Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)
    Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)
    Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)
    Ebook54 pages51 minutes

    Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

    By Robert E. Howard

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This early work by Robert E. Howard was originally published in the 1939 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Gates of Empire' is a story in the historical fiction genre. Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard - a bookish and somewhat introverted child - was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. At fifteen Howard began to read the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, 'Golden Hope Christmas' and 'West is West'. In 1924 he sold his first piece - a short caveman tale titled 'Spear and Fang' - for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. Howard's most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, was a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago. Conan featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936 which is why Howard is now regarded as having spawned the 'sword and sorcery' genre. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhite Press
    Release dateFeb 12, 2015
    ISBN9781473397538
    Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

    Read more from Robert E. Howard

    Related to Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      10 Literary Diss Tracks

      Apr 9, 2018

      10 Literary Diss Tracks
      11 min read

    • Article

      Call Of The Wild

      Jan 31, 2024

      Call Of The Wild
      4 min read

    • Article

      In 'Midwestern Strange,' A Tour Of The Utterly Bizarre And All-Too-Human

      Aug 28, 2019

      B.J. Hollars' book is both a quirky primer on some of the Midwest's oddest stories — and a fresh perspective on small-town culture.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nemesis Of The Normans

      Oct 28, 2021

      Nemesis Of The Normans
      8 min read

    • Article

      NANDOR FODOR & THE TALKING MONGOOSE

      Sep 7, 2023

      Throughout the 1930s, the world’s newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a ‘talking mongoose’ or ‘man-weasel’ who had allegedly appeared in the home of a peculiar family living in a somewhat dilapidated Isle of Man farmhouse. Gef was s

      11 min read

    • Article

      Mad Dogs & Englishmen

      Mar 6, 2020

      Mad Dogs & Englishmen
      7 min read

    • Article

      Break For The BORDER

      Sep 29, 2020

      Break For The BORDER
      4 min read

    • Article

      Acting The Fool

      Aug 4, 2022

      Acting The Fool
      6 min read

    • Article

      Riots, Rows And Rinsing

      Sep 13, 2023

      ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO The Fancy in 1923 DARK, dark is the night – indeed, so dark that we see not; welcome would be a ray of light! While the more devout were indulging in prayer, another section of the community was appealing to be saved from a horr

      4 min read

    • Article

      City of THE DEAD

      Oct 26, 2021

      City of THE DEAD
      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Reads

      Dec 1, 2021

      Crime fiction queen turns to historical fiction as Father Hugh Green mounts the scaffold at Gallows Hill in 1642 to be hung, drawn and quartered. It’s the first phase of the English civil war and baying crowds witness an incompetent hangman allow Gre

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Hedgerow Moralist

      Nov 18, 2020

      A Hedgerow Moralist
      5 min read

    • Article

      Haunted King’s Lynn

      Jan 27, 2022

      Haunted King’s Lynn
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Doom of Oscar Wilde

      Aug 11, 2022

      The Doom of Oscar Wilde
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Pre-loved Treasure House

      Oct 14, 2019

      A Pre-loved Treasure House
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hook, Line And Sinker

      Oct 18, 2018

      Hook, Line And Sinker
      4 min read

    • Article

      Does The Magic Last? Revisiting A Fantasy Classic As An Adult

      Dec 30, 2017

      David Eddings' beloved Belgariad (and several sequels), co-written with his wife Leigh, follows farm boy Garion and his magical destiny. It wrapped up 20 years ago; are its powers still intact?

