# Sword & Sorcery - Genre: Literature genre - Date: 1929–32, Weird Tales (Howard's Kull and Conan) - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/sword-and-sorcery/ > Blood, steel and bad magic: the pulp-born genre of Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Elric — personal adventures at the edge of civilization that gave D&D its rogues and its appetite for treasure. **Why it matters:** Sword and sorcery is the other half of D&D's DNA. Gygax's dungeon-looting adventurers, his Law-versus-Chaos alignment and much of his Appendix N reading list came from Howard, Leiber, Moorcock and Vance rather than from Tolkien. ## Quick answers **What is Sword & Sorcery?** Blood, steel and bad magic: the pulp-born genre of Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Elric — personal adventures at the edge of civilization that gave D&D its rogues and its appetite for treasure. **What are the hallmarks of Sword & Sorcery?** Personal stakes — survival, loot, revenge, love — rather than saving the world; Morally ambiguous outsiders: barbarians, thieves, mercenaries, doomed princes; Sorcery as a sinister, costly power, usually wielded by the villain; Fast, violent, episodic adventures, often in short-story form; Decadent cities, lost ruins and pre-human horrors borrowed from weird fiction; Heroes who wander on after each tale, rarely settling or ruling for long. **When did Sword & Sorcery emerge?** 1929–32, Weird Tales (Howard's Kull and Conan). **Where does the name “Sword & Sorcery” come from?** Term proposed by Fritz Leiber in the fanzine Ancalagon (April 1961), answering Michael Moorcock's call in Amra for a name; a 1953 headline use predates it. **What are the key works of Sword & Sorcery?** Conan the Cimmerian, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, The Elric Saga, The Dying Earth, Thieves' World, Conan the Barbarian and Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. ## What it is Sword and sorcery is fantasy at knife-fighting range. Its heroes are outsiders — a Cimmerian barbarian, a pair of thieves in a rotten city, an albino emperor addicted to a soul-drinking sword — and its stories are about what happens to them: a treasure taken, a sorcerer slain, a narrow escape, a night of drinking before the next job. The world may be vast and ancient, but nobody in the story is trying to save it. Magic is rare, dangerous and usually on the other side, practiced by decadent priests and serpent-cults. In [Lin Carter](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/lin-carter/)'s 1973 definition, it is an action tale from the pulp tradition, set in an invented world where magic works and the gods are real, pitting a stalwart warrior against supernatural evil. ## Origins Its ancestors are the swashbucklers of Dumas and the pulp adventurers of Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb, the lost-world romances of H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the jeweled fantasies of [Lord Dunsany](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/lord-dunsany/). The catalyst was [Weird Tales](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/weird-tales/). There, [Robert E. Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-e-howard/)'s "The Shadow Kingdom" (1929) pitted Kull of Atlantis against serpent-men in an imagined prehistory, and in 1932 Howard reworked an unsold Kull story into "The Phoenix on the Sword," introducing Conan. Seventeen [Conan stories](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-cimmerian/) appeared in the magazine between 1932 and 1936, the year of Howard's death. His peers built alongside him. [Clark Ashton Smith](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/clark-ashton-smith/) wrote baroque, doom-laden tales of Hyperborea and Zothique; [C. L. Moore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-l-moore/) created Jirel of Joiry (1934), the genre's first heroine; Henry Kuttner added Elak of Atlantis. As *Weird Tales* changed owners and editors between 1938 and 1940, the torch passed to *Unknown* (from 1939), where [Fritz Leiber](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/fritz-leiber/)'s [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/) brought wit and characterization to the form. [Jack Vance](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/jack-vance/)'s [The Dying Earth](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-dying-earth/) (1950) supplied rogues and wizards on an exhausted far-future Earth. The name came late. In 1961 [Michael Moorcock](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-moorcock/) wrote to the Howard fanzine *Amra* asking what to call this kind of story, proposing "epic fantasy." Leiber replied in the fanzine *Ancalagon* in April 1961 suggesting "sword-and-sorcery" as "a good popular catchphrase," and pressed the case in *Amra* that July. (The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction records an earlier, isolated use in a 1953 review headline.) ## Evolution The 1960s made it a paperback phenomenon. Lancer Books reissued Howard's Conan with [Frank Frazetta](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-frazetta/) covers from 1966, and those muscular, apocalyptic paintings helped make the books surprise bestsellers. Imitators followed — Carter's Thongor, John Jakes's Brak — while Moorcock's [The Elric Saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elric-of-melnibone/) (from 1961) deliberately inverted the barbarian: a sickly, cultured sorcerer-king doomed by his own sword. Carter's Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America and its *Flashing Swords!