad criticism fades away when the living critic does, while good research–Joshi’s strength–endures. My guess is that books like The Weird Tale, The Modern Weird Tale, and The Evolution of the Weird Tale will fade into merciful oblivion in due course, while the various indexes, pure texts, and biographical finds will become standards.

Meanwhile, Herron’s critical books on Howard, as far as I can tell, are here to stay. For each essay contained within, one finds it very difficult to think of another essay anywhere that has covered the same subjects better.

The copies of The All-Around Magazine went for $911.01, and the winning bidder was "acidgothic."

Considering that original Howard letters have gone for about that in the past, it’s a sign that REH collecting is really heating up. With the centennial looming, that’s great news. 

Girasol Collectibles, the outfit who has made a name for themselves by selling facsimiles of golden age pulps (and who released the REH book of public domain stories Blood of the Gods and Other Stories in Canada) has announced they will be releasing facsimile copies of all of the REH Weird Tales stories in several hardcovers, to be released late this year or early next year. Finally, REH fans will have a way to buy all of these “tear sheets” in one fell swoop, without having to collect thousands of dollars of rotting pulps. Hopefully they will also collect all of the REH-related letters in The Eyrie, but that is likely too much to ask.

The eBay auction for the original copies of "The All-Around Magazine" from the files of Tevis Clyde Smith is heating up, with the price at a healthy $660 with a day and a half left in the bidding. Yet another sign of how collectible REH has become. Tune in to eBay around 6pm Pacific Time on Wednesday to see the final brutal bids duke it out.

Not more than a week after swearing off Howard fandom for the umpteenth time, Ben is back with an all-new online publication chock full of his inimitable, indescribably illiterate ramblings on weird fiction. The name of the project is Calenture: A Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse, wherein one can peruse such certain classics as “”The Clean Shaven Barbarian: A Masculine Reading of Robert E. Howard’s ‘The Gold and the Grey’,” the first paragraph of which reads:

THE POETRY of Texan author Robert E. Howard is known to inherit a sense of barbarism, pure machismo and masculinity, in which the dominating male performs all the desired and necessary roles one is meant to embark upon. However, his work, much like the author, could not always uphold this performance, and shades of constraint and sensitivity became more apparent over the course of his life. Students of gender theory comment that masculinity has evolved into something much different than its literary predecessor; a change brought on upon the gender movements in the latter twentieth century. No longer is it a case of being a gentleman or a brute; it is now a matter of performing the ‘ideal’ subject position. Normative masculinity seeks to merge the two opposing forces together. In the following article, Howard’s “The Gold and the Grey” (a.k.a. “An Echo From the Iron Harp”, will be used to discuss the double-bind inherent in normative masculinity, operating both aggressively as power and repressively as constraint.

Great, great stuff for those of you who can’t get enough of Ben Zoom. Perhaps the best thing about the journal is that it is written using the risible quasi-academic MLA style that is the vogue in weird fiction studies, proving yet again that being MLA approved or having an article with footnotes means absolutely nothing in the real world. Without good writing and half a brain, all the citations and certifications in the world can’t help you. It’s time that fans of REH, CAS, and HPL leave all of that nonsense to real academics and concentrate instead on writing well and accurately for intelligent, general readers.

You can download the whole PDF here. Currently Calenture is soliciting papers for a special Clark Ashton Smith issue. One can only hope that Fate takes pity on poor CAS and renders the journal defunct before that can ever appear.