elegos7

I have recently read Howard's "Guests of the Hoodoo Room" in "Tales of Weird Menace", mainly because I read some of its plot elements are similar to "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula". "Guests" also feature capturing poor wretches by way of a rigged hotel room. But this time a Chinese tong leader is behind the scheme, and it is not clear whether he actually serves the captured men to his doped guests or not.

In the genesis essay to "Conquering Sword of Conan" Patrice Louinet mentions that "Guests"  very likely preceded the Conan story by a few months. Unfortunately "Tales of Weird Menace" has no details about the date of composition of its stories.

I wonder whether in the meantime it was possible to ascertain the writing order (and actual date) of these two similar stories. I am really  interested which inspired which. I hope Patrice or Rusty reads this and can join in the conversation.