* anthologies (1973–81) kept the flag flying; Karl Edward Wagner's Kane pushed it toward horror, and writers such as Tanith Lee, C. J. Cherryh and Charles R. Saunders widened who could hold the sword. Games absorbed it wholesale. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/)'s [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/) reading list in the 1979 *Dungeon Masters Guide* names Howard, Leiber, Moorcock and Vance, and D&D's treasure-hunting parties, thieves and Law-versus-Chaos [Alignment](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/alignment/) owe more to Lankhmar and Melniboné than to the Shire. [Thieves' World](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/thieves-world/) (1979) became both a shared-world anthology and a gaming supplement. John Milius's [Conan the Barbarian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-barbarian-film/) (1982) set off a wave of sword-and-sorcery films. Since the late 1990s a "new" or literary sword and sorcery has appeared in magazines such as *Black Gate* and *Beneath Ceaseless Skies*, and the [Old-School Renaissance (OSR)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/old-school-renaissance/) — notably [Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dungeon-crawl-classics/) — built whole game lines on the Appendix N feel. ## How to tell it apart - **S&S vs. [High / Epic Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/high-fantasy/):** scale and purpose. High fantasy is about the fate of the world and a clear struggle of good and evil; sword and sorcery is about one or two people getting out alive, preferably richer. Heroes of high fantasy often become kings; S&S heroes, even Conan, are restless. - **vs. [Grimdark](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/grimdark/):** both are violent and morally gray, but S&S is exuberant — adventure is fun. Grimdark is bleak by design and usually epic in scope, with sprawling casts and wars. - **vs. [Dark Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/dark-fantasy/):** dark fantasy aims for dread and horror; S&S borrows horror's monsters but keeps the momentum of an adventure story. Elric and Wagner's Kane sit on the border. - **vs. [Weird Fiction](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/weird-fiction/):** weird fiction's cosmic horrors appear in S&S, but in S&S someone can still put a sword through them. ## Where to start - [Conan the Cimmerian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-cimmerian/) — "The Tower of the Elephant," "Queen of the Black Coast," "Red Nails." - [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/) — *Swords and Deviltry* and "Ill Met in Lankhmar." - *Black God's Kiss* — C. L. Moore's collected Jirel of Joiry. - [The Elric Saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elric-of-melnibone/) — the anti-Conan, starting with "The Dreaming City." - [The Dying Earth](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-dying-earth/) — Vance's rogues, and the source of [Vancian magic](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/vancian-magic/). ## Hallmarks - Personal stakes — survival, loot, revenge, love — rather than saving the world - Morally ambiguous outsiders: barbarians, thieves, mercenaries, doomed princes - Sorcery as a sinister, costly power, usually wielded by the villain - Fast, violent, episodic adventures, often in short-story form - Decadent cities, lost ruins and pre-human horrors borrowed from weird fiction - Heroes who wander on after each tale, rarely settling or ruling for long ## Facts - [Robert E. Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-e-howard/)'s "The Shadow Kingdom" (Weird Tales, 1929), starring Kull of Atlantis, is often called the first true sword-and-sorcery story. - Howard's first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932), was a rewrite of an unsold Kull tale; 17 Conan stories ran in [Weird Tales](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/weird-tales/). - [C. L. Moore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-l-moore/)'s Jirel of Joiry, introduced in Weird Tales in 1934, was the genre's first heroine. - [Fritz Leiber](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/fritz-leiber/) proposed "sword-and-sorcery" in April 1961 after [Michael Moorcock](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-moorcock/) had suggested "epic fantasy" for the same kind of story. - Lancer's 1960s Conan paperbacks, with [Frank Frazetta](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-frazetta/) covers, became surprise bestsellers selling millions of copies. - [Lin Carter](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/lin-carter/)'s Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America published five Flashing Swords! anthologies between 1973 and 1981. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia — Sword and sorcery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_sorcery) - [SF Encyclopedia — Sword and Sorcery](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sword_and_sorcery) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.