Sidney Sime's The Apocalypse II — Wizard, Serpent & Celestial Chaos

Rooted in the dark fantasy prose of Lord Dunsany, whom Sime illustrated across multiple celebrated volumes, this hallucinatory pen-and-ink masterwork depicts a robed sorcerer — clad in star-studded garments — writing feverishly by candlelight while an enormous coiled serpent encircles him. Above, baroque arabesques morph into a leaping lion-dragon chimera, as cosmic rays pierce a storm-wracked sky over ruined architecture. Sime's signature obsessive crosshatching and otherworldly menagerie transform apocalyptic vision into ornamental ecstasy.