Weird Tales April 1938 – Clark Ashton Smith's Garden of Adompha
This cover of Weird Tales (April 1938, Vol. 31 No. 4) illustrates Clark Ashton Smith's 'The Garden of Adompha,' a tale of a dwarfish sorcerer. A menacing, robed figure crouches over a swooning blonde woman ensnared by writhing green plant tentacles amid lush tropical foliage and red blossoms. The composition drips with exotic peril — a signature Weird Tales formula — with richly painted, lustrous gouache rendering the sinister wizard and his living botanical weapons in vivid, lurid detail.
This cover is closer to an exploding space station than a quiet library — a leering dwarf sorcerer, writhing carnivorous plant tentacles, and an unconscious woman in a fever-dream jungle garden. Pure distilled Weird Tales excess at its most gloriously unhinged.
“16th Year of Publication Weird Tales APRIL 25¢ THE GARDEN OF ADOMPHA a strange tale of the fantastic sorceries of a dwarfish wizard By CLARK ASHTON SMITH Seabury Quinn Carl Jacobi Robert Bloch Jack Williamson”
