WORMWOOD 19

Wormwood 19 has gone to print and is available to order from the Tartarus website at http://tartaruspress.com/wormwood19.htm

Why didn't Bram Stoker write a sequel to Dracula?  Brian J Showers explores the question.

Name five great interwar fantasies. Henry Wessells' choices aren't the obvious ones.

Which writer with sales of over 50 million books has been disowned by his publisher? Roger Dobson on the colourful life and work of Dennis Wheatley.

Who was 'The Man in the Yellow Mask' ? Lucien Verval tells the story.

Mark Andresen discusses 'Women in the Gentleman's Club'; Jason Rolfe looks at Baron Corvo in 'The Weird of the Wanderer'; Reggie Oliver reviews a life of Alfred Jarry, a book on outsider writers, and more; Doug Anderson reveals a learned parrot called Clovis; Hall Caine's The Demon Lover; and more lost classics.

Robert W. Chambers's Artwork for The King in Yellow

I've long understood that some of the artwork that appears on various covers of editions (but not the first printing) of The King in Yellow (1895) by Robert W. Chambers, was believed to be based on artwork by Chambers himself.  At last the evidence has emerged!  It comes in the form of original artwork by Chambers for a publicity poster from 1895, from the estate of Forrest J. Ackerman.  A truly gorgeous poster!

A close-up shows the signature in the mountains to the right:

Here you can see a few of the modified versions that appear on books, including a later printing of the Neely edition and the Ace paperback from the 1960s:

For information about the restoration of the original artwork, there is an article here.

Chambers's own color-scheme is infinitely more seductive. I'd really like to see more of Chambers's own art.