Voting for the 2010 Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards is now finished. The results will be announced in Cross Plains during this year’s Howard Days celebration and posted on the website shortly thereafter.

Just one week left to show your appreciation for all the people who bring you the best in Howardian scholarship. The polls close on Sunday, April 3rd, at 12:00 noon, Central Time.

To vote, pick your favorites from the list of nominees (here) and distribute your votes between as many as you feel are diserving. Legacy Circle members have 30 votes to distribute in each category, Friends of REH have 20, and Supporting Members have 10.

Winners will be announced at Robert E. Howard Days in June.

The Robert E. Howard Foundation is now accepting ballots for the 2011 REH Foundation Awards. Head on over to the 2011 Nominees page and take a look; Foundation members can then fill out a ballot and send it to our Awards’ address: REHFAwards@gmail.com. All ballots must include the member’s name. Winners will be announced at Howard Days in June. Polls close the first week of April.

In other news, the second printings of Tales of Weird Menace and Steve Harrison’s Casebook have arrived and are in stock. Look here for ordering information.

Lastly, a “new” poem by Tevis Clyde Smith (it could be his father’s, but that seems unlikely) was found in the Brownwood Bulletin for Saturday, May 12, 1923. It would have been included in “So Far the Poet . . .” if it had been discovered sooner. It is presented below.

The Heart of Texas Is Covered By Bonnie Blue Bonnets
Brownwood Poets and Would Be Poets Inspired to Verse By Innumerable Fields of Blue Wild Flowers Which Are to Be Found On Hillsides and in Valleys Throughout the Brownwood Country.

TO A BLUE BONNET
By Clyde Smith [Senior or Junior?]

Blue Bonnet

The flower of Texas:
Most fragrant,
Most beautiful,
Loveliest of flowers!

Your sweetness is equaled by none;
You reign supreme,
You are a lure to the lovers of flowers!

No matter where I reside in the future,
I will always have you as my favorite
And no other flower—
Most fragrant,
Most beautiful,
Loveliest of flowers!

Tales of Weird Menace and Steve Harrison’s Casebook are in the process of being shipped. We’ve received several notices from people who are concerned about their orders. Be advised: The REH Foundation is an all-volunteer organization. We recently enlisted the kind folks at Project Pride to do some of our shipping. While they are learning the process, it is taking a bit longer than some of our customers are used to. Please be patient. They are packing the books very well; no damage has been reported.

A second printing of both titles has been ordered. We expect to start shipping those at the end of March or early April. For details on how to pre-order, look here: http://www.rehfoundation.org/2010/11/28/now-accepting-pre-orders/

The first printing of Tales of Weird  Menace is now sold out–the same day we received the books. There are still a couple of copies of Steve Harrison’s Casebook available. A second printing is in the works.

Orders for both books will start being filled as soon as possible.

The Robert E. Howard Foundation’s board of directors has been hard at work this summer, and Foundation members will start reaping the rewards this fall. The most exciting news is that several new items by Howard have been unearthed.

Friends of REH and Legacy Circle members will find two of these “new” items in the Fall Newsletter. While doing some research on Brownwood this year, I stumbled upon two previously undocumented, humorous items by Howard. Unknown to bibliographers, scholars, and fans, both will make their first appearance since the 1920s in the next Newsletter. Sign up now!

As the year ends, the Newsletter will begin featuring items discovered by Paul Herman in the Tevis Clyde Smith Collection at Texas A&M. Several of these have never been published and were completely unknown. Thanks to Paul’s digging, we now have one new poem, one new letter, and one new drawing. And there may be even more interesting finds as he sorts through the stacks.

In book news, we have several exciting volumes in the works. First up is a double whammy: Steve Harrison’s Casebook and Tales of Weird Menace. These two volumes collect all of Howard’s “Yellow Peril” and “Weird Menace” yarns; the projected contents of each volume is at the end of this post. As in the past, to reserve a number and help us gage interest in the titles, please drop us a line at info@rehfoundation.org. We hope to have these available in time for Christmas. Look for pre-ordering information late in September or early in October.

Another project looming on the horizon is the collected boxing stories. This will be a multi-volume collection featuring all of Howard’s boxing fiction, including Sailor Steve Costigan and Kid Allison. We’ll release more details in the coming weeks.

