Yes. Those three books together have every Conan story Howard ever wrote, in the order he wrote them, fully restored to their original publication drafts (previous reprintings have been rife with editors mucking with his prose, changing names to turn different characters into recurrings, changing main character names to turn non-Conan stories into Conan stories, etc.), together with many unpublished drafts, the essay he wrote for himself laying out the geography and history of Conan's setting, plus essays by others and some beautiful illustrations.chris_torrence said:I would recommend picking up a copy of the three "definitive" collections:General Ma Chao said:You know what, you're right. Now my interest is really piqued. What are some of the definitive must-read stories? I'm really interested now.
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 1) [http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Conan-Cimmerian-Cimmeria-Book/dp/0345461517/ref=pd_bbs_2]
The Bloody Crown of Conan (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 2) [http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Crown-Conan-Cimmeria-Book/dp/0345461525/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3]
The Conquering Sword of Conan (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 3) [http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Sword-Conan-Cimmeria-Book/dp/0345461533/ref=sr_1_4]
As the review states: "Consider how far civilization had to advance to make this barbarism available to us."
What would Robert E. Howard say if he knew that you could click on a link [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600961h.html] and download his stories?
The movies and cartoon series don't do the character justice in comparison.
A word of warning, though: Try to space out reading them. Howard has certain recurring motiffs ("Conan fights an albino ape;" "Conan fights a giant snake") that grow tiresome if read in too quick succession. The stories weren't released all at once, and it's best not to approach the books as though they were novels.