HPL in Weird Tales

While most interested parties nowadays know that H.P. Lovecraft's stories almost all appeared in the pages of pulp magazines during the 1920s and '30s – the vast majority of them in "the Unique Magazine," Weird Tales – what they may not know is that a great many of these appearances were accompanied by illustrations. I posted a couple of these at the start of the month, but I thought readers might enjoy seeing a few more of these, particularly those associated with some of his more famous yarns.

This one, for example, depicts the bayou ceremony described by Inspector Legrasse in "The Call of Cthulhu."

 Here's an imaginative illustration of Wilbur Whateley's twin brother in "The Dunwich Horror."

This piece shows the end of "The Whisperer in Darkness," when Professor Wilmarth finds the face and hands of Henry Akeley left behind in the chair in which he'd been sitting for most of the story. 

Disappointingly, only one Lovecraft-written story ever appeared on the cover of Weird Tales, "Under the Pyramids," but it did so both with a changed title ("Imprisoned with the Pharaohs") and a Harry Houdini byline (no surprise, since HPL had been hired by Houdini to be his ghost writer).

Lovecraft had much better luck in this regard with Astounding Stories, which featured two of his tales on the cover, starting with At the Mountains of Madness, which features what is likely the first ever illustration of a shoggoth.

This was soon followed by "The Shadow Out of Time."

Both of the Astounding appearances also include interior artwork as well, some of which is quite interesting and probably deserving of a separate post.