Howard's Weird Works Volume 5: Valley Of The Worm OUT OF THE PAST The Persistence of Evil in the Fiction of Robert E. Howard by James Reasoner One of Robert E. Howard’s deep and abiding interests was the study of history. His bookshelf contained not only multi-volume sets such as Grolier’s The Book of History and Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, but also more specific studies ranging from the ancient—The Prehistoric World by E.A. Allen—to the comparatively recent in Howard’s time—The Saga Of Billy The Kid by Walter Noble Burns (though some would argue that Burns’ books are as much fiction as history—but that’s not our concern here). In addition to his reading, throughout his life Howard was fascinated with oral history, soaking up the tales of the past spun by the older people around him. One of the inescapable elements of history is the effect of the past on the present. Authors in other genres, such as Ross Macdonald in mysteries and Walt Coburn in Westerns, have explored the way buried evil and dark secrets almost inevitably come to the surface and have profound effects on the lives of people in the current day.
