Constructions of Femininity Across Fritz Leiber's "Conjure Wife" Cover Editions.

By Isabelle Holloway

“All women carry handbags as big as young suitcases, full of bits of this — oddments of that. Powder and rouge and lipstick, recipes and formulas. But — maybe those formulas aren’t all cake and cookies recipes. Maybe not all those powders are cosmetics. A bit of magic, a little witchcraft, mixed in – graveyard dirt and perfume, formulas for Dottie’s Cake and How to Steal a Soul –.”

The Pulp Fantasy fiction magazine, Unknown Worlds (April 1943), imaginatively bewitches the ‘ordinary’ woman in its illustrated cover editions to Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife novel (1943). Antithetical to Mary Poppins-esque characters, established by patriarchal expectations of an endlessly organised nurturer figure, bearing a bottomless bag of maternal tools and tricks; the Unknown Worlds covers invert these tropes, abandoning Poppins’s playfully pristine skillset in preference of an alternative imagination of a darker femininity. With a swipe of red lipstick, the Conjure Wife is armed with charm. Deadly in her seduction, Leiber’s Conjure Wife dredges the deeply entrenched theme of the femme fatale from a historical masculine subconscious. By extension, this illustrated cover series can be seen addressing an era where women’s restricted rights and strict social expectations rendered them unable to pursue personal ambition – to haunting visual effect.

In presenting three Americana covers, on the theme of the Leiber’s novel, this article will explore the pictorial devices used to evoke social moods towards women and present a particular ghoulish femininity. Themes of power, female sexuality, and an undercurrent of patriarchal fear underpin these supernatural presentations of female characters across various illustrations of the Conjure Wife novel.

Published in 1943, the novel saw Professor of Sociology Norman Saylor assert his belief in witchcraft as a secret society among women, upon witnessing a series of conspiratorial events that placed both him and his magic-wielding wife, Tansy Saylor, in grave danger. Through the process of his investigations, Norman struggles with the simultaneously protective, and threatening dynamic of the female supernatural.

Figure 1: Robert Maguire, Conjure Wife Cover Illustration for Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, January 1953.

Conjure Wife (fig. 1, 1953) depicts a nocturnal marine scene, the foregrounded female figure’s diaphanous drapes clinging to her nude figure as she kneels in the tidal surf beside a bloodied urn. Robert Maguire evokes an atmosphere of mysticism and celestial power in the moonlit landscape, inviting association between female sexuality and witchcraft. Bathed in lunar light, the Conjure Wife is a subconscious fantasy; a mystery; a ‘shadow’ self. A foreboding castle and warped tree further enhance the atmosphere of sinister energy, endowing the image with symbols of sacrifice, fertility, and sexual oppression. In Conjure Wife, the moon functions as an essential ingredient for conjuring spells, acting visually both as a source of mystical feminine agency – and simultaneously as a visual ‘proof’ in its illumination of Professor Saylor’s suspicion of paranormal activity.

Following women’s experience of wartime autonomy, social tensions rose surrounding their ever-evolving roles outside the domestic sphere, and increasingly murky delineations between traditionally established gender roles. A mood of masculine patriarchal fear is captured in the 1953 cover’s caption, “Potions in the House… Evil in the Air… and a Witch in his bed…,” which casts a distinctly vilifying and sexualized tone upon the image, and by extension the presumed morality of women. This oppressive sentiment was socially pervasive; and functions as a core concern addressed in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, published just four years earlier in 1949. It argued, therefore, that as the Conjure Wife brewed her potions, so too did the everyday woman cause a stir in the cauldron of patriarchy.

Figure 2: Ed Emschwiller, Burn Witch Burn Cover Illustration for Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, January 1962.