      5 min read

    • Article

      City Of A Scandal

      Jan 4, 2023

      City Of A Scandal
      5 min read

    • Article

      Part Of The Warp And Weft Of Life

      Jan 12, 2024

      Brrr…it’s cold out there! Through trees dancing on the village green, I’m watching people muffled in hats and scarves, leaning against the wind as they walk their dogs up the church field to the hill of the ancient castle site. It’s said one of those

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Tale Of Two Dickens

      Nov 24, 2022

      A Tale Of Two Dickens
      8 min read

    • Article

      Myths And Monsters

      Dec 22, 2020

      Myths And Monsters
      4 min read

    • Article

      History

      Jun 30, 2021

      A NEW HISTORY OF VIKINGS FROM SCANDINAVIA TO THE SILK ROADS CAT JARMAN Wm Collins, 336pp, £25 As a 17-year-old, Financial Times reviewer William Dalrymple was one of ten diggers who made an important archaeological discovery in a vicar’s garden near

      11 min read

    • Article

      Magnets: Carried through time, lovers seek their purpose.

      Feb 6, 2014

      Moon Colony B, 2213 Former Ponzi-schemer Mary Pillar digs through a trashcan. It smells like rotten eggs and milk. She is elderly and homeless, living in an alley between two eco-efficient skyscrapers. Dust particles dance around her. She has lost ev

      11 min read

    • Article

      Behind the Curtain

      Nov 21, 2023

      Behind the Curtain
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Gates of Empire (The Road of the Mountain Lion) - Robert E. Howard

      9781473397538_FC.jpg

      Gates of Empire

      (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

      by

      Robert E. Howard

      Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Robert E. Howard

      Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard – a bookish and somewhat introverted child – was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. Although he loved reading and learning, Howard developed a distinctly Texan, hardboiled outlook on the world. He became a passionate fan of boxing, taking it up at an amateur level, and from the age of nine began to write adventure tales of semi-historical bloodshed. In 1919, when Howard was thirteen, his family moved to the Central Texas hamlet of Cross Plains, where he would stay for the rest of his life.

      At fifteen Howard began to read the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, ‘Golden Hope Christmas’ and ‘West is West’. In 1924 he sold his first piece – a short caveman tale titled ‘Spear and Fang’ – for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. He published with the magazine regularly over the next few years. 1929 was a breakout year for Howard, in that the 23-year-old writer began to sell to other magazines, such as Ghost Stories and Argosy, both of whom had previously sent him hundreds of rejection slips. In 1930, he began a correspondence with weird fiction master H. P. Lovecraft which ran up to his death six years later, and is regarded as one of the great correspondence cycles in all of fantasy literature.

      It was partly due to Lovecraft’s encouragement that Howard created his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian. Conan – a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago – featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936, and is now regarded as having spawned the ‘sword and sorcery’ genre, making Howard’s influence on fantasy literature comparable to that of J. R. R. Tolkien’s. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

      Howard was enjoying an all-time high in sales by the beginning of 1936, but he was also deeply upset by the ill health of his mother, who had fallen into a coma. On the morning of June 11, 1936, he asked an attending nurse whether she would ever recover, and the nurse replied negatively. Howard walked to his car, parked outside the family home in Cross Plains, and shot himself. He died eight hours later, aged just thirty.

      Gates of Empire

      (The Road of the Mountain Lion)

      The clank of the sour sentinels on the turrets, the gusty uproar of the Spring winds, were not heard by those who reveled in the cellar of Godfrey de Courtenay’s castle; and the noise these revelers made was bottled up deafeningly within the massive walls.

      A sputtering candle lighted those rugged walls, damp and uninviting, flanked with wattled casks and hogsheads over which stretched a veil of dusty cobwebs. From one barrel the head had been knocked out, and leathern drinking-jacks were immersed again and again in the foamy tide, in hands that grew increasingly unsteady.

      Agnes, one of the serving wenches, had stolen the massive iron key to the cellar from the girdle of the steward; and rendered daring by the absence of their master, a small but far from select group were making merry with characteristic heedlessness of the morrow.

      Agnes, seated on the knee of the varlet Peter, beat erratic time with a jack to a ribald song both were bawling in different tunes and keys. The ale slopped over the rim of the wobbling jack and down Peter’s collar, a circumstance he was beyond noticing.

      The other wench, fat Marge, rolled on her bench

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1