A few months back I spotted public domain scan on Archive.org, and realised that it could be re-purposed as a free book cover. I Photoshopped the text away, cleaned just a little, and made some small tweaks. I’ve just found it again, and this was the result…

Specifically, it made me imagine a book featuring a mystery-adventure with H.P. Lovecraft (left), Robert E. Howard (centre) and Frank Belknap Long (right) as the protagonists. Feel free to use this bit of inadvertent Lovecraftian art (1926 from Barcelona, Spain, originally) for the cover of such a lengthy tale, with the addition of suitable typography of the era.

I initially imagined such a tale set in New York City, but looking at it now… the desert-night colouration and faint hint of a pyramid-like mound in the background could suggest Lovecraft and Long making a long-distance visit to R.E. Howard in Texas, en route to a cruise across the Gulf of Mexico and a tour of the ruined temples of central America. Such an ambitious trip could be deemed to have been ‘financed by Long, who had come into a small family legacy’ etc.