The Hour of the Dragon (also published as Conan the Conqueror) is the only full-length Conan novel that Howard wrote. A few of his other Conan adventures are novellas, but most are short stories. In each, Conan must battle wicked forces, but his goals are usually not so well focused as they are in The Hour of the Dragon, in which he struggles to regain his kingdom and to save his subjects from awful villainy.

In the novella "Red Nails," for instance, Conan is simply a roustabout adventurer who, while in pursuit of a woman, falls in with some of the weird inhabitants of an ancient lost city. His struggles focus on simply surviving and on protecting the woman, Valeria, who is herself a notably gallant warrior.

The events in The Hour of the Dragon are set in the imaginary Hyborian Age.

When he began writing...