The new Tolkien’s Library is a doorstopper, and thus the free 10% sample for the Kindle has all the introductions and the first 90 items (though curiously, the table-of-contents is missing, so one has no clue what’s in the appendices). One reads in Tom Shippey’s introduction that…

Tolkien mentions not only some of the early British classics of “scientific romance” … H.G. Wells; not only familiar British writers of fantasy, such as Dunsany and Eddison; but also several [1960s-70s] writers of commercial twentieth-century science fiction or fantasy, such as John Christopher, Frank Herbert, Sterling Lanier, Lyon Sprague de Camp. He did not like all of them, but one he mentions with mild approval is Robert E. Howard, creator of the “Conan” cycle. This is something of a surprise, given that Conan is the pre-eminent example of hairy-chested macho barbarian heroism, so very un-hobbitical. Perhaps Tolkien appreciated Howard’s efforts to create a sense of age, of lost civilisations?

From my other encounters with Shippey I get the sense he is definitely not a Howard fan for some reason. And is thus probably unaware that Howard was also Tolkien’s equal — and arguably his actual superior — in setting up, setting out and then describing complex battles in epic fantasy worlds. Nor is he probably aware of the close comparisons that can be made in terms of a few central plot devices found in the longer Conan works. However, having not seen the rest of Tolkien’s Library, I’m unsure about what item Shippey is resting this remark on. Is there a new finding, or is this the same old de Camp memory? As I wrote here in March 2019, that Tolkien read Howard at some unknown date…

all boils down to what L. Sprague de Camp remembered in 1983 a snatch of conversation had with Tolkien in a garage in 1967, so it’s pretty slim as evidence goes.