Virgil Finlay's Circe Cover — Weird Tales March 1939
Executed in Virgil Finlay's signature luminous oil technique, this cover radiates warmth through rich auburn hair and a vivid cerulean gown set against a jungle backdrop of silver birch and tropical fronds. A red-haired enchantress — clearly Circe — recoils or conjures as a ghostly green apparition materializes before her, a white pig at her side referencing the Homeric myth. Finlay's masterful rendering of flesh tones, translucent ethereal effects, and dramatic upward gaze make this quintessential Golden Age weird fiction cover art.
A mythological sorceress, a spectral green apparition, a transformed pig, H.P. Lovecraft, and August Derleth's Hastur all on one cover — this is Weird Tales firing on all cylinders. Finlay's lush painterly technique elevates what could be exploitation art into something genuinely haunting.
“160 pages of unusual fiction Weird Tales THE SWINE OF AEAEA the story of a modern Circe By CLIFFORD BALL THE RETURN OF HASTUR a tale of the Ancient Ones By AUGUST W. DERLETH SEABURY QUINN H. P. LOVECRAFT EDMOND HAMILTON and others MARCH 25¢ Virgil”
