A Writer’s View of the Trajectory of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane by James LaFond
“But you, you jackal of hell…”
-Red Shadows
The aspects of Solomon Kane, his heroic characteristics, with heroism understood as including the narrative which works upon the hero, are laid out clearly in the first story, Skulls in the Stars, published in 1928.
Skulls in the StarsSold, 1928
Elements
The Right Hand of Doom
Unsold
The Right Hand of Doom, is based around Torkertown, in England, an attempt by Howard to establish geographic continuity with Skulls in the Stars, as he did with his two Faringtown horror yarns, the second of which failed to sell, as did The Right Hand of Doom, arguably a better tale than Skulls in the Stars.
Red Shadows
Sold, 1928
The novelette Red Shadows is arguably the best Kane tale. Kane is taken to France and then Africa and the author gained more sales per word than if he had written three Torkertown or Faringtown stories. With Red Shadows, Howard adapts to the market demands for exotic locales and the pulp editor’s preference for serialized novelettes and novellas over shorter, independent narratives.
In Red Shadows, a signature aspect of Kane as a Howard hero appears, in the form of N’Longa, the witch doctor, an extra-racial ally of the Aryan hero, which was a feature of the early Howard heroes, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art and the savage Donald McDeesa in the novelette Lord of Samarkand. A reoccurring companion is not a feature of later Howard heroes.
- Brooding wayfarer.
- The landless wanderer affects a staunch purity, incongruent with the homeless life and his martial trade. From this position, in which failed men are indicted by society, he judges society.
- The brooding wayfarer is contacted, or encounters, or seeks to avenge or recover, a person of innocence, typically a boy or a young woman, and sometimes a backward and defenseless folk, putting him at odds with the malefactor.
- A waiting, lurking evil is ever present.
- The hero is a pure fanatic with zero internal conflict.
- The pursuit of evil is an all-consuming drive for the hero, who has no end goal, no great quest, only an everlasting commitment to fight evil.
- The hero experiences no satiation from killing evildoers, like a drug addict chasing his first high and doomed to be forever unwell.
Unsold
The Right Hand of Doom, is based around Torkertown, in England, an attempt by Howard to establish geographic continuity with Skulls in the Stars, as he did with his two Faringtown horror yarns, the second of which failed to sell, as did The Right Hand of Doom, arguably a better tale than Skulls in the Stars.
Red Shadows
Sold, 1928
The novelette Red Shadows is arguably the best Kane tale. Kane is taken to France and then Africa and the author gained more sales per word than if he had written three Torkertown or Faringtown stories. With Red Shadows, Howard adapts to the market demands for exotic locales and the pulp editor’s preference for serialized novelettes and novellas over shorter, independent narratives.
In Red Shadows, a signature aspect of Kane as a Howard hero appears, in the form of N’Longa, the witch doctor, an extra-racial ally of the Aryan hero, which was a feature of the early Howard heroes, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art and the savage Donald McDeesa in the novelette Lord of Samarkand. A reoccurring companion is not a feature of later Howard heroes.
Rattle of Bones
Sold, 1929
Rattle of Bones marks a successful attempt to bring Kane back to Europe, where Howard seems to have the sense evil can be more starkly presented in bold relief.
The Castle of the Devil
Unfinished
The Castle of the Devil has more power lines drawn in the initial scene than any other Kane tale and has the potential to be the best, but is abandoned.
Death's Black Riders
Unfinished
Death’s Black Riders began superbly and horrifically in a style like Lovecraft and Irving Washington being admonished for not inserting a heroic character in their dark forest tales. This is dropped immediately. As Death’s Black Riders and the Castle of the Devil are both set in Germany’s Black Forest, it seems likely that Howard, keeping abreast of his sales and pulp publishing trends, realized that he had to get Kane back to Africa to get major sales.
The Moon of Skulls
Rattle of Bones marks a successful attempt to bring Kane back to Europe, where Howard seems to have the sense evil can be more starkly presented in bold relief.
