Mirage Press put out a trio of exceedingly handsome Robert E. Howard related books which collected articles and suchlike from the fanzine Amra. There are laboriously detailed articles, speculations, opinions, sketches, and much more in these three tomes from Mirage Press.
My local shop had all three gleaming from their shelves a few years ago, but I personally didn't have the scratch to buy them myself. A good friend made me a gift of two of the books - The Conan Swordbook and The Conan Grimoire.
The third book, The Conan Reader was smaller than its mates and more expensive. That one either was left on the shelf. Apparently my buddy later bought it for himself. I found it sitting atop a stack of his books, looking somewhat abandoned. I asked if I could take it to read for a few days and he graciously agreed.
After checking out what was beneath the lush Berni Wrightson cover I knew I needed to make a stab a getting hold of this book, and so I finagled a trade with my buddy, using some Neal Adams X-Men material as bait. Now he's happy and I'm delirious. I never imagined I'd have one of these, let alone all three.
And to top it off, this copy of The Conan Reader sports what appears to be a signature from L.Sprague DeCamp, which likely explains why it was originally more expensive.
Needless to say these gems are now sitting atop my stack of bedside reading. I just like looking at them. I can't believe they're really there.
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