The People of the Black Circle (collection)

Infobox Book |
name = The People of the Black Circle
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = "The People of the Black Circle" by Robert E. Howard, Berkley/Putnam, 1977
author = Robert E. Howard
illustrator =
cover_artist = Ken Kelly
country = United States
language = English
series = Conan the Barbarian
genre = Sword and sorcery Fantasy short stories
publisher = Berkley/Putnam
release_date = 1977
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages =
isbn =
preceded_by = The Hour of the Dragon
followed_by = Red Nails

"The People of the Black Circle" is a 1977 collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. The collection was edited by Karl Edward Wagner. It was first published in hardcover by Berkley/Putnam in 1977, and in paperback by Berkley Books the same year. It was reprinted in hardcover for the Science Fiction Book Club, also in 1977, and combined with the Wagner-edited "The Hour of the Dragon" and "Red Nails" in the book club's omnibus edition "The Essential Conan" in 1998. The stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine "Weird Tales" in the 1930s.

The pieces in "The People of the Black Circle", in common with those in the other Conan volumes produced by Karl Edward Wagner for Berkley, are virtual reproductions (other than typo correction) of the originally published form of the texts as they appeared in "Weird Tales", in contrast to the edited versions appearing in the earlier Gnome Press and Lancer editions of the Conan stories. In contrast to the earlier editions, which included Conan tales by authors other than Howard, Wagner took a purist approach, including only stories by Howard, and only those thought to be in the public domain. His prefaces and afterwords dismiss editorial revisions made in the earlier editions.

Contents

*"Foreword" by Karl Edward Wagner
*"The Devil in Iron"
*"The People of the Black Circle"
*"A Witch Shall Be Born"
*"Jewels of Gwahlur"
*"Afterword" by Karl Edward Wagner