The tales of Robert E. Howard’s barbarian pulp hero Conan of Cimmeria have been the basis of a cottage industry ever since the 1950s, when L. Sprague de Camp and other writers inspired by the original author first ventured to add to the saga. Howard wrote or at least started about two dozen stories of his primitive protagonist, miscellaneous snapshots culled from what he envisioned as a long lifetime of adventure. This hodgepodge proved irresistible to his followers, who were inspired first to reorganize them into an assumed chronological order and later to fill in the perceived gaps in their hero’s biography.

Beginning in a small way, the process was in full bloom by the middle of the 1960s, when a “complete” saga of twelve volumes was projected. Inevitably, a reaction set in, and by the late 70s Howard “purists” were rejecting both the reorganization and the continuations, calling for the canon to be pared back to the original Howardian corpus. Meanwhile, the phenomenon they decried merely built up steam; under the guidance of de Camp, no sooner was the twelve volume saga complete than it birthed half a dozen more and change, and ultimately a series of fat add-on novels from Tor Books, which cranked out several per year until the Conan industry finally collapsed under its own weight in the mid-1990s.

Truth to tell, it was about time. Howard’s own Conan tales represented a few supernatural encounters culled from a life we may presume was comprised mostly of less spectacular events. The expanded saga hardly left the Cimmerian room to breathe between such adventures. Everywhere he went he stumbled over ambitious necromancers, eldritch monsters, and lost cities steeped in ancient evils—experiences that apparently taught him nothing, as he never grew any better prepared to face the subsequent horrors that inevitably marshaled their claws, fangs and chutzpah against him.

Since the collapse the purists have gotten their wish. The Conan tales currently in print largely consist of Howard’s writings alone, with the myriad added episodes fading into memory. Nonetheless, there remain a few nostalgic completists who value the expanded Conan canon, if for no other reason than the occasional gem that appeared in the burgeoning mountain of chaff. And still, they point out wistfully, the saga is not complete. There remain gaps. Particularly towards the end of his career...

Howard raised up his barbarian from youthful thief to ruler of a powerful kingdom. Early continuators Björn Nyberg, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter explored Conan’s kingship to some extent; later scribes, evidently under the influence of the Conan films, tended to concentrate their efforts on his youth.

Thus it happens that L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter’s early pastiche novel Conan of the Isles is chronologically the last Conan story written by anyone to date, and there is clear evidence that no follow-up was at that time intended. The final sentences of the novel, in which Conan journeys onward from his triumph in Antillia, would seem definitive: “A few hours later, the great ship, which the folk of Mayapan were to call Quetzlcoatl – meaning ‘winged (or feathered) serpent’ in their uncouth tongue – lifted anchor. She sailed south and then, skirting the Antillian Isles, into the unknown West. But whither, the ancient chronicle, which endeth here, sayeth not.” (Conan of the Isles, Lancer Books, 1968, p. 189).

That “definitive” concluding sentence is, however, undercut by what came immediately before. The “ancient chronicle” already had said “whither” Conan’s ship went! Moreover, a handful of other clues suggest that the chronicle of Conan does not “endeth” there. The earliest come from Robert E. Howard himself: “As for Conan’s eventual fate—frankly, I can’t predict it. … There are many things concerning Conan’s life of which I am not certain myself. … He was, I think, king of Aquilonia for many years, in a turbulent and unquiet reign, when the Hyborian civilization had reached its most magnificent high-tide, and every king had imperial ambitions. At first he fought on the defensive, but I am of the opinion that at last he was forced into wars of aggression as a matter of self-preservation. Whether he succeeded in conquering a world-wide empire, or perished in the attempt, I do not know.” (Robert E. Howard, letter to P. Schuyler Miller, March 10, 1936, in The Coming of Conan, Gnome Press, 1953, pp. 9-12)

At the time Isles was written, neither Howard nor his successors had recorded any such aggressive wars, let alone a drive by Conan toward world-wide empery. His hitherto chronicled wars as king had, in fact, been defensive ones, or border conflicts in support of allies. Since Conan abdicated his kingship in Isles, one would suppose the unchronicled aggressive wars must have come prior. But did they? There is no sign in Isles either that the Kingdom of Aquilonia has expanded to imperial breadth or that Conan has perished attempting such expansion–quite the contrary, in the latter case! Could this scenario occur subsequently, then? Doubtful–Conan’s no longer king, which would appear a precondition.

Before exploring this conundrum, I should note that Howard goes on to hint at additional kingly activities for his hero, not necessarily related to war: “He traveled widely, not only before his kingship, but after he was king. He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former. He even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. How much of this roaming will get into print, I can not foretell with any accuracy.” (Robert E. Howard, letter to P. Schuyler Miller, March 10, 1936, in The Coming of Conan, Gnome Press, 1953, pp. 9-12)

Quite an itinerary! While it’s unclear what proportion of it occurred while Conan was king, Howard’s statement requires that some of it must have. Alas, the answer to his self-posed question of how much would see print was practically none, at least from his own pen. But others took up his hints. Björn Nyberg, in an adventure set prior to Isles, takes King Conan to Khitai, Hyrkania and Vendhya (The Return of Conan, Gnome Press, 1957). We hear of no additional kingly travels in the east; other chroniclers relegate our hero’s adventures there to excursions predating his kingship. For instance, John Maddox Roberts has him visit those regions north of Hyrkania (Conan the Champion, Tor Books, 1987), while the ones south of Khitai are the scene of several tales, assuming Howard’s Vendhya is meant. If not, there’s also Meru, the proto-Tibet to which de Camp and Carter take the youthful Conan in “The City of Skulls” (Conan, Lancer Books, 1967).