In Burn Witch Burn (fig. 2, 1962) the stylisation and colouration of the text itself exudes a visual heat - as though emblazoned or etched upon the cover. The bold, asymmetrical crimson letters jilt and flicker, much like a fire themselves. Referencing the title of 1962-inspired film, “Burn, Witch, Burn!” (also sometimes, “Night of the Eagle”) the tagline evokes the collective conspiracy episode in the novel, where the witches plan their sabotage of the Saylors. After Tansy had relinquished her magic, she “lost her sensitivity to the supernatural,” which functions as her “woman’s intuition” within the novel’s narrative. Cosmic “balance” is upset. Tansy’s soul, compromised. Meanwhile, the witches thrive – having run the Professor’s credibility into the ground. Initially having dismissed Tansy’s magical claims as superstitious “insanity,” a series of inexplicable events (a sudden claim of plagiarism; a stone dragon moving outside Norman’s office window; and Tansy’s zombie-like deterioration) pose a challenge to Norman’s rationality, posing a compelling case for witchcraft as the couple’s weapon for salvation.

The “borne,” now “magic-less” female figure (fig. 2) is splayed lifelessly across a man’s arms, calling to mind tropes of masculine heroism and physical domination. While the cemetery symbolises death and decay, the purple sky paints a hopeful, spiritual tone reflected by the rise of second-wave feminism. The woman’s upturned piercing gaze remains ambiguous: is she dead? in exorcised limbo? or even, hypnotizing the viewer? The unsettling tension in this image between power and vulnerability; masculine heroism and feminine ‘peril’ leaves much to the viewer’s interpretation.

Figure 3: Jeff Jones, Conjure Wife Cover Illustration for Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, July 1968.

Jeff Jones’s cover of Conjure Wife (fig. 3, 1968) recalls the common motif of mid-twentieth century Gothic pulp-fiction covers which feature a young woman in a state of distressed flight, whilst an invisible supernatural danger looms behind in the shadows. Gothic motifs, here the mansion and moonlit sky, evoke an ethereal atmosphere. In this cover, Tansy is presented as a “provocatively pretty” woman, beaming in chiaroscuro. Her “moon-shadowed eyes,” luminescent complexion, and heavy pearlescent gown appear charged beneath the powerful moonlight.

The imposing gothic architecture in the background tower, much like the “a shaggy black form” of a creature who puppets Tansy in the narrative. The cover’s caption takes on a physical manifestation in the web-like drapes of the robes, weighing her down both physically and signifying Tansy’s entrapment within a “web of witchcraft.” In relation to gender politics, it is worth noting the vilification of women – often implicitly, or indeed explicitly, asserting blame in terms of a heavily sexualised pictorial narrative -- and female objectification. We might also recall the mythology of Lilith, the first woman, who rebelled against Adam’s demand for submission at the Genesis of Biblical creation mythology. Her struggle, and rejection of Adam, resulting in banishment and accusations of witch-hood is reflective of a historically rooted struggle women have faced whilst fighting for autonomy. If reading this image as an expression of feminist frustration with patriarchal control, Lilith’s iconographic associations with nighttime can be seen to strengthen its symbolism, as Tansy flees the control of an unknown beast under the moonlight.

Across just three illustrations of Fritz Leiber’s 1943 novel, we can explore a serial reflection of an evolution of social ideas, fears, and open interpretations of ‘femininity’ within a masculine dominated world. The Conjure Wife series can therefore be seen to grapple with the iconography of female autonomy, and a supernatural vilification of women; but also, as a visual symbol of female empowerment and inviting an openness to the innate ‘magic’ and strength women possess within themselves.

Bibliography:

Bever, Edward. “Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early Modern Community.” Journal of Social History 35, no. 4 (2002): 955–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790618.

De Beauvoir, Simone. Le Deuxième Sexe. Paris: Gallimard, 1949. Translation published, London: Cape, 1953.

Howe Gaines, Janet. “Lilith.” Biblical Archaeology Society. (April 17, 2019). https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/lilith/.

Leiber, Fritz. Conjure Wife (Street and Smith Publications Inc, 1943), The Project Gutenberg eBook of Conjure Wife, 2023.

Kadgaonkar, Shivendra. “A Few Lesser-Known Small Animal Depictions in Ancient Indian Art.”

Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 77 (2017): 105–10. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26609163.