Tag Archives: Seabury Quinn

The Garden of Adompha

A mad king comes across a nude beauty in his insane flesh-garden. Virgil Finlay's cover illustration for "The Garden of Adompha."

Virgil Finlay was busy on this the April 1938 issue of Weird Tales The cover painting appears to illustrate Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Garden of Adompha,” one I had not previously read and which my attention was drawn by twitter user Perry Ruh:

You can read the story in the Internet Archive’s copy of the issue or, if the yellowed woodpulp is too much of a strain on the eyes, you can also read the transcribed version at Wikisourse.

Finlay was also busy on this this issue with interior illustrations, like this one for Seabury Quinn’s story “The Temple Dancer.”

An exotic oriental dancer created by Virgil Finlay in illustration of Seabury Quinn's story "The Temple Dancer."
“Butea-Jan, sole surviving candidate of the ordeal, must prove her fitness to be married to the god she served.”

It was a heck of an issue, containing not just these stories but others by Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson, Max Brod and Nathaniel Hawthorne (the last two reprints, obviously) and poems by both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard! It is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Two takes on a theme

This woman with the wolves (and clothed only with her hair) on the September 1927 issue of Weird Tales is the work of C.C. Senf. Evidently it was a theme that the editors liked, because they would commission Margaret Brundage to do something very similar for the March 1933 cover.

And to perhaps no one’s surprise, Seabury Quinn has stories in both issues.

Both the September 1927 and the March 1933 issues of Weird Tales are available to be read at and downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Most ominous Weird Tales story title

Never one to be outdone in the tying-up-pretty-girls department, Margaret Brundage ties one to wheel on the June 1938 cover of Weird Tales to illustrate Seabury Quinn’s “Suicide Chapel.” Virgil Finlay has an interior illustration to the same story which shows off greater emotional intensity.

“She did not swoon, but fought him valiantly.”

Our heroine’s antagonist is meant to be a giant ape. by the way.

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Living Buddhess

Some more orientalism on the cover of the November 1937 Weird Tales by Margaret Brundage. Virgil Finlay did a lot of interior illustration on this issue as well. The interior illustration he did for Seabury Quinn’s “Living Buddhess” cover story has perhaps not aged well, and not just in the sense that the paper on which it was printed did not age well.

“Atop the perfect, cream-white body was another face, an old face, a wicked face, face with Mongoloid features.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read or download at the Internet Archive.

In the future…clothing will be scarce

The “strange tale of the future” Margaret Brundage was illustrating for this May 1938 issue of Weird Tales appears to be Seabury Quinn’s “Goetterdaemmerung.” (In 1938 umlauts were scarce, apparently.) Virgil Finlay did a lot of interior work on this issue, including this illustration for the title story:

“What nameless horror sat enthroned upon a face that must be hidden from the eyes of men?”

Finaly also illustrated what looks to my eyes like a bit of the old ultraviolence about to happen for Edmond Hamilton’s “The Isle of the Sleeper.”

“Three of the beast-men had left him and seized the girl.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.