REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 THE RISE OF THE NEW HYBORIAN LEGION, PART TWELVE By Lee A. Breakiron As we saw in our first installment [1], the Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHupa) was founded in 1972 by a teen-aged Tim Marion as the first amateur press association (apa) devoted to Howard. By early 1990, the regular membership stood at only 16, but Mailings ran from about 100 to over 300 pages in length. L. Sprague de Camp, Glenn Lord, Charlotte Laughlin, and Karl Edward Wagner were honorary members. Former, longtime REHupan James Van Hise wrote the first comprehensive history of REHupa through Mailing #175. [2] Like him, but more so, we are focusing only on noteworthy content, especially that relevant to Howard. Here are the highlights of Mailings #101 through #105. Mailings in the #80s and #90s were often distinguished by the long contributions of Rusty Burke, Vern Clark, and Steve Trout, whose zines boasted many long, thought-provoking Mailing Comments. Howard content was steadily growing and improving. Mailing #101 (Jan., 1990) sports a cover by Bruce Timm supplied by L. Sprague de Camp, who says it caricatures Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith as the “Three Musketeers of Weird Tales.” The drawing first appeared in Robert M. Price’s HPL zine Crypt of Cthulhu #66 (Aug., 1989). [Incidentally, CoC #68 (Oct., 1989) contained a letter from de Camp that went into detail about REH’s supposed motivations for his suicide.] Honorary member Laughlin willingly leaves the apa in order to make room for Howard’s sometime girlfriend Novalyne Price Ellis, but not before submitting a delightful letter of reminiscences and humor. It is also announced that the former Howard residence has been purchased by Project Pride of Cross Plains in order to restore and open it as a museum. Official Editor Bill Cavalier reports that REHupans Garry Adrian, Tim Arney, Burke, Cavalier, Clark, and Trout visited Cross Plains on 4 November, 1990, the first such commemoration of Howard since 1986, and once again donated REH-related books to the town’s library. Librarian Billie Ruth Loving said, “These are professional men with Howard in common, who appreciate him for the fantastic imagination, the poetic language, the adventure of his poetry and his tales, and who have a feeling for the captive that he was in a world that understood him not at all. We would like for Cross Plains people to know these men as we expect to see more of them in years to come.” [3] [They would indeed.] © 2021 by Lee A. Breakiron 1 REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 Glenn Lord contributes his EOD apazine Zarfhaana #35 [4], which details what he was able to find out about Howard’s short-lived friend Herbert C. Klatt. [REHupan Rob Roehm would later publish a book about him: Lone Scout of Letters (Roehm’s Room Press, 2011).] Burke, Cavalier, and Ben Indick review the recently published book, Shadows of Dreams (Grant, 1989) of 47 poems culled by Lord from REH’s correspondence with his friend Tevis Clyde “Clyde” Smith. Cover by Bruce Timm 2 REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 Don Herron takes more swipes at Clark and Trout’s compilation of books owned or read by Howard. Cavalier reviews Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1923-1930 (Necronomicon Press, 1989) compiled by Lord and footnoted by Burke. Cavalier reports on his Cross Plains visit, quoting former Cross Plains Review editor Jack Scott as saying “Robert E. Howard was a combination of Jack London and Edgar Allan Poe (Doc Howard wasn’t afraid of the Devil himself, and neither was Robert! The only people they were afraid of was each other!).” (p. 7) Burke comments to Leonard Carpenter that, in regard to de Camp’s footnotes in Dark Valley Destiny, “I’ve gone back into those footnotes. Funny thing, many of them don’t offer any support for his comments at all. Bad habit the man has of tossing off four or five statements as facts, footnoting the last of them, seeming to think that somehow lends legitimacy to the others, as well. You want to believe DVD is the last word on REH biography, and that Sprague withheld his own opinions, presenting only fair, objective facts, fine, think that – there’s obviously lots of room in this world for people without any sort of critical faculties. The sort of people, for instance, who believe that the theories of Dr. Freud are self-evident explanations for human behavior.” (p. 4) Burke then reprints his review of Howard’s semi-autobiographical novel Post Oaks and Sand Roughs (Grant, 1989) in Studies in Weird Fiction #6 (fall, 1989). “Though he occasionally stretches facts or juggles a sequence of events, on the whole the book stands as an important document for those who seek to understand Howard as a writer.” (p. 8) At 59 pages, Mailing #102 (Mar., 1990) is the shortest