“The Age Undreamed of”: Reality and History in Robert E. Howard’s Fantasy

Abstract

“Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of.” Thus begins “The Phoenix on the Sword”, Robert E. Howard’s story that introduced the world to Conan the Cimmerian. Set in the Hyborian Age, a forgotten period of our World’s prehistory that has been imaginatively described in Howard’s essays, the adventures of his barbarian heroes are never far removed from reality and history. In fact, Howard pronounced Conan “the most realistic character [he] ever evolved” and made the tales of the Cimmerian’s exploits reflective of the real concerns of the early twentieth-century America. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the role that realism played in the creation of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age and the fantasy stories set in it.