De Camp and Carter, of course, cover Conan’s roaming in “the islands adjacent to” the nameless western continent in Isles itself, setting it not only “after he was king” but after his kingship altogether—he abdicates the throne of Aquilonia in favor of his son Conn prior to sailing west to deal with the threat emanating therefrom. As for the continent itself, while the chronicle “endeth” before he gets there, that’s clearly where he’s headed at the conclusion. Nonetheless, aside from the final brief hint about Mayapan, it carries the distinction of remaining the only Howard-designated locale of Conan’s “roaming” for which no tale has gotten into print.

The authors of Isles return to King Conan’s wars and some additional travels in the four tales collected in Conan of Aquilonia, written later but set earlier. These can be taken to illustrate a couple of the later aggressive wars to which Conan was driven, albeit unlinked to any program of conquest. To rescue his son and put an end to the threat of arch-ememy Thoth-Amon they take our hero and his army to and past the peripheries of the Hyborian civilization. However, the scenes of these conflicts—Hyperborea, Stygia, Zembabwei, and the far southern limit of the Kushitic lands—are not included in Howard’s itinerary, and need not detain us here (Conan of Aquilonia, Ace Books, 1977).

The theme of world conquest ignored by other chroniclers is at last taken up by Leonard Carpenter, who in Conan the Great presents us with the last of Conan’s defensive wars followed by what appears to be that ultimate war of aggression forecast by Howard. Here we finally see Conan subjugating his way east in opposition to the rising threat of the ruthless Prince Almiro of Koth, who is similarly driving west. Interestingly, it is by no means clear we should root for Conan, who acts as the dupe of a treacherous advisor with a hidden agenda to spread the worship of a demonic god. We are accustomed to seeing Conan as hero, but he’s hardly that here. He ultimately disenthralls himself, and the competitive bid for mastery of the Hyborian nations halts short of the ultimate contest when Conan discovers Almiro is his own son by former lover Queen Yasmala of Khoraja (Conan the Great, Tor Books, 1990).

So it’s all bait and switch. We must assume the Aquilonian and Kothic proto-empires disolve in the aftermath, since this tale is set prior to both Aquilonia and Isles, volumes in which Hyboria has plainly reverted to something like the status quo ante bellum. Carpenter’s choice between Howard’s empire or death alternatives is a firm “neither.” All rather anticlimactic after Howard’s build-up!

Is the rest, then, silence? Not quite. Roland J. Green shows us a few later events in Aquilonia, set in the sixth regnal year of Conan’s son and successor Conn, in the prologue and epilogue to Conan at the Demon’s Gate (Tor Books, 1994), which form a framing story to that novel’s main narrative (set much earlier). There is no indication in the frame sequence that Conan has been heard from since abdicating—presumably he’s still off exploring that nameless western continent—but it does reveal that Conn manages to retain power in the absence of his powerful sire, and incidentally introduces us to another bastard son of Conan, Sarabos of the elite Aquilonian force the Black Dragons.

And then? Well, since our “ancient chronicle” records Conan’s activities in Antillia and knows he made it to Mayapan after it “endeth,” we can infer that someone eventually carries word of these events back to Aquilonia to be recorded, even if they then drop out of the chronicle–and who more likely than Conan himself? The last words are from de Camp and Carter, who as it happens themselves had second thoughts on just where the chronicle “endeth.”

Carter provides us with the Cimmerian’s final utterance on this earth in his poem “Death-Song of Conan the Cimmerian” (Dreams from R’lyeh, Arkham House, 1975). Where is it uttered? Unstated–but whether on the western continent or back in the east, it must post-date the Antillian conclusion of the “ancient chronicle.”

De Camp’s latest musings on Conan’s fate are offered in “Conan the Indestructible,” dated May, 1984, the final version of the 1938 Miller/Clark essay “A Probable Outline of Conan’s Career” that he had revised and extended over so many years. “In the end, Conan sailed off to explore the continents to the west (‘Conan of the Isles’). Whether he died there, or whether there is truth in the tale that he strode out of the West to stand at his son’s side in a final battle against Aquilonia’s foes, will be revealed only to him who looks, as Kull of Valusia once did, into the mystic mirrors of Tuzun Thune.” (Conan the Victorious, Tor Books, 1984)

Note, here, that de Camp says “continents to the west,” not “continent.” No wonder Conan was still AWOL six years after sailing west! Contra Howard, he was evidently exploring not just North America, but the whole Western Hemisphere!

While these hints may not allow us to confidently chart Conan’s course after Isles, they are indicative. The preservation in the “chronicle” of the Antillian adventure, its knowledge of subsequent events, and the existence of the Cimmerian’s death song all give weight to de Camp’s musings about a return and a “last stand” against Aquilonia’s foes—perhaps led by a resurgent Almiro, resuming his imperial ambitions in his father’s absence and unwilling to defer to the younger half-brother now on Conan’s throne. The climactic battle on which Howard and de Camp both speculate, and that we are denied at the end of Great, may still be in the cards.

Or not. After all, de Camp pretty much assures us that the “truth” in the tale of the “final battle” will not be “revealed.” By 1984, when he recorded his speculations, neither he nor Carter was still writing Conan, and Tor Books was not about to let its stable of then-current pastichers kill off its cash bull, even at the end of a long, full life growing fuller with each new volume. And now there are no more new volumes.

So if ever a classic is destined to remain unwritten, it’s Conan—the Final Battle.

Note: the above article was excerpted and expanded from the more comprehensive piece “The Unwritten Classics of the de Camps” (2012).

—Brian.