Violet Books

      

"And lifting the diadem of pearls crested with the royal uraei, she set it on his brow." This is Arthur C. Michael's tissued frontispiece for Morning Star (New York: Longmans Green, 1910). He contributed three plates to this edition, two in full color.

      

"That place is mine." The other color plate from Morning Star, a supernatural romance of ancient Egypt incorporating such themes as functioning astrology, weird fate, doll magic, sorcerer vs. sorcerer, spirit travel, incarnate god Amen, and tons of other weird content.

   

"Lady," he said, "you will wonder to see me here after my letter to you." In the occult historical Red Eve (New York: Doubleday, 1911), the Black Plague is a personified presence with many magic powers. During the six months or so of writing this romantically disturbing horror story, Rider was spending a great amouint of time with his "first love," Lilly, at the time dying of syphilis -- hence Red Eve was inspired by an aching, tragic affection.

      

"For a long while they stood thus in silence." Of A. C. Michael's four splendid color plates for Red Eve, it was hard to restrict myself to selecting just two, or to decide which of the four to offer as representative. Skipping the fantasy frontispiece of an enthroned figure encircled by a flock of birds, or the action-plate of armored knights in the heat of battle, was a hard call. But the moody quietude of the last of the plates won by a margin, as surely such emotion is the hardest of all moods to capture.