Red Nails

This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation) and Citation bot (documentation). (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

"Red Nails"
Short story by Robert E. Howard
Cover by Margaret Brundage of Weird Tales issue July 1936 featuring Valeria and Tascela
Country	USA
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Publication
Published in	Weird Tales
Publication type	Pulp magazine
Publication date	1936
Series	Conan the Cimmerian

"Red Nails" is the last of the stories featuring Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard. A novella, it was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from July to October 1936, the months after Howard's suicide. It is set in the fictional Hyborian Age and concerns Conan entering a lost city whose degenerate inhabitants are entangled in a murderous blood feud. Due to its dark themes of decay and death, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore while also cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.^[1]

The story was republished in the collections The Sword of Conan (Gnome Press, 1952) and Conan the Warrior (Lancer Books, 1967). It was first published by itself in book form by Donald M. Grant, Publisher in 1975^[2] as volume IV of their deluxe Conan set. It has most recently been republished in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon (Gollancz, 2001) and The Conquering Sword of Conan (Del Rey, 2005) (published in the United Kingdom by Wandering Star as Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Three (1935-1936)), as well as The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2: Grim Lands (Del Rey, 2007).