Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres.

He created — in the pages of the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales — Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a character whose pop-culture imprint might be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.