Fantasy is now an established and lucrative genre with a dizzying array of popular iterations across literature, games, and film. But the story of how hobbits, dungeons, knights, and dragons took over our collective imaginations is a long, complex one, with many surprising twists and turns. Historian Justin M. Jacobs explores the origins of the modern fantasy genre, from the evolution of obscure Gothic novels to the iconic works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons.
Jacobs, a professor of Chinese and global history at American University, is the author of several books, including Plunder? How Museums Got Their Treasures. He is currently designing a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by Chinese history.
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Robert E. Howard and Pulp Fantasy
One of the first modern writers to publish serious fantasy stories for an adult audience was the eccentric Texan author Robert E. Howard. Most famous today for his creation of Conan the Barbarian, Howard was a highly successful pulp fiction writer of the 1920s and ‘30s—and Conan the Barbarian was merely one of his many fantasy characters. Jacobs explores Howard’s life and times and the low-brow pulp magazines in which he was forced to publish by a literary establishment unwilling to view “fantasy” as anything other than bedtime stories for children.
Additional Sessions of A History of Fantasy Series
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