Weird Tales; Cover Art: Margaret Brundage; Popular Fiction, December 1934.

During the early 20th century, the literary subgenre of horror known as “weird fiction” was a popular form of entertainment among readers of pulp magazines. This mixture of fantasy, horror, and the supernatural wove spine-tingling tales of heroes, anti-heroes, and damsels in distress battling alien-like monsters or unknowable evil entities, often in eras of alternate history. Weird Tales magazine, founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in 1923, found increasing success after 1924 with editor Farnsworth Wright at the helm, who navigated the publication into its niche of the weird, fantastic, and often shocking, publishing stories that pushed the boundaries of imagination and explored the darkest recesses of the human psyche. Weird Tales under Wright provided a platform for new and emerging authors to showcase their work and, with relatively open-minded editorial policies, published a wide variety of story concepts and styles. Iconic characters and settings, such as H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, and Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborean tales all made their debuts in the pages of Weird Tales, often accompanied by fantastical illustrations. Not to be outdone by the interior contents, the colorful covers of Weird Tales also challenged the sensibilities of viewers with their frequent depictions of bondage, power, and the supernatural. Legendary horror artist Margaret Brundage contributed many of these works of art, which were such a large readership draw that many authors deliberately wrote scenes she frequently depicted in the hopes of obtaining a cover by-line. The December 1934 issue showcases a Brundage cover illustrating the Robert E. Howard story “A Witch Shall Be Born,” featuring twin sisters, one a witch and the other a queen, in one of Howard’s early Conan the Barbarian works.