He is "mighty of stature and small of brain"[3]—a physically huge and imposing figure, and his reputation as a short-tempered and ferocious fighter often precedes him throughout the Southwest.

Despite being overlooked by comparison with his contributions to the swords-and-sorcery genre, some critics have thought that in the Breckinridge Elkins stories "Finally, Robert's real storytelling voice, unfiltered through books and imagined histories, could be heard, and in the medium in which he was most familiar.

"[6] Based upon the success of the Breckinridge Elkins tales, during the summer of 1935 Howard edited together several of the previously published short stories along with some new material to form the chapters of an episodic novel, A Gent from Bear Creek.

[2] The common (and newly added) thread that held the chapters together was Breck's rocky romance with a young woman named Glory McGraw.

It was eventually published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins in 1937, the year after Howard committed suicide, and copies of that rare first edition have sold for upwards of $8000.