Mailing since #25 (aside from the belated #84/85) and up to the present as well, but understandably, since so many members had put such effort in their contributions to #100. The sizes of the Mailings and the membership would start rebounding. Terry Lawson has more recollections of pulp writer E. Hoffmann “Ed” Price, who had died in 1988 at age 89. Price met Howard twice and wrote similar memoirs about him in letters to Weird Tales (1936) [5], Francis T. Laney (1944) [6], The Acolyte (1944, 1945) [7,8], August Derleth (one undated, two in 1945 [9-11]), and Cross Plains #2 (1974) [12]; in articles in Fantasy Magazine (1936) [13], Diablerie (1944) [14], and The Ghost #3 (1945) [15]; in the introduction to The Last Celt (1976) [15]; and in his The Book of the Dead (2001) [15]. To Mailing #103 (May, 1990), Ellis submits a letter saying she is finishing up the writing of a novel using her grandmother’s old ghost and witch stories, as REH had encouraged her to do. [It would never be published. Does anyone know if the manuscript is extant?] Arney reports on the November, 1989, trip of REHupans to Cross Plains. Herron reprints three of writer David C. Smith’s personal newsletters. Tom Munnerlyn, an Austin collector, book publisher, and bookseller specializing in Texas history, debuts his zine. He is a friend of Clyde Smith’s nephew Roy Barkley and helped him sell or donate Smith’s limited collection of books, pulps, and fanzines. Barkley also had acquired the Smith-Howard correspondence and provided copies of the letters for publication in Robert E. Howard: Selected Letters 1923-1930, as well as REH’s poems that appeared in Shadows of Dreams. He later sold the letters to Texas A & M (aside from a couple unsigned ones, one of which I bought). Other items in Smith’s collection were two books with REH inscriptions (duplicated below), a complete set of Smith’s zine The All-Around Magazine containing the incomplete tale “Under the Green Tiger” by Howard, and REH’s and Smith’s collaboration Red Blades of Black Cathay (Grant, 1971). [All-Around Magazine (May/Jun & Jul 1923) sold on eBay for $911 in 2005 to Dave Kurzman.] Burke mentions his work editing the new Howard journal The Dark Man #1 (we covered the TDM zines previously in this series [16-18]) and Robert E. Howard’s Fight Magazine (Necronomicon Press) of his humorous boxing stories, a series that was projected to last eight issues, but only four would be published (between 1990 and 1996). Burke also reprints newspaper articles on Ellis, including one about her induction into the National Forensic League’s Hall of Fame of speech coaches for the many competition awards that she had led her students to achieve. 3 REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 Chuck Hoffman reviews Post Oaks and Sand Roughs [reprinted in The Dark Man #1], which he opines was inspired by Jack London’s Martin Eden. He also presents a list of all REH books published in the US, updating Lord’s list in The Last Celt (Grant, 1976). Clark reviews Frank Belknap Long’s memoir Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside (Arkham House, 1975), which included the first appearance Cover by Rick McCollum 4 REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 5 REHeapa Summer Solstice 2021 of the postcard photo of REH at Fort McKavett, Tex. [19], reproduced below, that was reprinted in The Last Celt. Clark also reprints an essay on Doc Savage, from Dave Pettus’s zine The Creative Spirit, which contains Doc Savage creator Lester Dent’s formula for generating pulp story plots, as well as information about the author and character. McCollum submits seven pages from his Wulfgar the Mercenary strip. Mailing #104 (July, 1990) opens with a cover photo of the Howard House, which had just been acquired for restoration, and newspaper articles on de Camp, his wife Catherine, and their recent visit to Cross Plains promoting the Howard Museum. De Camp reveals that he got into fiction writing by accident after being laid off from two engineering jobs and then couldn’t find a job doing anything else. One article’s claim that REH’s poem “The Tempter” was the last poem he ever wrote is most likely not true, Burke remarks in the next Mailing. It was probably written before 1930. Dr. Howard seemed to be in the habit of making the claim. New member Patrice Louinet from France summarizes the history of REH publications in his country and provides a five-page bibliography of them. Lawson has one final set of recollections of Ed Price. Burke notes that Roy Barkley is selling off remaining copies of his late uncle Clyde Smith’s self-published books, which consisted of poetry (which Howard admired), short stories, and local histories, most notably Pecan Valley Days [20] and Frontier’s Generation [21], which contained reminiscences about and three photos of Howard [22-24]; the photos are reproduced below.