"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars...Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet." So begins the the saga of Conan of Cimmeria, a barbarian from the frozen north of his ancient and troubled world. Included in this compilation of the 18 stories Robert E. Howard completed for Weird Tales during his brief lifetime, are 16 stories, an essay of Conan's world, and the only novel he wrote about this larger-than-life hero, against which all other sword and sorcery characters since have been both derived and measured: "The Hyborean Age", "The Phoenix on the Sword", "The Scarlet Citadel", "The Tower of the Elephant", "Black Colossus", "The Slithering Shadow", "The Pool of the Black One", "Rogues in the House", "Shadows in the Moonlight", "Queen of the Black Coast", "The Devil in Iron", "The People of the Black Circle", "A Witch Shall Be Born", "The Jewels of Gwahlur", "Beyond the Black River", "Shadows in Zamboula", "The Hour of the Dragon - Part 1", "The Hour of the Dragon - Part 2", and "Red Nails".