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It is a sub-genre of fantasy and is characterized by its swashbuckling action, its focus on action and hand-to-hand combat and magic. The term "Sword and Sorcery" was coined by the science fiction and fantasy author Fritz Lieber in 1961.)

Sword and Sorcery had its beginnings in the Pulp magazines of the 50's and 60's. In particular Weird Tales and the author Robert Howard are to be credited with forming the genre. Robert Howard's Conan character is considered to epitomize Sword and Sorcery. Another series of famous books in the genre is the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books by Fritz Leiber himself.

Here is a Wikipedia article on Swords & Sorcery

There are only a handful of masters of the Genre.

• Robert E. Howard- The Creator of Conan
• Fritz Lieber- . Another series of famous books in the genre is the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books
• Clark Ashton Smith
• C.L. Moore- Creator the first notable Swords & Sorcery Heroine "Jirel of Joiry".
• Henry Kuttner
  

The Sword and Sorceress Series

The sword and sorcery novels and stories tended to have female characters that were just window dressing or damsels in distress. In the 1980's and 90's Marion Zimmer Bradley edited a series of anthologies that focused on the female character as the heroine. This series was called the Sword and Sorceress series. the first book was published in 1984. There were 21 books in the series and the book shown here is the 21st. If you want to read a bit more about this series here is a nice Wikipedia article about it.

 

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword And Sorceress XXI (Sword and Sorceress)

Here is the first book in the series: Sword and Sorceress: An Anthology of Heroic Fantasy

Here is a quick amazon link to a list of the books The Sword and Sorceress books at Amazon