Amra

The journal of the Hyborian Legion, Amra was devoted to Sword and Sorcery and published by George Scithers and edited by Scithers, Liz Wilson and Dan Adkins, and many others. (Amra liked to print long lists of editors, some with fanciful titles, or to simply credit the "Editorial Horde", so it's usually not clear just who the editors -- other than George Scithers -- were.)

The Scithers Amra ran from Vol II, No. 1 to Vol II, No. 71, from 1959 to 1982. It was "Volume 2" because starting in April 1955 George Heap published a fanzine which was probably a direct predecessor. It had few issues. Some early issues of V2 were reprinted at least once.

Under Scithers Amra won Best Fanzine Hugos in 1964 and 1967.

Amra was printed by offset lithography, with high-quality artwork, including by Roy G. Krenkel, Gray Morrow, and Jim Cawthorn. The written content was impressive too, the contributors including L. Sprague de Camp above all others, Poul Anderson, Leigh Brackett, John Boardman, Jerry Pournelle, Fritz Leiber, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Jack Chalker's Mirage Press published several nice hardcover volumes of articles and artwork from Amra: The Conan Swordbook, The Conan Reader, and The Conan Grimoire. They were edited by de Camp and Scithers.

According to Scithers, "Amra is about various heroic heroes, mostly of swordplay-&-sorcery stories set in fantasy worlds". Subjects and characters of interest included Robert E. Howard's Conan, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea, Michael Moorcock's Elric, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter. (L. Sprague de Camp was a major contributor.)

Amra published articles on Conan and related Sword and Sorcery series like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, criticism, discussions of medieval and ancient history, weaponry, and technology (by writers such as de Camp, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Jerry Pournelle, and Leigh Brackett), book reviews (including by Harry Harrison, Buck Coulson, L. Sprague de Camp, and Fritz Leiber), poetry (translations from the Old Norse by Poul Anderson and limericks (some of them quite good) by many hands) and poetry by Roger Zelazny and Lin Carter. It also published fiction, including a number of pieces by Ray Garcia-Capella and things like "Six Scenes in Search of an Illustration", where six writers (l. Sprague de Camp, Dick Eney, Fritz Leiber, Katherine MacLean, Michael Moorcock, and John Pocsik) wrote story vignettes around a centerpiece foldout illustration by Roy Krenkel.

Issue	Date	Pages	Notes
V1 #1	April 1956	2	Published by George Heap in as a single sheet folded in three. This was the sole issue.
V2 #1			Essentially new publication under the editorship of George Scithers which was numbered as "Volume 2"
1	January 1959	20
2	1959	20
3	May 1959	24
4	June 1959	28
5	July 1959	24
6	September 1959	28
7	November 1959	16
8	December 1959	20
9	January 1960	20
10	April 1960	20
11	April 1960	24
12	September 1960	16
13	1960	16
14	January 1961	28
15	May 1961	24
16	July 1961	24
17	October 1961	20
18	December 1961	16
19	February 1962	20
20	April 1962	20
21	June 1962	20
22	July 1962	20
23	January 1963	24
24	May 1963	20
25	June 1963	20
26	October 1963	20
27	November 1963	20
28	June 1964	20
29	August 1964	20
30	September 1964	20
31	December 1964	20
32	March 1965	24
33	April 1965	24
34	May 1965	20
35	July 1965	20
36	September 1965	20
37	January 1966	20
38	February 1966	20
39	March 1966	20
40	June 1966	20
41	July 1966	20
42	September 1966	20
43	March 1967	20
44	October 1967	24
45	December 1967	20
46	April 1968	20
47	August 1968	20
48	August 1968	20
49	August 1968	20
50	May 1969	20
51	November 1969	20
52	April 1970	24
53	September 1970	24
54	April 1971	24
55	December 1971	20
56	June 1972	20
57	June 1972	20
58	January 1973	20
59	February 1973	20
60	September 1973	24
61	March 1974	20
62	October 1974	28
63	April 1975	20
64	October 1975	20
65	April 1976	20
66	April 1976	20
67	February 1977	20
68	July 1978	20
69	January 1981	20
70	September 1981	40
71	July 1982	40

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