 Dust-jacket illustration forDark Valley Destiny | |
| Author | L. Sprague de Camp,Catherine Crook de Camp andJane Whittington Griffin |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Kevin Eugene Johnson |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Bluejay Books |
Publication date | 1983 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 402 pp |
| ISBN | 0-312-94074-2 |
| OCLC | 9945011 |
| 813/.52 B 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3515.O842 Z62 1983 |
Dark Valley Destiny: the Life of Robert E. Howard is abiography of the writerRobert E. Howard by science-fiction writerL. Sprague de Camp in collaboration withCatherine Crook de Camp andJane Whittington Griffin, first published in hardcover byBluejay Books in December 1983,[1][2] and in trade paperback by the same publisher in May 1986.[1] AnE-book edition was published byGollancz'sSF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011, as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.[1][3][4]
The work, an examination of the famousfantasy writer and creator ofConan the Barbarian, was the first major independent biography of Howard. It is an expansion of de Camp's earlier studyThe Miscast Barbarian: a Biography of Robert E. Howard (1975), itself an expansion of his article "The Miscast Barbarian", which appeared in the magazineFantastic in June, 1971.
De Camp's "warts and all" approach to his subject has been branded by somefans as unflattering and unbalanced. For instance,Mark Finn, author ofBlood & Thunder: The Life & Art of Robert E. Howard, argues that De Camp deliberately framed his questions about Robert Howard in order to elicit answers which matched his Freudian theories about the "neurotic" and "Oedipal" Howard.[5]
| Topics |  | |
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| Books about Howard or Conan the Barbarian | ||
| Films about Howard | ||
| Related people | ||
| Interwiki links | ||
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