Steve Harrison’s Casebook

Lord of the Dead
People of the Serpent (aka Fangs of Gold)
The Tomb’s Secret
The Black Moon
The Voice of Death
The House of Suspicion
Names in the Black Book
The Silver Heel
Graveyard Rats

Miscellanea

The Mystery of Tannernoe Lodge
Untitled synopsis (“Steve Harrison received a wire. . .”)
The Silver Heel (synopsis)
Graveyard Rats (draft)

Tales of Weird Menace

Skull-Face
The Noseless Horror
The Brazen Peacock
Black John’s Vengeance (aka The Black Bear Bites)
Talons in the Dark
The Hand of the Black Goddess
Sons of Hate
Moon of Zambebwei
Black Hound of Death
The Devils of Dark Lake
Guests of the Hoodoo Room
Black Wind Blowing

Miscellanea

The Red Stone 
Untitled (“The night was damp. . .”)
The Ivory Camel
Yellow Laughter
The Story Thus Far . . .
Taverel Manor 
The Jade God
The Return of the Sorcerer
Untitled synopsis (“James Norris”)
Spectres in the Dark
The Spell of Damballah
Partial synopsis (Sons of Hate)
Untitled synopsis (The Devils of Dark Lake)
The House of Om (synopsis)

On Friday, June 11, 2010, the first annual Foundation Awards Ceremony took place after the banquet during Howard Days. The ceremony covered two years worth of awards as no awards were given last year. To see the list of winners and nominees, go here.

We’ve received a few questions about book availabilty. The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard is SOLD OUT, but copies remain of all our other publications.

For members who couldn’t make it to Howard Days this year, start checking your mailboxes for the latest Newsletter; Legacy Circle members can also look forward to the never before published alternate version of “Black Canaan,” which we made a nifty little booklet of and handed out (with this year’s membership pin) at the Legacy Circle luncheon in Cross Plains.

Here’s a bit of news from Paul Herman:

FORTHCOMING 2012 FROM EDWIN MELLEN PRESS

More than Human: The Evolutionary Heroes of Robert E. Howard
Approx. 350 pps, approx. $150.00 hardback

A critical work by

Justin Everett, Ph.D. and Deirdre Pettipiece, Ph.D.

Abstract:

Known best for the sword and sorcery stories he produced for the pulp fiction magazines of the 1930s, Robert E. Howard created a huge body of work that consisted of “around 3.5 million words” (Robert E. Howard Foundation, The Last of the Trunk), most of which focused on the creation of fantastic heroes of a depth and breadth unmatched by any writer before or since. Conan, King Kull, Solomon Kane and other complex characters populate civilizations Howard constructed and reconstructed in a wide-array of alternative worlds governed by competing principles of combat, survival, loyalty, and revenge. Tracing these heroes and the texts they occupy over the course of Howard’s interactions with evolutionary theories of human origin and behavior, Everett and Pettipiece reveal his dynamic and often conflicted engagement with ideas that changed the world. Howard’s interaction with the ideas of Darwin, Spencer, Freud and others who articulated fundamental principles of human behavior and social organization can be seen not only in the developing identities of his heroes, but also in the critical discussions he undertook with H.P. Lovecraft and other contemporaries. His intellectual engagement with some of the most important theories and philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries demonstrates that Howard and his body of work are sufficiently representative of important themes and tropes to recognize him as part of the American canon. This volume therefore addresses the gap in the critical discussion of American literary production of the first half of the 20th century by presenting Howard and his heroes and the evolution they both undertook over the course of his active career.

Brief table of contents:
1. Preface
2. Forward by Terence McVicker
3. Introduction: Why American Literary Studies Need Robert E. Howard
4. Chapter one: Early Influences and the Little Blue Books
5. Chapter two: Engaging with Ideas: What Howard Read and Its Impact on Howard’s Emerging Philosophy
6. Chapter three: Sex and Sinews: Sexual Selection, Secondary Sex Characteristics and Howard
7. Chapter four: Howard’s Men and Women and Their Potential Sources in Literature and Life
8. Chapter five: Isolation and Community, Civilization and Barbarism: Binary Forces in Howard’s fiction
9. Chapter seven: Conclusions and Continuing Questions

Expected late 2010. I’d add, these two will be presenting on a panel at Howard Days. I’ve corresponded with these two several times, very serious REH fans, and serious academics, they have been promoting REH out there on the academic circuit. So I am looking forward to this book.