The Weird Art of Arkham House Press
“August Derleth had almost single-handedly kept weird fiction alive with Arkham House, the grandfather of all specialist science fiction and fantasy small presses”
A self taught artist who worked in many mediums, Lee Brown Coye found a measure of fame as an illustrator and cover artist in the field of Horror and Weird Fiction. Who Fears the Devil, published by Arkham in 1963 is his masterpiece.
Wisconsin author August Derleth was many things - writer, historian, poet, speaker on the topic of all things Wisconsin, and literary editor for Madison’s Capital Times, He was also editor, co-founder, art director and owner of Arkham House Publishing. Located in Sauk City, Arkham was founded in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve and publish the fiction of H P Lovecraft. It soon expanded its list of authors and garnered an international reputation (especially in the UK) as a unique independent press and pioneer in the growing field of weird fiction publication. It weathered hard times and rarely made a profit, but in the field of weird fiction it is legend. Arkham authors would include Ray Bradbury, L P Hartley, Evangeline Walton, Robert Bloch, Fritz Lieber, Mary E Wilkins-Freeman, Basil Copper, Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood,Leah Bodine Drake, Robert E. Howard, Lord Dunsany, Ramsey Campbell, many more and, of course, August Derleth. Throughout his tenure, Derleth commisioned an impressive and carefully curated array of book cover art. Artists include Hannes Bok, Richard Taylor, Frank Wakefield, Gahan Wilson, Ronald Clyne and Wisconsin block print and woodcut artist, Frank Utpatel. August Derleth passed away in 1971. His daughter, April Derleth eventually succeeded him and ran the firm until her death in 2011. Arkham remains a family business.
Canadian Richard Taylor did this striking dust jacket illustration in 1962. Taylor was a highly regarded illustrator and part of the pantheon of great cartoonists from the golden age of New Yorker magazine.
1941. Art by Frank Utpatel of Mazomanie, Wisconsin. Utpatel was a long time friend of August Derleth and illustred many of Derleth’s novels. He was a master of dark woodcuts and block prints. Someone in the Dark was the second book to be published by Arkham.
Art by Richard Taylor
Artist - Richard Taylor
Art by Frank Utpatel. L P Hartley was a highly regarded British novelist and short story writer. His greatest success was The Go Between which became a feature film in 1971 starring Julie Christie and directed by Wisconsin’s own, Joseph Losey. Hartley may be best known for an oft quoted line from The Go Between, “The past is a foriegn country; they do things differently there.”
Fantasy and Science Fiction Illustrator Stephen Fabian created this unique cover. He would later find notoriety as an illustrator for another highly influential Wisconsin-based cottage industry…Dungeons and Dragons.
Over a period of 40 years artist/designer Ronald Clyne did all the covers for FOLKWAYS RECORDS. Here, from 1946, he delivers a dust jacket cover for the first full length novel published by Arkham House.
Art by Richard Taylor
1950. Cover by Frank Utpatel. One of the rarest Arkham books and highly valued today. Poet Leah Bodine Drake was a former Billy Rose dancer and a direct descendant of Sir Francis Drake and Davey Crockett, who, like another ilustrious ancestor - Jean Bodin, specialized in the dark and demonic. In the final years of her life she was a poetry editor at Atlantic Monthly Magazine.
Dust jacket by artist, author, astrologist and poet, Hannes Bok. Born Wayne Francis Woodward, Bok was a prolific artist in the field of pulp fiction during the 1930’s and 40’s. He never failed to deliver a striking cover as he does here in this third to be published collection of short stories by Arkham House Press in 1942.
Artist - Frank Uptapel
Artist - Lee Brown Coye
Published in 1952. Art by Robert Crane