Robert E. Howard's first story featuring Solomon Kane, his swashbuckling puritan warrior, was published in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales (1928 being a great year for pulp fiction with the first Buck Rogers story, and H.P. Lovecraft's iconic Call of the Cthulhu). Not quite as illustrious as his more celebrated barbarian stablemate, Conan of Cimmeria, Mr Kane's story is still a power-packed read and a worthy addition to our collection of creepy stories.
The images above show the original front cover (frankly rather ropey, the Weird Tales artwork improved dramatically in the 1930s), and a modern interpretation by the fabulous Gari Gianni.
A slight word of warning on this tale: in common with attitudes of the time, Robert E. Howard is rather colonial in his writing about cultures other than those of a Western flavour. In this respect, he follows a well-trodden path, with Victorian-era stories of early H.G. Wells and Rider Haggard, providing a very uncomfortable read.
Links
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The whole text of the story is on our Creepy Stories site here.
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If you liked this story, here's a short fiction from H.P. Lovecraft, from the same year, 1928.
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Artwork by Gari Gianni can be found here. The line drawing at the head of this post came from his illustrations for The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Wandering Star Books.
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We've more short stories to come, so please keep an eye out and sign up for other offers.
