Jesse, "Benjamin Hussein" is a figment of Rick McCollum's fevered imagination -- which makes his theories no less interesting.
"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" was unquestionably the second Conan story written: he submitted it and "The Phoenix on the Sword" to Weird Tales at the same time (the rejection letter was dated March 10, 1932), but the eminent literary sleuth Patrice Louinet has examined all the early drafts of the stories in order to determine the order in which they were written, and conclusively demonstrated that "Phoenix" was begun first. You can read his fascinating essay on the early Conan stories very soon, as it is included in the forthcoming paperback edition of Robert E. Howard's Complete Conan of Cimmeria, which Del Rey has inexplicably retitled The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. It is scheduled to be out in December. This is the first of three Wandering Star Conan books that will be coming from Del Rey, all with authoritative texts -- and someone had better stop right now and get back to proofreading on the second volume. Rusty *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 10/10/03 at 12:49 PM jesse white wrote: >Would anyone out there illuminate the theory >Benjamin Hussein has concerning the final head blow >Heimdul of Vanaheim savages on Conan in the Frost >Giant's Daughter. As far as I understand, the concept >is that the blow was concussive, and that it somehow >altered Conan's mind from that point on...? > My reaction is this: it seems to me that if Howard >believed that the blow forever altered Conan's >perceptions such that he was now able to "see" new >things, he must have written this story very near to >the beginning of his Conan arc in order to justify the >through-concept. I don't know in which order Howard >wrote the stories, but I'm sure the information is >readily available... > Does anyone have some information on this? > >Cheers, Jesse > >______________________________________________________________________ >Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