The Castle of the Devil
Unfinished
The Castle of the Devil has more power lines drawn in the initial scene than any other Kane tale and has the potential to be the best, but is abandoned.
Death's Black Riders
Unfinished
Death’s Black Riders began superbly and horrifically in a style like Lovecraft and Irving Washington being admonished for not inserting a heroic character in their dark forest tales. This is dropped immediately. As Death’s Black Riders and the Castle of the Devil are both set in Germany’s Black Forest, it seems likely that Howard, keeping abreast of his sales and pulp publishing trends, realized that he had to get Kane back to Africa to get major sales.
The Moon of Skulls
Sold, 1930
The Moon of Skulls was one of the best white man’s burden tales written, particularly of those set in Africa. Approaching short novel length, this was a major sale for Howard.
The One Black Stain
Unsold
The One Black Stain was a verse about Kane serving with the anti-hero Francis Drake, reflecting well on Howard’s historic reading, that he saw through the British propaganda to perceive the greatest of the Elizabethan sea dogs for what he was, the most conniving backstabber and power player.
The Blue Flame of Vengeance
Unsold
The Blue Flame of Vengeance was a pirate yarn set in England with Kane serving up justice. The action was great, but it seems that Howard could not sell a pirate yarn to save his life, unless it was a Conan story. The period pirate genre seemed blocked to him.
The Hills of the Dead
Sold, 1930
The Hills of the Dead is a fantastic horror tale in which Howard finally manages to wed the supernatural horror he wished to set in Europe in the African setting where his sales were more likely. His previous African tales had no supernatural elements.
Hawk of Basti
The Moon of Skulls was one of the best white man’s burden tales written, particularly of those set in Africa. Approaching short novel length, this was a major sale for Howard.
The One Black Stain
Unsold
The One Black Stain was a verse about Kane serving with the anti-hero Francis Drake, reflecting well on Howard’s historic reading, that he saw through the British propaganda to perceive the greatest of the Elizabethan sea dogs for what he was, the most conniving backstabber and power player.
The Blue Flame of Vengeance
Unsold
The Blue Flame of Vengeance was a pirate yarn set in England with Kane serving up justice. The action was great, but it seems that Howard could not sell a pirate yarn to save his life, unless it was a Conan story. The period pirate genre seemed blocked to him.
The Hills of the Dead
Sold, 1930
The Hills of the Dead is a fantastic horror tale in which Howard finally manages to wed the supernatural horror he wished to set in Europe in the African setting where his sales were more likely. His previous African tales had no supernatural elements.
Hawk of Basti
Unfinished
Hawk of Basti was a tale of Kane meeting a pirate in Africa from his sailing days along the lines of Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King.
The Return of Sir Richard Grenville
Hawk of Basti was a tale of Kane meeting a pirate in Africa from his sailing days along the lines of Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King.
The Return of Sir Richard Grenville
Unsold
The Return of Sir Richard Grenville is a verse about Kane being helped by his piratical hero, who was screwed out of the chance for historical heroism by Drake, set in Africa. Since his verse and his ventures into seafaring fiction seem to have been frowned upon by the editors perhaps he hoped the African element would save this sale.
The Footfalls Within
Sold, 1931
The Footfalls Within was a brilliant mix of horror, oriental adventure, Kane’s latent religiosity and the African setting.
Wings in the Night
Sold, 1932
Wings in the Night once again combines supernatural horror, the African setting and uses the white man’s burden to affect a burning vengeance, making it possibly the most Kane, Kane story.
The Children of Assur
Unfinished
The Children of Assur was an attempt at a novella of Edgar Rice Burroughs type, who set Tarzan stories in various lost European race kingdoms in African valleys. Howard uses the Assyrians [untapped by Burroughs] and manages to combine his sympathetic tribal African elements and then drops the story, perhaps for another character.
