Status Updates From Pirate Adventures

“At the Inn of the Gory Dagger”

I was not expecting this tucked away at the end of this book, where the best male and female pirate at the tavern end up power fucking to see which of the two—Eve of the Sash of Crimson versus Murderous Mike—is the master of the seas. TW: this exchange, which is played for laughs, absolutely starts out as r—-.

“Bill Boozy was a pirate bold”

If I had read this along side anything from Where the Sidewalk Ends I would not have batted an eye. It’s pretty cute.

“A Pirut Story”

Ummmmmmmmmm

I think Howard is taking the piss at what was considered funny at the time, with his stylized spellings and his “Alfonzo Goofus”, the indecipherable punchline being “We’re American citizens, by golly!” Which, this sort of stuff built the I Can Haz Cheeseburger house

“Black Vulmea’s Vengeance (earliest known draft)”

The final version is undoubtedly better than the first draft. This is more interesting in Howard’s creative process, how he got about 25% of the way through the story and then rushes through Wentyard’s time in the ruins and then collapses into a single paragraph detailing their escape. At this point, the name of the jewels had not been decided.

“The Shadow in the Well (unfinished fragment)”

This is the treatment of the prior synopsis. Nell is far more of a damsel here than the earlier Helen. The full account of the pirate-sorcerer is pretty cool; he would have been more fun to focus on than this stupid Steve / Nell romance. Also, fuck this guy and his description of “Juan the Butcher”

“The Shadow in the Well (untitled synopsis)”

Howard generally wrote pretty good outlines. This one features a female pirate named Nell and it sort of cannibalizes some plot elements from the unpublished “Isle”, like a lady pirate and a hollow altar, but Howard commits to the weird fiction bit as some sort of unspeakable monster is lurking in a well in the ruins they try to loot.

“Help! Help! They’re murderin’ me!”

This is a similar setup to the Morgan story, except our MC is an Irish brawler who is more aligned with Howard’s fighting tales. Dude helps an old man who tries to cut him in on some treasure. But, BUT, the treasure is guarded by a mysterious race that seems to have driven the dude who first found it kind of loopy. This one never leaves the tavern.

“So There I Was…”

Howard writes with an uncharacteristically Hemmingway-esque terseness here. His bravado here is an unruly SLAVE TRADER who gets drunk a lot and then wakes up to find that he’s on a driftwood raft with all the guns, all the ammo, and all the booze. I have no idea where this was going.

“The Treasure of Henry Morgan”

This unfinished story has the grandson of a pirate, the MC, falling in with his grandfather’s cabin boy, who just happens to have the same name as the cabin boy from Treasure Island. The story is obviously leading toward Hawkins getting Stephen to go find Morgan’s treasure (and maybe getting a lot of respect for his grandfather the pirate).

“List of Names (The Treasure of Henry Morgan)”

The archivists decided to include this scrap of lined paper that makes is pretty clear, if the Flint references in the poems weren’t enough, that Howard had Treasure Island as one of his influences. I recognize the names of Hawkins and Israel Hands, here. Hey—Morgan! Cutthroat Island, anyone?

“A Dying Pirate Speaks of Treasure”

Okay, I actually liked this poem. It starts out kind of goofy and then goes into full sentimentality as the pirate pulls a “the true treasure was the beauty of the sea”.

“Black Vulmea’s Vengeance”

FINALLY another original! Vulmea (Conan in all but name) is captured by an English captain who is interested a little bit more in pirate treasure than the King’s justice, so Vulmea talks him into a trip in the Americas where the “Fangs of Satan” can be found. Once they get ambushed by the tropical natives, however, all Hell breaks loose.

“Flint’s Passing”

A poem whose title character seems to be Captain Flint of Treasure Island fame. It appears to be more of the same slobbing over the glorious adventures that pirates have, albeit at tremendous risk.

“Swords of the Red Beotherhood”

This is a late period Conan story but re-aligned to the historical stereotypes that he had exploited to create the original. Conan is now a famous Irish pirate, Black Vulmea, and he gets caught up in a huge conflux of pre-colonial powers: French pirates, English pirates, French expatriate nobles, native Americans, and an African shaman out for revenge.

“Buccaneer Treasure”

In this narrative poem, a pirate tells how he was stranded on a boat after a shipwreck, murdered the first mate who was with him (he was keeping all the water to himself!!), and then saw an acid trip fever dream with shipwrecks, sunken cities, and lovely mermaids beneath the waves, and the treasure of Captain Kidd before almost being whisked away to Hell.

“Blades of the Brotherhood”

So this is a Solomon Kane story that Howard appears to have barely retooled. I mean, short of a line by line comparison, the feel of these tales is VERY similar. Malachi Grim is virtually indistinguishable from Kane (same number of letters, too), and his quest for revenge has him cross paths with a pair of unfortunate-now-fortunate-for-having-met-Grim lovers in mortal peril.

“A Song of the Anchor Chain”

There’s a lot of adventure in piracy, but you can generally expect a violent end, and no paradise for your pleasures and depredations in the living world. This poem’s subject has the name of Captain Gower, same as the villain of the previous story, and imagines a less horrific end for him than getting crushed to a pulp by a falling block trap.

“The Isle of Pirates’ Doom”

A young man, shipwrecked on a deserted island, sees a group of pirates make landing on the beach, only for one of them to attack the crew and then run off. It’s not some dandy, but Helen Tavrel, the only female pirate active in the Caribbean!! And this island apparently has the remnants and treasures of some pre-historic civilization??

“A Buccaneer Speaks”

Same basic sentiment as the prior poem but more defiant and reveling in the sort of adventures that Howard imagined, including a wonderful image of North Sea sailing. This is less cautionary and more emblematic of Howard’s wanderlust and preference for barbarism, which he believes either cannibalizes itself or is strangled for a time by civilization.

“A Pirate Remembers”

Howard apparently loved the idea of being a pirate, envisioning crazy adventures. At one point he got his hands on a less romantic account of piracy, especially how the ones who were caught were punished, and he basically nope’d out. This poem sort of encapsulate that turning point, with the memory of the grisly fate of buccaneers leering in the narrator’s memory.

Yar har fiddle de dee
Being a pirate is alright to be
Do what you want ‘cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate

shoutout to the editor for including photos taken of Robert E Howard playing pirate with his teenage friends. if you don’t think that there were dorks back in the 1910s, then you are wrong.