Thanks for postin' it. I'm slowly working through Howard's work; man, that guy wrote like a fiend, so I won't run out anytime soon. I haven't even touched the Conan, Bran Mak Morn and American stuff, though I have read the recent comprehensive Soloman Kane collection and had a blast with his Sailor Steve Costigan stories. And when the Kull stories finally get back in print, which they aren't for some unknown-to-me idiotic reason, there'll be another burst of Howard words for me to read!

Conan is certainly Howard's most vividly realized and complex protagonist (due greatly to the advantage of having the most prolific and varied stories through which to grow), though I wouldn't say the Conan stories solidly make up his best work... I'd say almost all the longer Conan stories and a few of the shorter ones are among Howard's best stuff. For a comprehensive "Best of the Best," you'd have to pull a little Conan here, a little Kull and Solomon Kane there, then "Worms of the Earth" from Bran Mak Morne, then some wild-card stories like "Pigeons from Hell" and "Valley of the Worm," etc.