Cthulhu Cthursday: “The Dunwich Horror”
Posted by Ross Rosenberg
Rowena Morrill’s illustration for the cover of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, paperback, published by HBJ Jove, 1978. Not a very Lovecraftian image to be sure but I can imagine the editor requesting a picture for some horror collection, just so long as it looked “crazy monstery” at which point the illustrator started leafing through their collection of National Geographic back issues for reference.
Heritage Auction Galleries [Original Art] : MONSTER BRAINS
Categories: Illustration, Lovecraft, Cthulhu Cthursday, Books
Posted at 9:31 am on April 3, 2008
6 Comments -
I agree that the illustration cited was not the best interpretation of Lovecraft, but to be fair, the genre is not really Rowena’s forte.
However, I recall there was another cover she did for a companion volume in this series (At The Mountains of Madness?) that is little more on the mark. I was able to find a scan of it here:
http://www.gratisblog.com/weblogs/litopascua/Rowena/Rowena_Morrill_013.jpg
Still very Rowena, but much better, in my opinion.
Comment by Dominic — April 3, 2008 @ 11:24 am
That’s brilliant master rosenberg. How often I’ve wished for at least a litho of a paperback cover that piqued my darker amusments. Now, you provide us a link to the actual art. bravo!!!
Comment by malpertuis — April 3, 2008 @ 11:32 am
I like that she has a skeleton yo-yo.
Comment by Matt Anderson — April 3, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
That’s actually pretty accurate to Lovecraft’s description of Wilbur Whateley. If I may quote:
“Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog’s rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.
Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth’s giant saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it. “
Comment by Nick Herold — April 3, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Lovecraft joygasm.
Comment by otep — April 3, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
[…] Yesterday I called into question the effectiveness of illustrator Rowena Morrill in capturing the likeness of Wilbur Whateley for the cover of the paperback edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror. However, ectomite Nick Herold was having none of my shenanigans and, strapping on his neck-beard, he brought the pain, pointing out that the fault did not lay with Morrill or her editor but with Lovecraft and my own, preconceived notions: That’s actually pretty accurate to Lovecraft’s description of Wilbur Whateley. If I may quote: […]
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