Breckinridge Elkins

Breckinridge Elkins is a fictional character created by Robert E. Howard. He appeared in twenty-four humorous Western short stories, most of which originally appeared in the pages of Action Stories between 1934 and 1937.

"Breck" Elkins is a hillbilly from Bear Creek, a fictional location in the Humboldt Mountains of Nevada. He is described as a physically huge an imposing figure, and his reputation as a short-tempered and ferocious fighter often precedes him throughout the Southwest. He is usually found in the company of Cap'n Kidd, his equally fierce and cantankerous horse. He sometimes wears a coonskin cap and is depicted wearing one in several illustrations that accompanied the stories in the original pulp magazine. Elkins is a man of limited intelligence and education, referred to as illiterate in some of the stories and clearly able to read in others.

Although the Elkins stories were referred to by Howard as "Westerns," they all have exaggerated elements and humor that make them closer in tone to tall tales. Breckinridge is a larger-than-life figure whose abilities to dish out and absorb punishment go well beyond the limits of credulity. He is the first-person narrator (in hillbilly dialect) of all of his stories, and much of the humor is derived from his limited understanding of situations, leading to misunderstandings and complications. His ill-fated attempts to help friends and relatives usually come to grief for himself and often those he was ostensibly aiding. His repeated romantic failures in wooing the eligible women he encounters are another recurring theme in the stories.

While Howard is better remembered for creating characters such as Conan and Solomon Kane, the Breckinridge Elkins stories were the most commercially successful of his writing career. Based upon this success, Howard later edited together about half of the Breckinridge Elkins stories to form the episodic novel A Gent from Bear Creek, which was first published in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins in 1937, the year after Howard committed suicide.

See also

• List of Breckinridge Elkins stories
• A Gent from Bear Creek
• Mayhem on Bear Creek
• The Pride of Bear Creek
• Gary Chaloner

References

• Howard Works
• www.breckinridgeelkins.com