[1][2] The work is an examination of Robert E. Howard, the famous fantasy writer and creator of Conan the Barbarian.

The book is an expansion of de Camp's article "The Miscast Barbarian", which appeared in the magazine Fantastic in June, 1971.

Later, in collaboration with Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin, he expanded the text again, into Dark Valley Destiny: the Life of Robert E. Howard (1983), the first major independent biography of Howard.

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