Clifford Ball (1896?-1947?) was an American fantasy writer whose primary distinction was having been one of the earliest post-Howard writers in the sword and sorcery subgenre of fantasy.
Before dropping from sight, Ball contributed six short stories to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s under the editorships of Farnsworth Wright and Dorothy McIlwraith. The setting of the first three is vaguely like Howard's Hyb...
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Clifford Ball (1896?-1947?) was an American fantasy writer whose primary distinction was having been one of the earliest post-Howard writers in the sword and sorcery subgenre of fantasy.
Before dropping from sight, Ball contributed six short stories to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s under the editorships of Farnsworth Wright and Dorothy McIlwraith. The setting of the first three is vaguely like Howard's Hyborian Age of warring kingdoms, and features the barbarian adventurers Duar, an amnesiac king protected by a guardian sprite, and Rald, a thief and mercenary. The remaining stories are more conventional fantasies.
Some of Ball's stories have been reprinted from the 1970s onward, most notably in the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series edited by Lin Carter.
All of Ball's known works were published in Weird Tales, in the issues for the dates indicated.
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