Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. He is well known for having created the character Conan the Cimmerian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. Voracious reading, along with a natural talent for prose writing and the encouragement of teachers, conspired to create in Howard an interest in becoming a professional writer. One by one he discovered the authors that would influence his later work: Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. It's clear from Howard's earliest writings and the recollections of his friends that he suffered from severe depression from an early age. Friends recall him defending the act of suicide as a valid alternative as early as eighteen years old, describing such an end not as a tragedy but as a release from hell on earth.

Gwendolyn had dolls, riding lessons, toys, everything except love. She watched other children playing and wished she could join them. Then one day she became very ill, and in a wild delirium all the made-up monsters her nurses used to scare her with came into her dreams and she fought them one by one. In the end, she found her way to claim the love of a father and a mother who had neglected her for their own concerns.

Sir Oliver Tressilian, Cornish gentleman and sometime naval commander against the Spanish Armada, turns Barbary pirate and wins for himself the title of Sakr-el-Bahr, "Hawk of the Sea."