Robert Ervin Howard (1906¿1936) wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre. Howard spent time in his late teens bodybuilding, eventually taking up amateur boxing—which he also wrote stories about. His tales of heroic & supernatural fantasy won him a huge audience across the world and influenced a whole generation of writers, from Robert Jordan to Raymond E. Feist.