Solomon Kane’s Homecoming
Unsold
Solomon Kane’s Homecoming is a recapitulation of a stridently unexamined life in verse, in which Kane finally looks at himself and turns away. This was Kane’s epitaph and seems to mark a clear abandonment of the character as a narrative force in Howard’s mind.
Considering Howard’s highly tuned sense for the literary sale, for he sold scores of stories in a competitive market, I have decided that unfinished Kane tales represented Howard’s assessment that he was not going to be able to sell it. In this light, Kane, the character sold 7 of 16 tales along the following arc:
1928 (2)
1929
1930 (2)
1931
1932
One of those 1928 stories was a substantial novelette and there was another unsold, so one can sense a blooming passion for the character in 1928, followed by a struggle to contextualize him in 1929, a triumph of horrific adventure in 1930, a struggle to fuse heroic Anglo-Saxon elements in 1931-32, not realized until he placed Kane firmly under the white man’s burden arrayed against superstition and Islam, those forces having preyed most heavily upon a race of people he obviously regarded with deep sympathy.
These impulses, combating superstition and the Asiatic mind, would fall to Howard’s two most dynamic characters, in that the characters had far more charisma than Kane or his other brooding heroes, Mak Morn, Mac Art and Kull, but equaled Kane’s fanaticism, these Characters were Conan—who shouldered both burdens—and El Borak, who was Howard’s modern oriental adventures hero.
Related to Howard’s treatment of Solomon Kane and the editor’s disdain for European settings, Howard ultimately resurrected the dour puritan [who was indeed a repentant pirate], as Kirby Buchner, a home grown American hero of the Piney woods who is the protagonist in Black Canaan and Pigeons from Hell, some of Howard’s later works, set in contemporary America.
Wings in the Night once again combines supernatural horror, the African setting and uses the white man’s burden to affect a burning vengeance, making it possibly the most Kane, Kane story.
The Children of Assur
Unfinished
The Children of Assur was an attempt at a novella of Edgar Rice Burroughs type, who set Tarzan stories in various lost European race kingdoms in African valleys. Howard uses the Assyrians [untapped by Burroughs] and manages to combine his sympathetic tribal African elements and then drops the story, perhaps for another character.
Solomon Kane’s Homecoming
Unsold
Solomon Kane’s Homecoming is a recapitulation of a stridently unexamined life in verse, in which Kane finally looks at himself and turns away. This was Kane’s epitaph and seems to mark a clear abandonment of the character as a narrative force in Howard’s mind.
Considering Howard’s highly tuned sense for the literary sale, for he sold scores of stories in a competitive market, I have decided that unfinished Kane tales represented Howard’s assessment that he was not going to be able to sell it. In this light, Kane, the character sold 7 of 16 tales along the following arc:
1928 (2)
1929
1930 (2)
1931
1932
One of those 1928 stories was a substantial novelette and there was another unsold, so one can sense a blooming passion for the character in 1928, followed by a struggle to contextualize him in 1929, a triumph of horrific adventure in 1930, a struggle to fuse heroic Anglo-Saxon elements in 1931-32, not realized until he placed Kane firmly under the white man’s burden arrayed against superstition and Islam, those forces having preyed most heavily upon a race of people he obviously regarded with deep sympathy.
These impulses, combating superstition and the Asiatic mind, would fall to Howard’s two most dynamic characters, in that the characters had far more charisma than Kane or his other brooding heroes, Mak Morn, Mac Art and Kull, but equaled Kane’s fanaticism, these Characters were Conan—who shouldered both burdens—and El Borak, who was Howard’s modern oriental adventures hero.
Related to Howard’s treatment of Solomon Kane and the editor’s disdain for European settings, Howard ultimately resurrected the dour puritan [who was indeed a repentant pirate], as Kirby Buchner, a home grown American hero of the Piney woods who is the protagonist in Black Canaan and Pigeons from Hell, some of Howard’s later works, set in contemporary America.
Listen to James, Lynn and Nick Mason discussing Solomon Kane here:
(c) 2018 James LaFond
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